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Hi! Have you taken a look at the placement chart yet? http://www.heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php It's often helpful to actually print it out and circle the boxes and see where you have the most marked.

From that you'll be able to get an idea of which program she might fall into. HOD gears things toward an age range, rather than a specific grade. After you've taken a look at that pop on back over here and let us know where her skills fall, and we'll be able to help you more fully

Hello,

I am not sure if you have considered this yet:

This Fall you could use Little Hands to Heaven for the Bible portion, the devotional, and the hands-on activities. You could then choose the K options that are recommended in Little Hearts for His Glory to use along with it. Then next school year when your child is in first grade, you could use Little Hearts for His Glory and use the 1st grade options recommended in that guide. That way you wouldn't be doing the same guide (LHFHG) twice.
Then, for grade 2 you would move on to Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory.
I hope that makes sense. If that sounds like a possibility for you and your daughter, I could list out more specifically the resources you would use.

Candice

When you say the K material is too easy for her, which resources are you speaking of, specifically?
Just wanting to get a better idea of what her level is. Thanks!

When you say she can read, do you mean she is completely done with phonics instruction? My son did LHFHG at age 5, he had many sight words down and could sound out CVC but he had not had formal phonics instruction, we went through The Reading Lesson and it was perfect! He flew threw the beginning chapters, then slowed a little but still worked at a pretty good pace through the rest of the book. Afterwards, he moved into the Emerging Readers from Beyond.

I would hate to see you skip over phonics if she hasn't done it yet.

I understand what you are saying.
I think if you have pondered the placement (and it sounds like you have) and you found that she fits squarely into LHFHG, then that is the place to start.
I know it can be difficult to decide on the K or 1st grade options, you know your daughter the best and if you feel she will be appropriately challenged with the 1st grade options, and you will obviously be guiding her through with the material, maybe that is the way to go. One way that you can keep things challenging for her, but not too difficult or demanding, is to use the guide at half-speed instead of the regular pace. That way you can stretch out the program a bit longer allowing your daughter to mature a bit more before you eventually arrived at Beyond Little Hearts. Then, if you found that your daughter was quite comfortable with the workload and materials you could move back to regular pace if desired. Just a thought as you figure out placement.

PS~ I do know that there are samples available for both the math and science books on-line at other websites. Have you tried searching for samples with those books?

You are welcome!
Also, I am guessing that some others may come along and be able to offer some help so that you can get settled with placement!
Best to you-Candice

Based on what you have shared, I would probably order the following: 1st grade handwriting and thinking skills, k science, 1st grade math. I have no idea how that breaks down package wise but, it sounds like where your daughter is at. The reason I reccommend the k science is that the reading and activities tie in nicely with the history portion of the guide. I do not think she will be bored with the activities.

My only recommendation regarding the other first grade materials is to take it slow. Even though she may be able to start the 1st grade math, it does increase in difficulty quickly. Also, unless you order the Beyond guide as well, you will not have Carrie's wonderful hands on math activities for the 1a and 1b.

Another option would be to start with the k math but do it at a slightly quicker pace. That is what I chose to do for my ds's k year, even though he placed in 1st grade math. Though in his case, he needed the extra time to develop his fine motor skills. We also chose to do the k fine motor skill books which have been a little on the easy side, but sometimes that's a good thing. He gets challenged in other areas.

Sounds like you have reading covered, though know that the Emerging Readers series starts at a 2nd grade reading level so you might want to hold off on ordering those for now. The phonics programs recommended help students achieve that level. We personally use The Reading Lesson and ds is on lesson 15 out of 20. He can read some Dr. Seuss books independently and several level 1 readers, but is not yet ready for Emerging Readers. Our order for next year actually arrived today and when he looked through the Emerging Readers books he was excited but very aware he was not at that reading level yet. Hope this helps some. Good luck with your decisions. We have been VERY happy with HOD!

Hi, I think LHFHG sounds like a great fit for you! I will just give you a couple things to think about re math. In Singapore they don't start 1a/1b until age 7! Also, any help given on the placement tests can altered the result. (How you are not supposed to help a young one, I don't know!!)

