Received my Bigger box and have some questions

[girlboygirlboy]

I am new to HOD and I am really looking forward to starting Bigger in the fall with my ds9 and dd7, but as I was thumbing through the guide last night I had some questions:

1) What order do you all complete the subjects in? I understand that it's flexible, but what have you found to work best? I usually start school w/Bible, but noticed that some of the key ideas are related to the history lesson. Also, do you usually do the basics(LA, Handwriting & Math) together? I will also have a ds4 doing pre-kindergarten. Wondering how to schedule him in too....hmm....

2)Storytime - do I just determine how many pages to read each day based on the book I've picked?

3)Has anyone made a list of supplies needed for bigger? Noticed that most are things around the house, but other things like balloons, sand, watercolors, paints, etc I don't always have on hand and would like to buy over the summer. I was planning to go through and make a list, but don't want to re-invent the wheel if I don't have to.

4)Noticing all the notebooks and fileboxes and wondering if anyone has an opinion on a large three ring binder with sections for each subject - would this work or do they really need to be in different books?

Thx for your help and any other advice you'd like to share with this newbie:)

Blessings!

Jennifer
mom to girl1(attending cs in fall), boy9, girl7, boy4

[lmercon]

Hi,
My ds and I will be finishing up Bigger by the end of June. It has been a wonderful year. I'm sure your dc will love it too! I will try my best to answer your questions. Of course, it is all a matter of opinion and doing what works best for you.

1) You are correct in that the Bible does relate BACK to the history lesson. I always started our day with the history story because the spine of the program is history, and things just flowed better when starting with that. I would then do the history connection activity - geography, notebooking, art activity, etc. Then I would do the Bible lesson and always reference the history that we had learned. That made a nice little "package" of information and application. Then we would do the hymn sing and end with poetry. The right side of the manual was usually more flexible depending on how long the other side took, how much writing we had done already, etc. I would usually do a little more seat work, such as grammar or cursive, and then take a break on the couch with story time. I would then have him read to me (we are still doing the emerging reader set). Then we would go back to the table to finish up the skills area. I always end with math because that is his strong suit.

2) For the story time book, I would look to see how many chapters there were. It usually came to about a chapter a day, with a little less or more by the last couple of days. If I had to divide a chapter into a couple of days, I would just read until a appropriate place to stop, which was usually right on the verge of an exciting spot, which would elicit shouts of "read more!" "Nope, that's for tomorrow!" "Aw, come on, Mom!" Hehehe!

3) I never made a supply list because I learned from Beyond that almost everything is already in the home. I do keep a stocked arts/crafts supply closet. Every Friday or Saturday, I do glance ahead to the next week and just check to make sure I have what we will need. If anything, it will be an easy pick up at Walmart or the grocery store.

4) I used the black and white composition books for each subject/area - Poetry, Grammar, Dictation, Math, and Vocabulary (I used a notebook instead of cards for this - kind of like his own dictionary.) For the "big" subjects, I used 3-ring binders with plastic page protectors. I used one for history and another for science. I used two tab dividers in each labeled: Notebooking and Projects. I always made sure to cut my paper down to 8 1/2 by 11 inches so that projects could all fit into the binder. For the Bible memory, I used 4x6 index cards and stored them in a little, plastic photo book. That works really nicely and will store away when we are done this year.

I'm sure others have organized things differently, but this all has worked out very well for me. Have a great year!

Laura

[crlacey]

Yeah for box day!

Now to answer the questions.

1. We haven't used Bigger yet, but I found it was best to get the math and LA done with my DD first. Then we could leisurely work our way through the other boxes and have fun.

2. For storytime, I have done like the previous mom mentioned and just divide the book by the number of chapters. If I found we had too many chapters, I'd keep that in mind and read another chapter on a day that DD was doing really well.

3. There is a supply list that a HOD mom made and added to the files section on the yahoo group. (Yahoo group link removed per board rules - no links to other groups).

4. I'm hoping that a binder will work, since that's the way we've organized our finished work so far in our schooling.

[Busymomma1]

Hi,
I also will be starting Bigger in the fall with a 9 and 7 y/o. I'm trying to consider what will work best for us, as far as the file boxes and binders go. But here's a link to how Julie got set up. Perhaps that will help you!

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5531

Be blessed, and welcome!

[jjcmehl]

I, too, will be starting Bigger with a 7 and 9 year old. Thank you, crlacy, for the link to the Yahoo! group....waiting to get accepted!

[annaz]

1. I don't do sides. I've always done our 3 R's first. Reading, Spelling,Math, English, then break, then bible, history (vocab if needed), Geo, science. The bible portion can be done first. We do this then come back to it to see how history tied into the verse. It worked well as it brought up the bible portion again. We change it around though. I'm not bound by sides.

2) I take the amount of days we read the book, which is usually 20 and divide it by the pages in the book.

3)Someone mentioned the yahoo site...yep the list is there and very helpful.

4) I dislike large 3 ring binders (like 2-1/2 inches and up). They're very cumbersome. We use a filebox and index cards for vocab, a 1-1/2 inch binder for history, science and bible (don't use index cards for bible) (each). But then I only have one to homeschool.

[my3sons]

Wow - you already have some awesome answers here! We've done Bigger once with our oldest, and now I'm in the middle of it with my second ds. Loving it! Here are a few other links that may be helpful. I like this link as it helps me make an initial schedule. It describes about how long it takes to do each box in Bigger Hearts:
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=702

You already have a link to the pics I took of setting up Bigger for my ds, but here's another neat thread about supplies as well:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4257

Here are some links to our schedules thread:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2093
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=95&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=15

Happy scheduling! I think it's good to somehow keep the left side together since it themes around the history, but other than that, there's a lot of flexibility in how you set up your routine. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie