Considering switching from MFW to HOD

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kelleywatson
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2014 8:22 am

Considering switching from MFW to HOD

Post by kelleywatson » Mon Mar 03, 2014 9:48 am

In June we will be done with MFW-K and we have thoroughly LOVED MFW-K. The only problem is that my son is only 4 and will be 5 in Oct this year. Even though he will have successfully completed the K program I do not feel like he will be ready for the MFW-1st curriculum as far as maturity and handwriting. Although things could be totally different by then...

Looking for opinions on others who have started MFWk young and then switched to HOD for their true K year and if they stuck with HOD or switched back to MFW and why. We really love MFW and had no plans of switching but I just really do not think he will be ready for the 1st grade workload.

Kelley

LovingJesus
Posts: 337
Joined: Thu Oct 27, 2011 8:29 am

Re: Considering switching from MFW to HOD

Post by LovingJesus » Tue Mar 04, 2014 9:33 am

I have used MFW1 for all 3 of my oldest children. The first time was in full with a 6/7 year old. The second and third time I ended up using different phonics, but still had them complete the time-line and Bible note book. The second and third time I had a slightly different problem than you have, but similar. My second and third did great in MFWK for the second half of pre-K and first half of K and were not ready for MFW1; even though they both did exceptional in MFWK. I think there truly is a 'gap' between those two programs that I didn't realize when my oldest did MFW1 coming from a different background. I would agree with you that 5 is too young for MFW1.

I think your best option with HOD for Kindergarten would be Little Hearts For His Glory. It would have a history over view that would lead into MFW1. Carrie also puts a lot of skills in her guides and the narration in LHFHG would prepare well for the narration in MFW1. It would also be a year to build fine motor skills that are not in MFWK or MFW1. It could be a great year for you for K, and leave your son better prepared for MFW1. I would encourage you though to continue some phonics. My son who came out of MFWK half way through K, having found MFWK very easy, ended up forgetting most of what he learned in the many months before I started MFW1 with him.

I came to HOD, from MFW, for very different reasons than you are looking for. I went through the first 6 weeks of ECC with my oldest before I started using HOD.

MFW and HOD are very different programs. I really Love how Carrie focuses on Christ, builds skills into her guides, has prophecies from the OT pointing to Christ in CTC, uses many Charlotte Mason ideas in her approach to writing and education, builds literature into her reading program and guides, integrates Biblical chronology into history, her understanding of Genesis as history, the art and poetry woven in, and the well rounded education that her guides offer. I find myself agreeing with Charlotte Mason's philosophy that education begins with scripture. I find CM resonates more with me than a classical education that is large part of MFW. MFW uses more of the CM philosophy in their earlier TMs, and then becomes increasingly classical the higher they go into the cycle and grades. I also was not comfortable with MFWs choice of actually doing the feasts in CTG (studying them to know more about them would be interesting, but having us do the feasts at home didn't feel right to me as a Christian). I also didn't want to use Story of the World volumes 2 and 3 as a spine in RTR and Exp1850. Lastly, I find Carrie's guides to be more age appropriate since she is not trying to span many ages into one TM. In the end Carrie's focus on Christ and Charlotte Mason philosophy and understanding of scripture has been a better fit for our family.
Last edited by LovingJesus on Fri Jun 10, 2016 6:46 pm, edited 4 times in total.

my3sons
Posts: 10702
Joined: Sun Aug 26, 2007 7:08 pm
Location: South Dakota

Re: Considering switching from MFW to HOD

Post by my3sons » Tue Mar 04, 2014 5:13 pm

Hi Kelley, and welcome to the HOD Board! LovingJesus really is a great person to post in response to this, as she has used both. I was also going to suggest "Little Hearts for His Glory," which we have done 3 times and loved every time! :D Here are a few past threads that may be helpful too...