Anyway, my personal experience now that my dd7 is in 1b, yes some of it was very easy for her and some was not. But overall I feel she is challenged in math but she LOVES it. Yes she could have done some of it a couple years ago when she was 5 but some would have be too difficult. Right now we are learning multiplication!!!

Math in general gets hard quick enough, my thinking was to help her love it now and build confidence. If you decide to do 1a/1b be sure to get the Beyond manual for Carries hands on activities, they are what's made math fun!

I also agree with pp that the k science will match up with the activites better so no reason to rush that one. For my ds4 I have purchased LHFHG that we will start in fall after he turns 5, I got the k package but in addition got the 1 grade thinking skills book. HTH

I understand now I think it sounds like LHFHG is a great option. I, personally, think she'd be fine with the 1st grade Thinking Skills. As far as reading goes, you could start her on the Emergent Readers list, and see how it goes. Start with the easier Bible recommendation, and see how she does with it! If it's too much, drop back to The Reading Lesson. That's what we did with my son in 1st grade, coming home from public school. The ER's were too much, so we did The Reading Lesson. Like pp said, we also flew through the beginning of the book, and slowed down when it got to be too much.

I decided when we did LHFHG to completely skip the science all toegether. I just didn't see the need for formal sci in 1st grade, and I was really needing to economize as much as possible. So, I can't advise you on that one from experience . They've been fine for science as we've moved on. I have heard others really say that they like the K science option much better than the 1st grade (because of those activity boxes that correspond!)

Now, as far as your other question on what to do next year if she completes 1st grade stuff with LHFHG this year-move on to the next guide. Beyond will likely be fine for her after she's done LHFHG. The only concern with that really arises the following year, when Bigger is a pretty heavy guide for the typical 2nd grader. You could slow to half speed, either now in LHFHG or next year in Beyond...another option you may consider is moving to a 4 day school week-that would stretch these first few guides until she's able to handle the work load in Bigger.

I am in the same boat! My catalog has options circled, star'd, crossed out. I think I have made up my mind and then change it. My son is 5.5. He is probably ready for 1st grade, but I also don't want to rush.. and I want to be able to use what is already incorporated into the guide, which is K math and science. I think I will just get and do the early bird math (we already do K math workbooks), it will just be review I suppose. It will be our first "official" year of homeschool next year, so I guess it will be alright to just take it easy and lay solid foundations... plus there are the activities written into the guide for math.

I guess I was just looking TOO forward to homeschooling him and jumped the gun in what was our "preschool years" and did too much teachin'. LoL.

So like bethelmommy suggested, currently what I am considering is:
Thinking skills grade 1, family time bible, a reason for handwriting A, the reading lesson, science the world god made K, and earlybird kindergarten math.

Just this morning I bought singapore's level 1 books... but I will try not to do them until we get to"beyond little hearts" since they are already written into that guide! Ah!
I went to our homeschool group's book sale and there they were, for $2 a piece... textbooks and workbooks.

All this past year I actually mistakenly thought children started K when they turned 5. Then when I joined our local hs group I learned the age for K was usually 6. Oops. So that is why my lil man. Is a little advanced for some of the K options. But we'll make it work.

Aaaaaall that to say is I enjoyed this thread and I am in the same place you are in trying to choosr between k and 1st.
}+

I think if I were you, I'd go with the K math that's planned in LHFHG. It is pretty basic, and may not seem incredibly challenging every day, but it really lays such a solid foundation. When Garret (my now 6 year old) was 3, he tagged along with his older sister in LHFHG during our days. He is very math-minded and loved the activities in LHFHG. He didn't use the workbook that year, but I know that he understood each and every concept. He just turned 6 this week, and has used LHFHG for his K year, and we have been doing the math with LHFHG (even though he already understood all of it 2 years ago). Having seen the progression in Singapore with his older siblings, I know that the concepts will get more challenging quickly enough. He is enjoying it and thinking, and I'm happy with that.

