heartofdakota.com

Hello Everyone,
I just joined the board and thought I should introduce myself. I'm Patti and have been married to a terrific man for 24 years. We have two children a son who is 16 and daughter who will turn 11 on Thursday. I homeschooled my son through his 8th grade year and then he went on to public high school. I am still homeschooling my daughter and hope to continue through high school, but I'm not certain at this point. We will at least have her home through 8th grade like her brother. I have used a variety of curriculum over the years, but I am really in need of something that pulls it all together for me. HOD looks fantastic! I really wish I would have found this sooner.
My question is regarding placement for my dd. She wil be a 6th grader next year and I was all set to put her in CTC, but after reading some of the posts I'm not sure. She is a very good reader and will have no trouble doing DITHOR Level 4/5 in fact we did a little of this during the year. She will be able to do R & S English 5 with no problems. We have been doing Winston Grammar this year so she is familiar with parts of speech. We did basic diagramming last year and she had no problems with that. I have done dictation off and on over the years, but nothing consistent. She always did fairly well with dictation , but we only ever did 1 or 2 sentences. She knows how to form all of her cursive letters and she can copy something that is written in cursive easily, but is slow when going from manuscript to cursive. The last thing is her writing and this is where I'm not sure she is ready. It says in the placement "can write a short narration and do some creative writing". Her writing is good one time and not so good the next, and she only writes about a 3 sentence narration. She likes to write her own stories, but her technical skills are weak. She has run on sentences and needs work on punctuation. So my question is: Will CTC ease her in enough that we can strengthen these areas as we go? I hate to get her in over her head, but I do not want to hold her back and make her bored either. I am hesitant to put her in Preparing because she wasn't that fond of CHOW when I tried to read it to her a year ago and some of the books look a bit young for her. I would appreciate any thoughts and encouragement you may have. Thank you for reading all of my long rambling! Blessings.

I don't have answers for you as I have not done CtC yet, but just wanted to welcome you to HOD and the board!!! You'll LOVE your year with HOD!

I don't have advice for you either but Welcome to the boards. The ladies here are very helpful!

Thank you Tiffanie and Lee Ann! All of the packages look gorgeous! I can't wait to order and get all of those wonderful books.

I've read the details on your post several times. I think CTC is a good fit. I have one in Preparing and one in CTC currently. It sounds like the area you are most concerned about is her written narration, but you'll be working with her on that and I imagine she'll blossom quite quickly, especially since her reading comprehension is so strong. As far as technical skills are concerned there is a list of skills in the back of the guide and you can just begin where she is and work down the list. The dictation level is not a concern, because you can put her wherever she places best independent of the guide level. The Rod and Staff level indicates she is on-track, so I would got with CTC. It's a meaty guide, but you'll have a lot to work on. As far as cursive is concerned she will have the opportunity to write in cursive on a regular basis, so just the practice will help her develop that ability to go from manuscript to cursive. It will be great!

Deltagal did such a great job of answering your questions that I will just whole-heartedly agree and welcome you to the boards! I think you will enjoy CTC so much. I cannot imagine teaching the ancients any other way! Did you have any other questions? If you click on the CTC guide, a light bulb with "Helpful Tips on How to Order" will come up in the top right hand corner. You can click on that and it will walk you through the order process. HTH - looking forward to getting to know you here!

In Christ,
Julie

Thank you Florence and Julie for helping me to decide. I think we will have a fantastic year with HOD! Now that I know which one to order (CTC), I would love to just order it and start, but daughter seems to think she wants a summer break. So I just have to be patient and wait until the fall.

Thanks again everyone!