MFW and HOD:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1446

Comparing Classical Approach, MFW, and HOD:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6485

I hope this helps as you ponder what is best for your family!
In Christ,
Julie
Enjoyed LHTH to USII
Currently using USI
Wife to Rich for 28 years
Mother to 3 sons, ages 23, 20, and 16
Sister to Carrie

Nealewill
Posts: 1611
Joined: Sat Sep 14, 2013 5:08 pm
Location: Cincinnati, OH

Re: Considering switching from MFW to HOD

Post by Nealewill » Wed Mar 05, 2014 7:57 am

I would also like to respond. I am very much like Loving Jesus also.

I have used both MFW and HOD. I also came to HOD this year because I did 7 weeks into ECC and it was not a good fit for my family. I did MFW K with my younger 2 children and they loved it. My youngest was 4 when she did it and my middle was 5. We also moved into MFW 1st with them. My youngest did fine with it, my middle did okay with it. Actually am glad I switched to HOD because with my MFW K and 1st, if you have already completed Adventures, your child then gets thrown into the cycle. This was NOT a good fit for us. This year we started the year the year with ECC with 2nd grader and 4th grader and then my youngest was doing MFW 1st (she had already started 1st the year before and she is gifted so she was well into it). It went terribly! My son wasn't ready and he was SO disruptive. For my oldest, she was doing okay. But even the way we did our work, the kids really weren't interested and it just wasn't a good fit.

I switched to HOD because I liked how I could actually have each child work at their level and that the books were really geared toward their level. I also just love the books they picked. I love that the crafts don't take nearly as long - they are split over 3 days versus the one day in MFW. I like the writing structure more in HOD than in MFW. I am not a huge fan of Writing Strands personally and I like that HOD uses 3 different vendors to go through writing plus the creative writing they included themselves in Preparing. I like that as the kids get older, they are studying the literature they read by 3rd or 4th grade vs MFW where they start this in 7th grade. I like that grammar starts a little younger with HOD versus MFW - formal grammar in MFW is in 6th or 7th grade, HOD it is in 2rd grade and steadily moves up. For me, I found I was tweaking MFW more and more to suit my teaching overal plan and with HOD, I really don't have to tweak it at all. I may use a different program for a certain subject - like spelling for my oldest who is mildly dyslexic - but I am teaching the same concept at the same time they are recommending it. So my schedule for my day is better. Also - I always thought I would be that mom who wanted my kids to learn at the same time. Well - turns out I am not! So I like that HOD is very interesting, very hands on, great books (!), the kids become more independent and sooner, and matches my teaching style more in general.

I think doing Little Hands is a great place to start. I am doing Beyond this year with 1st and 2nd grade children. I think if my youngest dd wasn't so advanced, she wouldn't be able to do Beyond in 1st grade. But she is doing better than I had thought. Plus, it doesn't pay to rush through the levels as each gets steadily hard and harder. And I think if you like the way MFW has "fun" with their history and science, you will definitely think HOD is fun too. We do!
Daneale

DD 13 WG
DS 12 R2R
DD 10 R2R

Enjoyed DITHOR, Little Hearts, Beyond, Bigger, Preparing, CTC, R2R, RevtoRev, MtMM

StephanieU
Posts: 1659
Joined: Tue May 21, 2013 7:10 pm

Re: Considering switching from MFW to HOD

Post by StephanieU » Wed Mar 05, 2014 9:13 am

If you are stuck on doing HOD with an almost 5yo, one thing that might work is just doing the guide half speed. That way you would complete the Bible portion of hisotry which is not as difficult as the History Stories for Children part. You could do the Bible story and activity one day and then the Storytime and Bible verse the next. The History Stories for Children though can be a challenge for younger studnets, as it is 3rd grade according to Christian Liberty Press (my young 1st grader is doing okay with it - so I would say it is more of a 1st grade book).
Mom to
DD16 (completed LHFHG-WH, parts of US1 and 2)
DS14 WG (completed LHFHG-MtMM plus some of LHTH)
DD13 MtMM (completed Rev2Rev)
DS8 Bigger (completed LHTH-Beyond)

