heartofdakota.com

Hi everyone~!

Let me first introduce myself. I'm Tiffanie, live in Orlando, Florida. I have two boys (will be in first grade and another one that is eligable for kindergarten, but have decided to hold him back and give him another year before it really counts). My oldest son went to a christian private school this year, but felt the Lord calling me to homeschool them both for this year.

I went to the Homeschool Conference this year at Shingle Creek here in Orlando and I came away inspired, excited, and confused. What I thought was going to be my curriculum soon became very clear that it wasn't for us.

Since the Conference ended I have been a nutcase on the computer, talking to friends, etc. searching for the perfect one. Nothing got me excited until I stumbled across this one!! I love it and think it is awesome.

I wanted something that has a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

I LOVE LOVE all the classic and boy related books, oh yummy, can't wait to dive into those!!!

Now here are my questions:

1. My oldest son can read, not crazy big words but he is pretty proficient at level one readers. So I really think he is ready for the Beyond Little Hearts. Plus I don't like that the Little Hearts one doesn't have all the rich literature that the next level has. Is this thought process correct?

2. My almost 5 year old that I am holding back, knows his letter sounds, but hasn't been introduced to any phonics program yet...planning on starting that soon. But I just wanted him to follow along with his brother instead of me trying to juggle two different books. Is this possible or will he be bored??

3. The math. I was going to go with Saxon Math (I already purchased it a while back) but am not stuck with it if we think we should change. Everything I've read about Singapore is that it;s a mastery program and I think my son would do better with good review. He is good with simple math, but I really don't know his learning style yet, nor his strengths and weaknesses since he was traditionally schooled last year. I'm hoping to find this out this year. What do you think about Saxon vs. Singapore, and how it relates to learning styles, etc...

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions. I love the support that this board provides and look forward to getting to know you all!

PS...Mama Mary...I stumbled across your blog and noticed you were at the convention. I was at one of Dave Weber's workshops...wasn't he awesome! Sorry I missed out on your's though...it was one of mine that I had circled, but unfortunately I went to another one. There were just too many good choices at the same time!!!

Hi Tiffanie and Welcome!

First off, for your older son--have you checked out the placement chart? http://www.heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php

My son is in almost the same place as your older boy. I had planned on working over the summer to get him up to the emergent reader level so we could start Beyond in the fall, but the more I thought about it, the more I didn't want to miss out on Little Hearts, especially since my son's attention span isn't where it would need to be for Beyond yet. So we're going with Little Hearts to prepare him for the work he would be doing for the next level. We started as soon as Little Hearts arrived on my doorstep and hopefully will be ready to start Beyond after Christmas. So far my son is loving the stories in LHFHG--the Burgess books have been the biggest surprise for me, since I knew he wasn't ready for them yet. Ds can't wait to find out what is going on with Reddy and Granny Fox next. I have copies of some Burgess books my parents read to me as a child, and I used these with my older two kids when they were a bit older. For me, they are classic and much more complex read alouds than what my son was used to. (In fact, since he's been enjoying them so much, I bought The Animal Book and Bird Book by the same author, plus about six other similar story books from days gone by written by another author when I was at a small local homeschool convention.) We are still working on getting him up to speed on these books through using Carrie's key points as questions for him after our reading. He's coming along. I've seen great growth over the last month.

I think your idea to keep the boys together is a good one--less work for you. My concern for the younger one is that Beyond might be too far.....well, beyond him--at least for the history readings. It's far easier to beef something up for a more advanced child than it is to slow a too difficult program down.

About the math--Carrie hasn't written in stone the math that you should be doing with your children. If Saxon works for you, don't change it. If you try it, and find that it doesn't, then maybe check out Singapore. What is nice is that she has included the hands-on stuff up through Singapore 3a/3b, I believe, so there is no need to purchase the textbooks--unless you are out of sync with the math in a particular guide. I used Saxon years ago with my older two--but never the K-3 levels, so I'm of no help there.

I hope I've added some food for thought, but haven't muddied the waters further for you.

If you want to put them both in the same program, it is easier to beef up a program for the older than to water one down for the younger. You could put them both in LHFHG.

There are additional readalouds in the appendix of LHFHG. They are not the big books that are in Beyond, but Carrie has several readalouds on the list for each unit. I was able to get most of them when my son was in LHFHG through ILL. It was a very full year and we did the program for 1st grade. We have now done Beyond for 2nd grade and are getting ready to do Bigger for 3rd.

