Brand new, excited, questions!

[Larica]

Hello! Not only am I brand new to this board, but I am brand new to homeschooling. It's something we've had on our hearts for a while but never acted on. This March, however, we made a major move across the country and it was enough to shake up our routines and help us to re-evaluate what we really want for our kids. We now know it is time to begin our homeschool journey. I learned about HOD from a friend and immediately knew it would fit our family. Not wanting to wait, I ordered and started LHTH with my 3 1/2 year old daugther. We are all loving it!! My 5 1/2 year old kindergartener and my 16 month old love it too. I wish I could get a picture of us all in the living room, me flat on my belly with three kids "riding" whatever animal I'm pretending to be for the fingerplay!

My main question has to do with my 5 year old daughter (will be 6 in June). She is currently in public school for kindergarten and she has an IEP through which she receives speech therapy, occupational therapy and social work services. Because of her special needs, her skills are a bit scattered, which leads me to wonder which guide to choose for 1st grade. DD has an amazing memory and taught herself to read before she ever received any phonics instruction. She can read anything she picks up. Her tolerance for reading lengthy sections is limited, however. She also blurs all her words together when reading aloud, unless I specifically help her to slow down and enunciate. She is not mature enough to really delve into literature at this point, but basic phonics instruction is way too easy. She can also write all letters and independently spell most age-appropriate words. She loves to write little stories too. Her handwriting, hoewver, is very hard to read and all her words run together in one long string. Her stories also don't usually make much sense. As for math, I looked at the Singapore placement page and they don't provide placement tests for the Kindergarten math, so I can't tell where DD belongs. So....do any of you have any wisdom to share as to what HOD guide she belongs in? My younger daugher will be 4 in September and I want to involve her too, whether in the same program or a different one. I guess we'll still be working through LHTH at that point. For the record, my younger DD is advanced and will most likely be ready for phonics instruction soon.

Thanks so much for any help you can provide. We are SO excited to begin this journey and I am particularly thrilled to have found HOD at the outset. Yay!

Blessings,
Erica

[4froggies]

I think Little Hearts for His Glory would be a great fit for your 6 year old. We are finishing it up for 1st grade, and it has been a great year. Your 4 year old will enjoy the actvities, rhymes, and music, etc. too! I would use the 1st grade handwriting option (A Reason for Handwriting), which will provide great practice for her handwriting skills. The Thinkings Skills 1 is good too. These are both the "First Grade" options for Little Hearts.

It sounds like the Emerging Readers set might be a good fit for her. I'm not sure about the math placement. One of the other ladies might be able to help you there. Hope this helps! Little Hearts is such a fun year- I think you and your kids would really love it!

[GinainMD]

Erica, I don't have any real placement advice as we have really just begun our HOD journey but I did want to say Hello and Welcome!

[MamaPajama]

I don't have experience with the guides yet either, but I have combed the site and drooled over the catalog a ton! LOL Just given what I do know, though, I would imagine that your DD would do really well in LHFHG. Even if she's covered some of the things in the guide, it may give her a chance to feel really successful AND give her a chance to slow down and really nail down those skills that she'll need going into her 2nd grade year. Have you looked at the placement chart yet?

I have to say, your description of LHTH makes me really excited to get started with my two little girls in the Fall!

[ShariCA]

I would guess that LHFHG with 1st grade options would be a good fit. I would also go with the 1A and 1B math. The K math really just covers the basics and she's probably had that in public K. I'm keeping my 5 year old in LHTH for his K year and not moving up to LHFHG until he is 6. I would suggest going slow.

I heard a tip about using a pale colored bookmark for keeping track of lines in the books. The helps them to concentrate on one line at a time and covers the ones beneath it. Like a large index card, but not stark white, and with nothing else on it. HTH.

