heartofdakota.com

I was very pleased with what I received in the mail. The teacher guide book is very easy to follow. My daughter immediately sat down and flipped page by page through her new Bible and ABC verses. We also sat down and listened to the first cd in the Singing Bible. It is excellent.

I am concerned that this program won't be enough for Emma academically. Now before you shoot me (I know she is only 4), I know she will love the drama, active exploration, Bible and music. I also believe she will like the Letter and Math concepts, but my concern is that this past year, we have done much more intensive work on letters and numbers and that she'll be almost starting at ground zero and I wanted to keep moving her forward. Like I said, I like this program and we'll all love doing it. But I believe I am going to have to supplement more than I thought to challenge her inquisitive mind.

Anybody else had to supplement LHTH with a child who functions more at a K level intellectually but you didn't want to miss out on a solid preschool curriculum? What did you do? I am already planning on doing Handwriting without Tears (preschool edition) with her.

Ok, but then my other fear is that if I supplement too much I might as well just get Little Hearts for His Glory.

Thanks.

Welcome Jessi,

Here are my thoughts. Start the program as it is written. Give it a month or more. I am sure you naturally read and do other projects with your dd. This will be enough. If you find that she is still not challenged then I would consider adding a phonics program or animal studies - reading and focused art projects. I think you will find there is more in the book then meets the eye. I know that is what has happened for me with Little Hearts.

I will be starting Little Hands later in the summer with my 3 year old only because he begs to do school with big brother everyday.

Karen

I was in the same boat as you with my 4 yr old DD. We did LHTH at an accelerated speed (generally 2 units a week). Then we moved into LHFHG after about 2 months. We used it as a good review of the letters and their sounds and for the great Bible stories and activities. She was definately ready for LHFHG on the placement chart and we're on week 6 and doing great. Maybe that would be an option for you.

Hi Jessi!
I have a 4.5 yr old ds who is already starting to read and we've add the ETC A/B/C books to go along with the letter that we're doing for the unit. I had also gotten ARFH K, but found that there's enough handwriting practice in the ETC books for now so we've put that aside for a while. I do those with him in place of the flashcards and letter-tracing activities. We are also learning sign language for the letter that we're on each week. We have some KUMON number books and LLFLO that we work on a few times a week if we want to. I've recently purchased the Burgess Bird Book for Children and Seashore Book for Children and we've started reading a few pages before nap time. I figure that will help get him prepared for listening to the Burgess books in LHFHG when the time comes. I have him read Bob books to me also. I think that's about it. It probably sounds like a lot more than it is b/c we do most of these "extra" things only once or twice a week. I do want to add that my ds just LOVES LHTH. Even the things that you might think he is "beyond" b/c he knows the letter, he still enjoys from "another angle". For example, each week your dc will glue something (cotton balls, cereal, beans) onto the letter for that week. At first I thought ds would be beyond that, but he likes working with the glue - for him it's like an art project and helps him work on fine motor skills. As everyone always says, the HOD programs are much "deeper" than they appear at first glance.
Hope this helps out a little.

Thank you for your replies. I will start out as I had originally planned with just LHTH and Handwriting without Tears. If it appears that she is wanting to do more than we are doing and retaining everything, then I will look into combining 2 units a week. That is a great idea!

See this past year we learned 3 letters a week and my daughter had no trouble picking them all up, plus learning all their sounds and writing her name. She'll hear a word and say "oh that starts with <insert whatever letter is right>". She can count comfortably to 20 and recognizes up to 20 as well. She is capable of doing simple addition.

She knows all her shapes and colors. We have lots of games for those that we play constantly. She wants to read badly and likes to retell stories to me in her own words. I am planning on teaching her with 100 Easy Lessons this summer (but going much more slowly).

She is left handed so scissors are posing a real problem for her as she holds the paper backward from what most people do and when I am showing her how to write, I write it with my left hand, so she sees how it should look because she has a tendency to write some letters backwards. Those are her real trouble areas.

I'll trust that LHTH is "beefier" than it looks. I am really excited to do it!! But there is a great possibility that I'll be starting LHFHG sooner than I expected.

Hi Jessi! I just wanted to say that we double-timed LHTH for a portion of time with one of our children, a session in the morning and a session in the afternoon, and that worked great! Then, we just started LHFHG after that.

In Christ,
Julie