I know that I probably would have been tempted to think it was too easy or that I needed to push more if he were my 1st though. I have gained some wisdom from others...and my own mistakes...along the way. I know that for K, there are many new things that kids are learning to do. Converting sounds to letters in writing and reading, writing down thoughts (in storytime weekly), writing numbers, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, listening, narrating, etc. Each and every box in the guide is not meant to be a challenge every day. Some new things will be challenging, and that will vary from child to child as to what's more difficult. Other boxes will still require thought, but not be the most challenging thing in the day. So, it's ok of the math makes her think, but isn't a big challenge this year. It will help give her a solid foundation for the next year. Now, I'm not saying that you can't use the 1A, 1B books, but just thought I'd share the perspective I've gained a ways down the track with my kids. We love HOD! And, my math-loving little guy is talking about figuring things out all the time in real life. He's solving problems, dividing things, seeing patterns...

Kathleen

If you google rod and staff, you should find the website that has samples for the do it carefully and finding the answers. They are part of their K curriculum of A-G series workbooks. You will want to look at books D and F. Not sure where to find the 1st grade thinking skills book. We've been happy with the Rod and Staff books and they do increase in difficulty.

If you are leaning towards all K, you can always move faster than scheduled with those subjects if your dd is gung-ho and add in 1st grade resources later if she completes the K stuff early. Since I am combining my oldest two who are 18 months apart, we only do LHFHG 4 days a week, but ds does the 3R's 5 days a week. This allows him to move ahead at a pace that keeps him challenged without forcing dd to move too fast through the guides. I think you will find HOD very flexible and do not think you will be disappointed whichever options you choose.

I think you will enjoy the Reading Lesson. My kids have loved it and I can't wait to do it again with the youngest in a few years. I thought it was a great program. I started my oldest at 5 in LHFHG with earlybird math and K handwriting. We started with the 1st grade science readings but eventually bought the k level book as it goes along with the activities better. My son whizzed through the earlybird math and started 1st grade math that year. That's the beauty of homeschooling, you can go at your daughter's pace and speed up when it suits her and slow down to stretch it out if it gets difficult.

We did both the Rod & Staff workbooks and the Thinking skills books. I liked them both. We continued with the Thinking Skills series for several years because we enjoyed it so much.

Have you thought about doing LHFHG half speed except doing the Fine Motor SKills and Math at full speed? That means, doing half of all the other boxes (other than fine motor skills and math) every other day but doing FMS and Math every day? That way she'll still go through those books, but quicker than the history and everything.

As far as reading... We don't do phonics. My 5yo is seemingly at the level your dd is with reading, and she is not ready for the ERs yet. About once a month I'll have her try to start reading the Beginners Bible or Frog and Toad... if I have to help her figure out more than one or two words per page I know she's not ready. My 7yo is a pretty fluent reader, but she's excelling so much with the ERs... they are way more than teaching reading, they teach them to think about the books in a way that gets them ready for DITHOR. If the child is struggling to read the books to themselves with no help, then it's way way harder for them to be able to do the questions. Plus the questions are in the back of Beyond So with starting them in a guide at the early end of the age range, I like to just go with what's in the guide. For my 5yo we are getting easy readers from the library to build her confidence and ability. I'm slowly going from books like "Word Bird" where there is a word or two per page to level 1 readers with a couple of sentences per page. I'll start her with the ERs when the 7yo gets done with them and moves on to DITHOR in the fall if she's ready then. If not we'll keep doing what we are doing.

My reason for saying to do the math in LHFHG is because the hands on things are really fun You CAN do them even with doing the 1A math, but it doesn't flow as well. My kids get math pretty well.... we are a mathy/science family. They understand the idea of math early on.... but Singapore math is a different style. Doing the K math before moving into 1A gets them going and understanding the workbook stuff. My child who didn't do the K math, I felt it was necessary to review 1A and 1B when she got done... so we would take a few weeks off of HOD when she finished each math book, do some unit studies, and quickly go through the math books again. We don't have to do that any more, but basically I spent the same amount of time and energy as I would have to just use the K math and go through it a bit quicker.