[my3sons]

Welcome to the HOD Board, Larica! I loved picturing your LHTH lesson as I read about it. I always say that LHTH makes me "fun mom" for awhile, when I might otherwise not be. It definitely sounds like your kiddos love that part of you doing LHTH with them too. I do think LHFHG sounds like a good fit for your dd. You could do it with the kindergarten or the first grade options. As far as the science goes, both "K" and "1" would be fine. For the fine motor skills choices, the K choices are "Do It Carefully/Finding the Answers" (which are your basic patterning, same/different, cut/color/copy letters/numbers, paste kind of pages) and the 2 K choices for handwriting are "A Reason for Handwriting K" or "Italic A" which both focus on learning to write individual letters well. The fine motor skills choices for 1st grade are "Thinking Skills" (which includes more critical thinking and less of the color/cut/paste than the K books) and the 2 1st grade choices for handwriting are "A Reason for Handwriting A" and "Italic B", which have students writing words and sentences.

For math, the hands-on math activities for Earlybird Kindergarten are written right in the LHFHG guide, and 1A/1B just has a schedule with the textbook/workbook in the LHFHG Appendix instead of hands-on plans. So, if you want the hands-on plans for 1A/1B, most moms just get the Beyond Little Hearts guide for those, since the hands-on math for 1A/1B is written right in the daily plans of the Beyond guide.

That brings me to reading. If your dd is ready to read books like "Frog and Toad" or "Amelia Bedelia", then she can start the Emerging Reader's Set (ERS) which is scheduled out in the Beyond Appendix. I would definitely get the Beyond guide if you are going to do the ERS, as it incrementally schedules the books into nice bite-sized readings, and more importantly has 3 well-thought-out comprehension questions (written according to Bloom's Taxonomy) for your dd to orally answer for each day of reading. This schedule and these questions steadily improve reading ability and comprehension and pave the way for the more rigorous reading and work ahead in "Drawn into the Heart of Reading". I used Beyond for the ERS while doing LHFHG for my core program with one of my dc, and it was not difficult to use the 2 guides. However, if your dd is not ready for the ERS, then she could have a year of continued work on phonics and free reading prior to starting the ERS.

So, with these few fine tuning things to ponder, your dd will most certainly thrive with LHFHG! I know you will love it as much as you have loved LHTH. We sure did. Please be sure to keep asking questions here until you have a plan you love in place. HTH, and we look forward to getting to know you here at HOD!

In Christ,
Julie

[water2wine]

I am not going to have better advice than Julie but I just wanted to say welcome and encourage you that you are in the right place. I also have one with special needs and HOD is wonderful for her. There is so much flexibility and you can easily slow things down when you need to do that. I have found the Charlotte Mason ways of HOD to be really wonderful for all my kids but particularly my dd with CP. And I will tell you the truth today I was just noticing something really sweet that my dd got from HOD and wishing I had started all my kids from the beginning with HOD. You are going to be so happy you found HOD right off the bat. Enjoy this time it is so precious and never let anyone tell you that homeschooling is not the best thing for a child with special needs. It absolutely is the best thing and you can do it and do a great job! Congratulations on your decision.

[Larica]

Thank you, ladies for all the very helpful advice and encouragement! You have helped me see that LHFHG is really the way for us to go for our core program. I will use the 1st grade options and also get the Beyond guide for math 1A/1B and the emerging readers. I am so excited and I want to order now ! I am controlling myself for now, though, since DH wants to wait until after our local homeschool conference. I wonder if HOD ever comes to conferences in the Northeast? Nobody I've talked to out here has heard of HOD. I'll be telling them about it for sure! I live in a very regulated state and I have yet to inform our school district that DD won't be returning in the fall. I have to decide if I'll bring her to the school for special ed services or if I'll find private providers or try to do it myself. Anybody else in this situation? It's a little overwhelming thinking of being the sole adult responsible for DD's education, but I know God is calling us in this direction. I'm sure He will bless our efforts!

One more thing...what is the difference between A Reason for Handwriting and Italic? I'll go do a search of the board and I'll probably find some answers.

Thanks again and I look forward to chatting more!

Erica