Post
by Nealewill » Wed Sep 23, 2015 5:22 am
I agree about placement - if your son matches up with Bigger hearts, then I would go with Bigger. You may not be interested in doing American history as much again but you will noticed that even with HOD, they do a lot of American history in the beginning as well. It is a great foundation and many times it is written as to not scare kids vs some other eras that do have more difficult or even upsetting events. With those other eras, you could always leave out some of the more traumatic events but then it would really skew the child's view of that era. That is why HOD does American History for the first few years.
One other thing to consider is that only one component of Bigger is history. The science is absolutely fantastic! It is very interesting and engaging. Plus, Bigger is going to help your child get ramped up for the writing requirements of Preparing. Preparing is actually fairly challenging in regards to writing volume and reading. In Preparing, kids are expected to read all of the science to themselves and then will be reading quite a bit for the independent history to themselves as well. Since your child isn't reading much independently, I would wait on completing Preparing for one more year. Some of the things that make Preparing so wonderful is the fact that child is working alone and doing these things independently. In addition, in CTC (the level after Preparing), the child is then reading all of the science and all of the history to themselves. These books are a higher level than the ones they read in Preparing. So if your child is struggling through Preparing, they will definitely be struggling through CTC as well.
I do think even though you have studied American History, you honestly will love Bigger as well. It is very biographical. It has a lot of map work included. It combines science with the time period in many ways. My kids LOVED it. And they also studied American History quite a bit prior to using HOD (I have been using HOD for 2 full years now and we are always blown away by our wonderful years). For me - HOD makes it easy to get my kids day done and include a ton of fun along the way. I am sure that even though you have studied American History, this will be different as every program is always a bit different. And the writing activities included will really help get your child prepared for the writing in Preparing.
Finally as one person mentioned - using the placement chart to help you place your child is the best way to select a level. The levels have age ranges because all kids are different and not all kids at 8 can do the same thing. My son did Bigger at 8 and my youngest is doing it at 7. For my son, he is 9 and in Preparing now and I am glad that we waited. At times I even feel like it may have served me better to have had him do Preparing at 10 rather than 9. He is doing well and all but he does still sometimes struggle with reading. We are taking it at his pace. On days when we need to slow down, we slow down. Some days he zooms through with no problem. The great thing with HOD is that they give you one days worth of plans at a time and you can then work through it as quickly or as slowly as you want. It truly is open and go and it truly is easy to set your pace. Bigger really is a wonderful level and I think you and your kids will really enjoy it too.
Daneale
DD 13 WG
DS 12 R2R
DD 10 R2R
Enjoyed DITHOR, Little Hearts, Beyond, Bigger, Preparing, CTC, R2R, RevtoRev, MtMM
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