If you desire to keep them together and start with LHFHG, your younger should be ready to move to Beyond next year with the older, and then they'd both be ready to move to Bigger.

If you start your younger in Beyond it might be over his head based on what you've said.

However, I forgot to start with my usual question, have you placed your children on the placement chart here:
http://www.heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php

netpea wrote:There are additional readalouds in the appendix of LHFHG. They are not the big books that are in Beyond, but Carrie has several readalouds on the list for each unit. I was able to get most of them when my son was in LHFHG through ILL. It was a very full year and we did the program for 1st grade. We have now done Beyond for 2nd grade and are getting ready to do Bigger for 3rd.

I keep forgetting about these. Thanks for the reminder, Lee Ann!

netpea wrote:If you desire to keep them together and start with LHFHG, your younger should be ready to move to Beyond next year with the older, and then they'd both be ready to move to Bigger.

If you start your younger in Beyond it might be over his head based on what you've said.

I agree--this looks like a wonderful idea! Well said.

Hello Tiffanie and welcome! This is a great group and it sure is exciting to begin homeschooling, isn't it?

Thanks Ladies for taking the time to reply.

I have looked at the placement and this is were he falls:

reading...he is an emerging reader, but still needs some phonics work so he's in the middle of the two. I have been working with him just this week and he's already improved. The one on one is going to do wonders for him!

writing...he has great penmanship, already copies and writes sentences so he's definitely in the "beyond side"

grammer...beyond side

math...beyond side

I noticed from the glance at a week that the Little hearts one does't have vocabulary or spelling words...this is something he was doing in kindergarden and would like to continue this. Do they have it and I just missed it?

No--no spelling words in LHFHG. Something I do with my son is dictate a word to him--brush, for example. Then he writes it out as he sounds the word out. Pretty basic dictation, but really good for the spelling skills. We'll continue to do this or copywork of sentences from his readers until we reach spelling in a HOD guide.

Grammar and spelling start in Beyond. Sounds to me like your older is ready for Beyond in LA and math.

you can do most of LHFHG together and just do Beyond for LA and math with your older.

I did most of Beyond with my son this year, but we did the math from Bigger. It is not hard to flip between the two manuals.

You wouldn't keep juggling two manuals forever because after completing Singapore 2a/2B, there are no more hands on activities and you would just follow a normal pace in the math books. Also Beyond has dictation in it for those who finish spelling. So if you did LHFGH this year and did LA from Beyond, the next year you could do the dictation part of the LA in Beyond.

Did that make sense or did I just confuse you???

Another thought for LA, you could just get him A reason for Handwriting A and then do spelling separately.

From what I read, I'm thinking LHFHG for both. Going up to the appropriate handwriting level, emerging readers, and if you want, adding spelling/vocab from readers. Your son can learn a lot of spelling and vocab from reading w/ out doing anything formal. So maybe you won't have to add it after you see how much they soak in!

another thought for you. Do Beyond with your older son and Little Hands with your younger. It sounds like your older really does fit into Beyond quite nicely. And you said that you are planning to "hold back" your younger son so Little Hand might be perfect for him. Little Hands only takes about 30 mins a day and I know my older son still enjoys some of the activites. You can also add in a phonics program for your 5 year old if you wish.

I will be doing Beyond and Little Hearts for this next school year.

As many others have said, combining both of your sons in Little Hearts seems to be a great plan. You could always supplement the older son with the extra readers listed in the back of LHFHG to beef it up if you feel you need to. Before I ordered LHFHG, I didn't realize that the wonderful list of books that complement the history is listed in the appendix. You might want to do the Learning through History with both sons and then let the younger son do the Learning the Basics in LHFHG. Then use the LHFHG story time with both of them. You could use the emerging readers and language arts from Beyond for your older son.

I am going to be doing a similar combination for my twins this year. I didn't want to miss out on the wonderful overview of history that LHFHG has or the wonderful Burgess books in story time. Both of my dc place in Beyond as far as skills go so I'm doing the Learning through History and Story Time in LHFHG and the language arts and math in Beyond.

