heartofdakota.com

Hello all,

I am confused as what to order? My children will be 9ds and 7ds this month. I have used MFW Adventures this year and Sonlight before that. We didn't enjoy Sonlight because of the lack of hands on and biblical content. The books were also often too hard for my daughter to comprehend. We enjoyed MFW but because they try to fit so many age ranges together it is hard to make it work for them in later years. Also, I didn’t enjoy the frequent trips to gather things and that there were no readers scheduled for them.

My son has Aspergers so he/mom require more structure and I am hoping HOD program can provide that for us. My daughter craves more hands-on and science exploration. She also needs something that she can really comprehend. She was reading Peter Rabbit today and she enjoying it so much.
My son can write simple sentences and has gone through half of R&S 2 this year and my daughter has had no grammar besides listening in on our lessons. He is capable of listening to longer chapter books but can't write about them yet. My daughter tires easily from writing more than a sentence or two and has just mastered manuscript letters.

So I have a son that loves structure, real books and less textbook work. My daughter is my hands on artist and would rather be making something rather than write anything about it. What I have learned is that they would rather write about their own ideas than follow a workbook style. I am supplementing their writing with VP guides right now. It has them read a book on level and answer straight forward comprehension questions. I really love this approach because I see it makes them think and teaches some independence. I wanted to use DIHOR in the same way too.

Anyway I am rambling because it has been a hard year and I have so much to tackle. I don't want to reinvent the wheel but yet I don't want to take away some of the things they really enjoy like real books. I say this because I was contemplating BJU or CLE for 2012-2013. Please talk me out of it.

Thanks again!

I also wanted to add that my son has great handwriting and has learned cursive. When I say he can't write about a book it is because he has a hard time putting thoughts on paper.

From what you described Heart of Dakota will meet your needs and wants! It is FULL of living books, lots of hands-on activities (especially in science), and great structure that keeps things flowing day to day and week to week.

The placement chart would be the best place to start in determining at which level to start your children. Also, do you wish to combine them or have them do their own guide?
If you could give us a little more info on where your children are on the placement chart we can give you some more specific advice.
I know some more ladies will pop in here and help you out.

Welcome to the boards!

Just a note to say that Adventures is on Par with Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory. You should definitely start with the placement chart and see where each child places before deciding how to proceed. If they are close in ability you can combine, if they are far apart you might consider separate programs.

Thank you and here is what I came up with after looking at the placement charts.

My daughter is an emerging reader and not able to read longer books alone. I would consider in between emerging readers and independent reading. I would also like to complete another year of phonics or all about spelling to reinforce Phonics this coming year. She has mastered manuscript writing but needs more time to develop them so writing isn’t so tiring. She will be starting grammar also. So based on all that than Beyond is where she places. My only concern is that we have read some of Pioneers and Patriots and she will be bored with it. We didn’t finish MFW Adventures because it was so redundant toward the end with state sheets. MFW Adventures also only skimmed over that book so it is possible to repeat it with her. Secondly, she wants more science so I don’t know if that is enough to have it twice a week for her. Looking over the placement chart besides the formal handwriting part she could go with Beyond or Bigger.

My son is done with phonics, mastered manuscript, learned cursive and is able to read independently with beginning chapter books. So that would place in Preparing. The only thing with him is that we have not been practicing dictation and very little creative writing. In that case maybe I should back him up to Bigger.

Lastly, as far as combining I would prefer not to. He wants more independence from his sister and she wants more one on one time with mom. I also don’t mind running two programs because I know it is hard to combine and I have tried that for two years without much luck. My biggest concern is placing them where they are developmentally. I am thinking Beyond /Bigger or Bigger/Preparing.

~Thanks

I just want to give you this link where Julie linked to a couple posts about the writing involved in Bigger. We are doing Beyond with my dd7 and its a great fit. She does say the science book is boring but she loves the science experiments. I just want to caution you from doing Bigger with your younger because of the writing. Maybe these links will help you place your kiddos.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11665

I also think Bigger is really heavy for your younger one. If she's between two guides, go with the easier one. Preparing might be fine for your older one if that's where he places. I don't think you'd need to be afraid of it because of dictation and creative writing. Preparing has three levels of dictation, so you could start with an easier one so that he could get used to it. On creative writing, Preparing is really just introducing it very gently, so you don't have to worry about not having done much of it before. We hadn't really done any to speak of, but my daughter is doing fine with the requirements of Preparing.

Thank you all. I have decided to use Beyond with dd and Bigger with ds. He can finish up R&S2 and really enjoy DIHOR 2 level. I want to continue to raise his confidence in reading and writing. My daughter will love having her own special time and all the hands on work. It was fun to not have and try to tweak something to work for both of them.