And just so you can see it, I'll put down my schedule for half speed LHFHG with full speed FMS (we are still doing half speed math because I just want to keep it with the guide completely. If you do full speed math you'd just have math on both days).... I'll call them A and B and I just alternate. I keep a tab in the book where we are with history and another tab where we are with FMS.

A:
Reading About History
Bible Study
Rhymes in Motion
Fine Motor Skills

B:
Rotating Box (science, art, whatever else)
Storytime
Rhymes in Motion
Math
FMS

I am in the same boat as you. I actually started with LHTH though and added K options with Do It Carefully, Finding the Answers and A Reason for Handwriting. My daughter loved the workbooks at first (and she still does to some extent), but when she got to some pages that she couldn't just color, she said, "These are too easy." She basically just liked being able to color them. Though that was in the Do It Carefully workbook. I think the Finding the Answers would be a little more challenging as I see many activities with "what colors rhyme with the objects." But, there is a lot of "what is the order of each story?" with putting pictures in the correct order of what happens first, second, third, etc. And there are also activities such as "What will Hannah use when it is very warm? Place it to the left of the sun." The child then finds a picture of a fan. So, this helps with words such as right, left, between, below, etc. I hope that helps with a better description of some of the activities in the book. If your child is able to do the activities that are typical in the younger Highlights magazines, Pre-K God's World News (if you've seen those) and such, I think you would probably want to go with the 1st grade option. Though, I haven't actually seen it yet, but I am seeing that the K option workbooks are too easy for my 5.5 yo.

I have found that adding even the K options to LHTH was too easy for her. I also found the Bible in LHTH to be way too easy. That being said, I am moving my 5.5 yo up to LHFHG now as soon as I can order the guide. I am going to purchase the 1st grade option for Thinking Skills. And I am also thinking I will go with the older Bible. My daughter has The Beginner's Bible, and she understands it very well, so that is why I think I am going to go with the older option on the Bible. For picking a Bible, I would recommend going to Amazon and viewing sample pages of each Bible from Amazon to see which one fits your daughter best.

As for Handwriting, I have the K option to also teach her how to write the letters more on lined paper. She LOVES to write though as she is constantly asking me how to spell things, so based on that, I am thinking I should have just purchased the Handwriting option for 1st grade. The K option truly teaches how to draw circles and lines for the first few lessons and then moves on to letter formation for each letter. For each letter/lesson, they write approximately 16 of the same letter on the page for that lesson with a picture of something to color on the back (such as an octopus for the letter o). They are not copying any verses or words at this point. It strictly focuses on writing each letter on lined paper with the pictures to help the child remember the sounds for each letter. If your daughter likes to write words and sentences, I think I would go with the 1st grade handwriting option.

For math, I know some things in LHFHG will be easy for my daughter, BUT I am thinking I will order LHFHG now and see what I think at this point. You can print a table of contents from the website for LHFHG and BLHFHG to see what math subjects are covered. For my daughter, I will start her appropriately in the LHFHG guide (for example, I may start on week 4 or possibly even later since she already knows how to write her #'s), I will buy the next guide up to have the activities to go along with the 1st grade options (from LHFHG) at that point later on if she progresses faster than the 34 weeks (if that makes sense). I think it is just a matter of determining whether or not you want to purchase the Singapore K workbook right away to go along with the LHFHG guide. I understand that the Singapore guide isn't necessarily needed. I will probably buy the workbook since my daughter loves workbooks, but this is obviously a personal and financial choice. Looking through the Math Exploration from the LHFHG guide, I can see that we personally haven't worked very much on "combinations that make '6-'9" or "time." So, I think LHFHG K math is probably best for her to get started.

I hope giving you some thoughts on what I am planning to do and why will help. My daughter is 5.5 yo, but if I had known better, I would have done the same things 6 months ago!

Also...I forgot to mention...but, I think I am going to purchase both the K and 1st grade option for science as well. My daughter loves to read, and since the K science book is detailed in the guide, I would prefer to use that one and then just supplement with the 1st grade option if she's interested.

Please let me know if you have any more specific questions.