momof3kids
Posts: 150
Joined: Sun Mar 03, 2013 6:10 pm

Re: Considering switching from MFW to HOD

Post by momof3kids » Wed Mar 05, 2014 1:51 pm

Love reading this! I too looked at MFW a lot before deciding on HOD. Love hearing input from those who have used both programs. HOD has been a good fit for us this year, and plan to use next year as well. Thought about using MFW K for my second son...but decided to go ahead with LHFHG maybe at a slow pace...think we may need the flexibility.
Great input from these ladies!
Married almost 13yr..dh and great father
5 blessings from God, 1 in heaven
9 yo ds- Preparing DITHOR
8 yo ds- Bigger
5 yo dd- Jut starting Little Hearts half speed
Baby boy born September 2014, now 2yo

kelleywatson
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2014 8:22 am

Re: Considering switching from MFW to HOD

Post by kelleywatson » Sat Mar 08, 2014 12:38 am

THANKS LOVING JESUS!! Can you elaborate what you meant by not liking the use of teaching the feasts and the use of Story of the World? I do not observe the Jewish Feast nor put any emphasis on any Biblical traditions because that was all done away with when Jesus died on the cross. But I dont see anything wrong with that being taught as a historical aspect. I will admit that I have tweeked some of the Bible in MFWK because I do not want my son to think that if he works hard and is a good persont that he will go to heaven cause that isnt true. Our salvation is thru Jesus Christ alone. The rest is the fruits of us staying connected to the vine (Christ).

I have been teetering tottering back and forth over the last couple of weeks over this! I still have not made a decision and most likely wont until after I go to the convention in May. But your testimony and others here have given me some great insight into what to expect from both programs. I really do not want to push him and am very afraid that MFW 1st will just be too much for him. I really think that doing something else for his true K year will be best for him to really solidify his learning.

Kelley
LovingJesus wrote:
kelleywatson wrote:In June we will be done with MFW-K and we have thoroughly LOVED MFW-K. The only problem is that my son is only 4 and will be 5 in Oct this year. Even though he will have successfully completed the K program I do not feel like he will be ready for the MFW-1st curriculum as far as maturity and handwriting. Although things could be totally different by then...

Looking for opinions on others who have started MFWk young and then switched to HOD for their true K year and if they stuck with HOD or switched back to MFW and why. We really love MFW and had no plans of switching but I just really do not think he will be ready for the 1st grade workload.

Kelley
I have used MFW1 for all 3 of my oldest children. The first time was in full with a 6/7 year old. The second and third time I ended up using different phonics, but still had them complete the time-line and Bible note book. The second and third time I had a slightly different problem than you have, but similar. My second and third did great in MFWK for the second half of pre-K and first half of K and were not ready for MFW1; even though they both did exceptional in MFWK. I think there truly is a 'gap' between those two programs that I didn't realize when my oldest did MFW1 coming from a different background. I would agree with you that 5 is too young for MFW1.

I think your best option with HOD for Kindergarten would be Little Hearts For His Glory. It would have a history over view that would lead into MFW1. Carrie also puts a lot of skills in her guides and the narration in LHFHG would prepare well for the narration in MFW1. It would also be a year to build fine motor skills that are not in MFWK or MFW1. It could be a great year for you for K, and leave your son better prepared for MFW1. I would encourage you though to continue some phonics. My son who came out of MFWK half way through K, having found MFWK very easy, ended up forgetting most of what he learned in the many months before I started MFW1 with him.

I came to HOD, from MFW, for very different reasons than you are looking for. I went through the first 6 weeks of ECC with my oldest before I started using HOD.