As far as math, I'm not that familiar with Saxon but I know that Singapore follows the concrete, pictoral, abstract flow of learning and the math explorations that Carrie does really do a great job of enforcing the concrete learning phase. I think the books in Singapore especially appeal to visual learners. The way HOD is set up though you can easily use any math program you want. Even though I am still going to incorporate some of the Miquon math that I've been using for the last year, I'm going to use Carrie's math explorations and some of the Singapore books as well.

I'm so happy for you that you've found HOD and are so close to figuring out your plan for next year. When I went to my local home school conference last year, I left more confused and torn than ever. I so wish that I had found HOD when I started, but God had other plans. He used this last year to grow me and help learn to lean on Him in everything especially my home school. You are off to great start having found HOD!

mom2boys030507 wrote:another thought for you. Do Beyond with your older son and Little Hands with your younger. It sounds like your older really does fit into Beyond quite nicely. And you said that you are planning to "hold back" your younger son so Little Hand might be perfect for him. Little Hands only takes about 30 mins a day and I know my older son still enjoys some of the activites. You can also add in a phonics program for your 5 year old if you wish.

I will be doing Beyond and Little Hearts for this next school year.

I'm liking this idea, since he placed in Beyond... according to the placement chart. I think the placement chart is accurate and a good measure to go by, rather than just age. I also like Karen's idea here of doing LHTH with the youngest. When I was doing Beyond..., I also did LHTH for my younger son at that time, and it was just enough to keep him happy and satisfied. He liked the time he had just with me doing LHTH (and it only took 20-30 minutes of my time). He was then very happy to go off and play for awhile while I did more of Beyond... with my older son.

So, what are you thinking about all this now? Because only you know what's really best for your dc, and we all just want to help you get to that peaceful feeling you get when you know what's a "fit" for your family. We're so glad you are here, and welcome to the HOD boards! I'll be doing Beyond... next year too, so we'll have to share happy moments together here, and if you decide to do LHFHG instead, share those memories too please. I'm on the tail end of LHFHG, and I'll be missing it soon!

In Christ,
Julie

thank you so much for all your replies!!! I'm still not sure what I should do but I'm thinking of buying both books so that I can more closely evaluate which would be better. The curriculum is so well priced that it just makes sense to look at them both. However of I did LH how could I do the LA with beyond since doesn't beyond relate I'd back to the story they are e
they are reading?

One other thing. My youngest loves to sit and listen to chapter books so in thinking he won't be terribly board with beynd???

Ahhhhh this is such a tough decision buy I'm so glad that I get the opportunity to make it! If u would have asked me a year ago or even a few months ago if I was going to homeschool my kids I would have said you are crazy. Now I couldn't even imagine doing anything but.... I'm soooooooo excited!

tiffanieh wrote:thank you so much for all your replies!!! I'm still not sure what I should do but I'm thinking of buying both books so that I can more closely evaluate which would be better. The curriculum is so well priced that it just makes sense to look at them both. However of I did LH how could I do the LA with beyond since doesn't beyond relate I'd back to the story they are e
they are reading?

One other thing. My youngest loves to sit and listen to chapter books so in thinking he won't be terribly board with beynd???

Ahhhhh this is such a tough decision buy I'm so glad that I get the opportunity to make it! If u would have asked me a year ago or even a few months ago if I was going to homeschool my kids I would have said you are crazy. Now I couldn't even imagine doing anything but.... I'm soooooooo excited!

Looking at both guides is a good idea. There are always 2 sides to the plans in all of the HOD guides. The left side is "Learning through History", and the right side is "Learning the Basics". The "Learning the Basics" side has all of the LA and math. So, what moms are saying here I think, is that you could do the "Learning through History" side of LHFHG with both of the children, and the "Learning the Basics" side of Beyond with your older child.

Whatever you do, I want to reassure you that there is nothing boring about any of the HOD programs. The readings are done in bite-sized increments with wonderful activities that help you to savor each of them. If you get a chance to check out the Weekly Check-in, that has some good examples of what I'm trying to say. Trust me, it's FUN doing school this way! No more sitting for long periods of time just listening or just working on workbook after workbook - HOD has so much more to offer than that, and I just know you will love it! I'm so excited for you to begin your homeschooling with your dc. We began homeschooling 4 years ago and haven't looked back - but I remember how exciting it was to begin just like it was yesterday. Maybe we need homeschool anniversaries just like we have wedding anniversaries? Anyway, keep on posting here. You won't find a wiser bunch of faith-filled ladies than here at the HOD board.

In Christ,
Julie