heartofdakota.com

Hi, I am just starting HOD this year in BHFHG and also DITHOR. I am wondering if anyone has a preference over doing the activity in the DITHOR guide vs. the book projects to send home?

Another question....do you think that it is better to spread one book over the 20 days? Do you feel that your child has missed out anything meaningful reading more books in the 20 day time frame? And if you used more than one book...do you keep on the 20 day cycle? Thanks for any feedback!

We have used both the activities in the guide and the take home projects book. We have enjoyed both. I think it's nice to mix it up and have a blend of both types of activities over the year. My kids, especially my dd, likes crafty things so she tends to like the book projects since they tend to be more crafty, but we still mix it up and do a little of each to keep some balance in our year.

I prefer having one book to read for the genre as opposed to one or more. We have done it both ways and sometimes it has just worked out that we wanted to read 2 shorter books. I think some of the activities work better with one book. It's easier to dig deeper on a longer more involved book most of the time as well. More than anything, I think it is nice to just live with a book for a while. I think that was CM's philosophy to allow children to slowly work their way through the book so they become involved with the characters and settings. They develop a relationship with the book when they live with a book for a while. I think when we read through books too quickly we lose some of that intimacy with the book. Of course some books are just shorter, especially at the lower reading levels, and so with those sometimes 2 books are necessary to cover the 15 days of reading. My preference now though is I like selecting one, longer book for the 15 days of reading.

Thanks so much! That was very helpful!!