MFW and HOD are very different programs. I really Love how Carrie focuses on Christ, builds skills into her guides, has prophecies from the OT pointing to Christ in CTC, uses many Charlotte Mason ideas in her approach to writing and education, builds literature into her reading program and guides, integrates Biblical chronology into history, her understanding of Genesis as history, the art and poetry woven in, and the well rounded education that her guides offer. I find myself agreeing with Charlotte Mason's philosophy that education begins with scripture. I find CM resonates more with me than a classical education that is large part of MFW. MFW uses more of the CM philosophy in their earlier TMs, and then becomes increasingly classical the higher they go into the cycle and grades. I also was not comfortable with MFWs choice of carrying out Jewish feasts in CTG or their use of Story of the World 2 and 3 in their cycle. I also find Carrie's guides to be more age appropriate since she is not trying to span many ages into one TM. In the end Carrie's focus on Christ and Charlotte Mason philosophy and understanding of scripture has been a better fit for our family.
Last edited by kelleywatson on Sat Mar 08, 2014 1:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

kelleywatson
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2014 8:22 am

Re: Considering switching from MFW to HOD

Post by kelleywatson » Sat Mar 08, 2014 12:47 am

Thanks Nealewill! great insight! Can you tell me more about the books HOD recommends? I am use to hitting up the library every week for 20+books and i absolutely LOVE that! With MFWK that was very easy because the lessons are Unit based. How is it with HOD, does it follow the same unit type concept? That is one thing that I really liked about MFWK in that everything was connected overall. Really helped my son see that the world isnt separate, it is all intertwined.

Kelley
Nealewill wrote:I would also like to respond. I am very much like Loving Jesus also.

I have used both MFW and HOD. I also came to HOD this year because I did 7 weeks into ECC and it was not a good fit for my family. I did MFW K with my younger 2 children and they loved it. My youngest was 4 when she did it and my middle was 5. We also moved into MFW 1st with them. My youngest did fine with it, my middle did okay with it. Actually am glad I switched to HOD because with my MFW K and 1st, if you have already completed Adventures, your child then gets thrown into the cycle. This was NOT a good fit for us. This year we started the year the year with ECC with 2nd grader and 4th grader and then my youngest was doing MFW 1st (she had already started 1st the year before and she is gifted so she was well into it). It went terribly! My son wasn't ready and he was SO disruptive. For my oldest, she was doing okay. But even the way we did our work, the kids really weren't interested and it just wasn't a good fit.

I switched to HOD because I liked how I could actually have each child work at their level and that the books were really geared toward their level. I also just love the books they picked. I love that the crafts don't take nearly as long - they are split over 3 days versus the one day in MFW. I like the writing structure more in HOD than in MFW. I am not a huge fan of Writing Strands personally and I like that HOD uses 3 different vendors to go through writing plus the creative writing they included themselves in Preparing. I like that as the kids get older, they are studying the literature they read by 3rd or 4th grade vs MFW where they start this in 7th grade. I like that grammar starts a little younger with HOD versus MFW - formal grammar in MFW is in 6th or 7th grade, HOD it is in 2rd grade and steadily moves up. For me, I found I was tweaking MFW more and more to suit my teaching overal plan and with HOD, I really don't have to tweak it at all. I may use a different program for a certain subject - like spelling for my oldest who is mildly dyslexic - but I am teaching the same concept at the same time they are recommending it. So my schedule for my day is better. Also - I always thought I would be that mom who wanted my kids to learn at the same time. Well - turns out I am not! So I like that HOD is very interesting, very hands on, great books (!), the kids become more independent and sooner, and matches my teaching style more in general.

I think doing Little Hands is a great place to start. I am doing Beyond this year with 1st and 2nd grade children. I think if my youngest dd wasn't so advanced, she wouldn't be able to do Beyond in 1st grade. But she is doing better than I had thought. Plus, it doesn't pay to rush through the levels as each gets steadily hard and harder. And I think if you like the way MFW has "fun" with their history and science, you will definitely think HOD is fun too. We do!

