heartofdakota.com

Hello,

I've just signed up, and so, should introduce myself. I have 4 children left at home, grades 5, 8, 10, and 11 this fall. I'm considering HOD for the coming school year, possibly using one program with additional resources added in. I've been reading lots of posts on here lately, but still have a few questions, which I'll post separately, as they are on different topics.

My first question is: Can the storytime or extension books double for DITHOR? Otherwise, we would be looking at reading the books from the Economy pkg., a read-aloud time using the Basic Pkg., read-alone time using the Extension Pkg., then more read-alone using a DITHOR pkg. Perhaps the children using the Extension Pkg. would not also need the DITHOR pkg. My children and I love to read, but I'm not sure how long all of that reading would take.

Welcome! You wouldn't want to use the storytime books for DITHOR. They are meant to be read aloud and have other purposes in the program often enhancing the history time period and usually helping dc work on narration skills.

The extension books are meant to extend the learning for an older child using the program with a younger sibling. So if they are using the extension books, it is assumed they need the additional reading to increase the level of the program for them. If the extension reading would be too much with the reading and lessons from DITHOR then they don't need the extensions. In some cases the extension books would fit into the correct genre for DITHOR and could be used as reading choices for it, but then you would just be using it for DITHOR and not really as an extension. Does that make sense? Usually every genre isn't covered in the extension books either so just using the extension package for DITHOR generally won't work.

I know that can seem like a lot of reading in a day, but really it isn't as much as it seems up front. The reading for each one of those areas is kept fairly short each day (15-25 minutes depending on level), so it really isn't that time consuming. I hope that helps a little.

Thanks for your help on that, Patti. It sounds like it's all pretty flexible.