IF you do seperate programs, then...

[threegreatkids]

Another fellow homeschooler suggested to me there should be a My Father's Heart of Dakota World curriculum put out there . Now that would go really well with my personality.

Hmm, I think I can tell which other curriculum you are considering We switched over this year. Julie wrote a super helpful comparison of the two, but I'm not good at finding things in the archives. Anyone know what I mean? I think it might have been from June 2008, but I'm not sure.

When i first considered the switch I thought the same thing- how i wished i could combine the two. Now, though, I think that while they are both wonderful programs, some aspects are mutually exclusive. For example, with MFW you can combine your 2nd to 8th graders, and with HOD the programs are designed to really fit the age/level/needs of the child by shrinking the age range. As much as I'd like to have my proverbial cake and eat it, too, it's just not possible in my particular family What a blessing that you have the option of combining all 3 in Bigger if you wish!

It looked like you were also considering MFW Adventures for your 7 and 9 y.o.s. We did that program 2 years ago, but I don't think it's recomended past 3rd grade. You might want to ask about that on their message board.
Wishing you blessings as you search and pray for God's best for your family!

P.S. If you already own the Adventures manual, you could use the Book Basket lists to stock a supplemental basket to go alongside Bigger for any children who wanted more...especially the picture book lovers. We are REALLY loving Bigger, and like not being library-dependant anymore, but I was thinking about pulling out those lists since all my kids still really enjoy quality picture books to read on their own time.

[Alison in KY]

I feel a bit better about trying CTC now. Holy Spirit calming my nerves, I guess . I realize for a four day a week program, if I wanted to, I could use it and just overflow things that we don't have time for to our next day. So I think I will be giving it a try, BUT, I think I'll use the Bigger RA's and read them aloud to all three kids. Then I'll do MFW Adventures with my younger two. That's my plan TODAY .

Tomorrow, I'll probably scrap everything and do Bigger mixed with MFW's Adventures.

I understand all of the differences between the two programs. Honestly, I love combining my kids, but there are things about HOD that I also really like. It makes it hard when you equally like certain qualities. Honestly, it would be easier for me if HOD had a schedule that looked like MFW's. So I might do a basic table of the HOD stuff so my son can check it off. In the end, it's really hard to say how it works until you get into a program. If I were a rich woman I'd probably buy them both, but then I probably wouldn't get anything finished .

Thank you for your nice comments,

Alison

[water2wine]

I feel a bit better about trying CTC now. Holy Spirit calming my nerves, I guess . I realize for a four day a week program, if I wanted to, I could use it and just overflow things that we don't have time for to our next day.

Exactly! There is a ton of flexibility and for us that is a huge part of why HOD works so well for us. Just one thing to think about is with a daily schedule where the boxes match but are not so dependent on each other that you can't do things like we do such as sometimes put off projects if need be until Friday or in all honesty mostly just to make Fridays fun in reality. That was something I was not able to work with my family with MFW. Everything was so intertwined it felt like one thing really depended on the next and I felt like I did not have near the flexibility. I understand about the group experience. I have my oldest in CTC and she actually missed Preparing so I have her listen in on the History portion of Preparing. Another thing we do is have a Bible reading time together. This is something we do all year and I find that that has really weaved all the programs together for us. We do it pretty simple just are reading through the Narrated Chronological Bible and then sometimes I pick up the same story in a story Bible for my youngest two just to help them with the meaning. We discuss and I let them explore deeper any area we are reading in Bible. It can be a mapping thing, a topical study thing or sometimes we just track things that interest us. It just gives them a chance to question together anything of God. It often ends up by maybe divine intervention relating to school but it always gives us that feeling like we are all doing school together even if we are in different programs. I think just having them all in HOD does that anyway because the programs all run the same and we do a lot of peeking into what we are all doing. Makes it tons of fun.