Nealewill
Posts: 1611
Joined: Sat Sep 14, 2013 5:08 pm
Location: Cincinnati, OH

Re: Considering switching from MFW to HOD

Post by Nealewill » Sat Mar 08, 2014 7:04 am

At the younger ages, I did love the picture books for my kids that were listed in the book basket. I found it to be a bit of a challenge though the year I started with MFW because I started when I had a K child, 1st grade child and then a 3rd grade child who was doing Adventures. So my book basket was a little bit out of control! I did find though that quite a few of the books listed in the book basket for K were the same books listed for 1st grade but listed in a different order. The Adventures was a little different though. With Adventures, there were several great pictures book and easy readers.

HOD is a little different in the sense of books. The books they use are the ones specified in their catalog. So if you look at Little Hearts, they list all the books that they use in their manual. They do not offer a book basket like MFW does. One other think I have found out is that my library will pull books for me if I tell them the subject I am looking for and the age range for the book. My own custom book basket! So I don't really need a book basket from a manual any more if I want more books. I also found that once I was in the cycle, the book basket wasn't really working for me so much anymore. My oldest wasn't really learning much from the books if they were too easy to read. If the book was more to her level, she had to rush through it but that was hard to do because the book as was too long. We were just a little bit burnt out. I felt like with MFW, I was overwhelmed with the choices and with ECC, I was disappointed too. Plus, I have 3 kids so I am trying to use the selections and constantly running around trying to make it work for 3. It was a lot of work on me.

For me, I came to HOD because my oldest was in 4th grade and I was miserable with ECC. I actually wasn't unhappy with MFW until we started the 5 year cycle. I honestly felt like with ECC, we really weren't learning anything. The only thing my kids did learn is where each country is for North and South America. However, I have an app on my phone that sings you around the world and we have been enjoying that ever since. But the rest of the level for me was a bust. My oldest took a cultures class at co-op and studied a ton of places around the world already. My younger two were just disruptive! Even science was a terrible fit. My oldest wasn't very engaged partial because the other two were disruptive but also because she was just listening to me read and I think she was bored. I actually had ordered in a HOD catalog because many moms who use MFW stated they ordered some of the book packs from HOD to complement various years in the cycle - especially the readalouds. Well, once I go the catalog in hand, I fell in love with the level Bigger on up. I honestly hadn't really looked Little hands or Beyond because I was looking to complement what I was already doing with MFW and get extra books on the subject. But once I viewed the catalog, I LOVED every one of those books listed and felt like I wanted to add them all in.

Honestly, who wants to do 2 curriculums and try and blend them? So I had a choice to make. I called HOD and asked if their program was set up with a cycle and if the different ages would repeat levels before the kids moved on to high school. The answer is no. It is set up to be completed at each child’s level. Oh NO!!!! What am I going to do now? How is this possible? I am using MFW because I want to teach everyone at the same time to make it easy on me. Even though clearly isn’t work for me, I knew I could at least get through the volume. Plus I was really worried that the books would be too hard for my oldest dd to read. But as I looked more at HOD, realized how the levels were written to each child at their level and that in Preparing, the kids do quite a bit of work on their own and I started feeling a lot better about it. I ended up selling all of my MFW stuff from each level. I had already spent a mint on the school year and I wanted to try and recoup some of money. At that same time, my husband blessed me. He has a checking account that he keeps separate from mine so that he can use that money to spend on whatever he wants (I spend on what I want out of the joint and manage the bills so this is just a great fit for us to do). Well, he loves me so much he actually paid for ALL of the curriculum for Preparing and Beyond out of his personal account. How sweet! And when I got it in – I was so glad we switched.

