What A Great Year!

[StephanieU]

A year ago, I found HOD and decided to use it because I liked the living book history. I struggled early on placing my daughter. Skills-wise, she could do Beyond, but she wasn't even 6 yet. After talking with ladies here on the board, praying, and thinking about what I wanted our homeschool to be, I realized that LHFHG would be better. I could still "push" her in reading and math while not pushing too hard in writing and maturity. And I am so glad now!
We started off half speed at the end of July, shortly after we got our box of "goodies" in the mail. Story time was a stretch for my daughter. She just wasn't used to listening to stories without a lot of pictures. And the language and follow up on the stories was definitely new to her. History started out better, as she was fairly well versed in Bible history thanks to DVDs, church, etc. History for Little Pilgrims added some new things, allowing her to grow in those first few weeks. The devotions were also a spot where I realized I was glad we were using LHFHG and not Beyond. They definitely were meaty, making my daughter think about what we believe. By Thanksgiving, we were almost done with the Bible portion, and everything was going well. My daughter had gotten into the Burgess books and often wanted to start our reading time with those. She also loved reading out of the Family Time Bible. She was a little sad when we were done with that part of history. But luckily for her, she was ready to start the Emerging Readers, so she got to keep the Bible reading (but now with the Beginner's Bible and her reading to me). When we started the History Stories for Children portion of the guide, it took a tiny bit to get used to that as well. Luckily there were days of History for Little Pilgrims mixed in, which definitely were easier for her to understand. Again, by the end of the guide, she was able to give me a short summary of what we had read most days, which I was very happy about.

We will be starting Beyond in just over a week, and we are so excited to see what we can learn. And yes, we will both be learning! I alrady learned some through the history in LHFHG!