heartofdakota.com

I am so happy that God has led me to Heart of Dakota! This is exactly the Christian curriculum that I would like to use in teaching my children. I have picked out LHFHG for my 5 year old son upon completion of My Father's World kindergarten as he turns 6 late summer. Bigger will be a perfect fit for my just turned 8 year old daughter and we may even start in late April. My questions come in choosing a guide for my almost 12 year old daughter who will begin 7th grade in the fall.

My 11 year old daughter was our first to come home to school. She was my 4th child to attend public school but by first grade her love for math and reading were dismissed as she was in a holding pattern waiting for the class to catch up to her level so I brought her home. For the past five and a half years I have been teaching her with a public virtual school and we added in our own Bible lessons each morning. Her brother and sister joined her in the online school and until this year it felt like a good fit as they could work at their own speed. The online school has slowly become more and more like traditional public school and the demands have made for very long days schooling and Bible devotions were often shortened or even omitted just trying to keep up. I felt the Lord show me that it was time and we left this past January to begin our own homeschool. My 8 and 11 year old daughters are currently working on My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures. While the curriculum seems very thorough, I need a little more hand holding with my confidence in teaching and I have found just what I need in the guides of HOD.

My 11 year old has been working on a mixture of 6th and 7th grade classes as she worked ahead in Math and Literature. She is a very bright student and is finishing Pre-Algebra and will start on Algebra sometime this fall. She has just completed nearly 2 full years of American History and it has been a long time since she has studied ancient history so I would love to have her start with HOD Creation to Christ. She completed more than half of her very demanding Physical Science course this year and while she enjoys science, she is asking for something a little easier. Her Physical Science course threw her even into Chemistry without enough explanation so she had become frustrated. Her love for reading and creative writing has brought her to quite an advanced level in Literature and Language Arts. Yet, she does much of her work on the computer so we are working on her cursive writing. It is a struggle for her to read cursive and needs a good review in writing with cursive.

While I'm quite sure she could handle a level above CTC, I would hate for her to miss out on a good study starting with Creation. She loves to draw, paint, and write so I am excited for her to switch over to Heart of Dakota. In looking over the science included with CTC, it may be easy for my daughter yet I think she would really enjoy the standard science. I had considered using the science from the next guide up to get her back to physical science sooner as she did not complete the course. I'm also confused about if she would need to skip one of the guides when she reaches high school. At least we have some time to decide that.

Carrie, thank you for making such a complete Christian curriculum! We can't wait to start this new journey. I hope to meet you at the Rochester, MN Homeschool Convention in April. Will you have packages available to purchase?

It has been so helpful reading over other discussions on this board and I hope to get to know many of you as we start our 3 guides!
Rebecca

Welcome to HOD!

We are finishing up our first year with HOD we couldn't be happier. It sounds like you are all set. Will you do any of the extensions with CTC? I will have a 12 dd in CTC in the fall. It looks fantastic. I think your dd will really enjoy it from what read about it.

Are you going to do Drawn Into the Heart of Reading? My older dd 's just love it, and my son would be included in their kick offs so he had just as much fun and he wasn't even doing the lit study yet. But next year he will.

Excited your here!
Blessings,
Stacey

Hi Stacey,
Thank you for the warm welcome! That's exciting that you will also have a 12 year old dd starting CTC this fall! We definately plan to do the extensions and will start dithor 7/8. I will also pick up Rod & Staff 5 or 6. I'm not really sure where to start her but she is a strong student with grammar. My daughter is using Thinkwell Pre-Algebra and she really likes it so we will continue. I just can't wait to get the guide and begin planning.

It would be fun to keep in touch as our daughters start CTC.

Rebecca

Hi Rebecca, and welcome to the HOD Board! I am wondering if you had a chance to check out the placement chart for your dd? I think CTC is an outstanding way to go about journeying through the ancients time period! You can certainly use DITHOR to challenge your dd's reading capabilities, and I'd probably choose R & S English 5 for grammar, as it is a foundational year and includes excellent writing skills as well. R & S English is very advanced, with R & S English 7 and 8 being high school credit worthy. For this reason, it is good to shoot for finishing R & S English 6 by the close of grade 8. Your dd would have no trouble doing that, so 5 would be a great place to start! I bet your dd would love the watercolor painting in CTC - it is such fun, and Tansy (on our board here) has neat tutorials for each one as well if that would be helpful. I also think your dd will enjoy the notebooking HOD has to offer. Every guide from CTC on up has a lovely notebook students complete much of their history work in, and it truly is a beautiful keepsake from the year. From what you've shared, your dd could possibly be ready to do Resurrection to Reformation. I am thinking that CTC will be enough of a challenge because of the increase in writing your dd will do (as opposed to typing), because of Write with the Best which is higher level, because of DITHOR, and because of the Charlotte Mason skills of oral and written narrations (which I am thinking may be new for your dd, but maybe I'm off here?). Being the avid reader that your dd is, she may really enjoy reading CTC's Extension Package, but that is not a must. If you do decide CTC is a good placement and decide to get the Extension Package, I'd probably just start off with her simply reading and enjoying those books using the checkoff schedule in the Appendix, as opposed to doing the follow-up assignments suggested at the start of the Appendix. I think she needs to just savor this year - and you too ! I am SOOOO excited you are going to get to use HOD with your dc! We are currently doing MTMM, CTC, and LHFHG with our dc and having a ball! Can't wait for you to get started!

In Christ,
Julie