With MFW, I felt rushed through each week. There was so much to cover and we didn’t really dig deep into anything without spending way too much time on it. I found that as my kids got older, they were flying through so many things. They weren’t really remembering it because we didn’t take our time and dig deep into topics. And if we did want to dig deep, then our day took way to long. I didn’t want to do an overview of each topic every year. With HOD, I feel like we got to really learning it. So we might not cover as many topics with tons of books but when they cover a topic, they do it well and in depth. And as you move more into MFW, they don’t really stay unit based. The history does match up with the science and that is a Charlotte Mason style learning trait. That is the same with HOD. It is all intertwined together. But with MFW, my kids weren’t remembering much. We didn’t dig deep enough of we covered too much too quickly. With HOD, my kids remember most. With MFW, the projects would ruin my day because they may take 2 hours to complete – especially with ECC. I have totally lost my kids on that project by then! We even made piñatas for school one time but that took 2 weeks to totally finish. And while it was fun, I didn’t necessarily feel like we maximized our learning for that project that took that long – especially for my younger kids because they just plain tuckered out from it. With HOD, the kids do an involved project in Preparing and they schedule it in stages over 3 days. Now I had mentioned before that I hadn’t looked much at Little Hands or Beyond. Well, I ended up ordering in Beyond for my younger 2. I actually at the time didn’t really think one thing versus another about the level Beyond. I only ordered it in because I felt like with MFW I had nowhere to go. Wow, I was so impressed! I love Beyond! Every day the kids do something hands on or something active. My kids are loving history readings. They love the read alouds. They love the hands on activities. What I love more about Beyond than MFW is that I feel like each level present the correct amount of increase in work volume by level. We are doing more writing with HOD than we did with MFW and I do like it because it isn’t overwhelming in any way and it just helps them gradual build up their skills as they move up each level. With MFW I felt like my son went from MFW 1st grade amount of writing to ECC and was overwhelmed. It was way too much writing for him because there wasn’t a balance of moving him up gradually. So I love how each level is geared at meeting the needs of each child.

So I guess in closing, there are so many more things that I love about HOD than MFW, I don’t miss the book basket. And every single one of my kids has thanked me for switching. My oldest has also grown to just love to read. With MFW I kept making her read more and more and more. She was burnt out! With HOD, I recently ordered my stuff in for next year. I am actually planning to teach the Drawn Into the Heart of Reading program at my co-op. So I picked 6 genres to cover for next year and a boy and girl book for each genre. The books came in on Monday. So my dd went through the box and hijacked the books she won’t be studying and is reading them in on her own right now. I never thought I would see the day my oldest liked to read this much! What a blessing. And these books are all 5th and 6th grade reading level. God is so gracious and amazing. I have been praying about my dd liking to read on her own and now she is. And I know it is because HOD has picked some fantastic and interesting books that have also gotten her very interested.
Daneale

DD 13 WG
DS 12 R2R
DD 10 R2R

Enjoyed DITHOR, Little Hearts, Beyond, Bigger, Preparing, CTC, R2R, RevtoRev, MtMM

LovingJesus
Posts: 337
Joined: Thu Oct 27, 2011 8:29 am

Re: Considering switching from MFW to HOD

Post by LovingJesus » Sat Mar 08, 2014 11:07 am

Hi! In answer to your questions I think a historical study of the feasts would be interesting as well.

In MFW1 though there is a weekend that we were to do a Jewish Sabbath. I didn't feel comfortable doing it, so we skipped it. Since a large part of CTG is celebrating the feasts and putting them together I thought it wouldn't fit as well.

I like parts of SOTW, but I wasn't interested in books 1 & 2 & 3 as spines since I wanted a greater emphasis on Christ in our history. MFW does not use book 1, but they do use 2 - 4. Susan is an excellent writer I just don't see eye to eye with her on some issues in history. I actually am interested in her book for Modern History that book MFW & HOD use.
Last edited by LovingJesus on Fri Jun 10, 2016 6:59 pm, edited 6 times in total.

8arrows
Posts: 965
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2008 4:49 pm

Re: Considering switching from MFW to HOD

Post by 8arrows » Sat Mar 08, 2014 6:41 pm

We have used and loved MFW K many times as we were not familiar with HOD initially. I think Little Hearts would be a great program for your K student! I have used these 2 programs in this order and found them to be a good progression. I think you are wise not to proceed to MFW K as it progresses very quickly.
Melissa, wife to Jim for 28 years
3 graduated, 2 using US 2, 8th grade dd using Missions to Marvels
Isaiah 40:11 ...He gently leads those that have young.

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