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Okay, I have a question about DITHOR. I noticed that this is only scheduled for 3 days per week in Preparing (and I think Bigger and CTC). If that is so, and there are 9 literature studies, then it would appear it is not meant to be finished in a year. I calculated it out (9 literature genres x 15 days per genre = 135 days to complete; DITHOR is schedule 3 days per week x 35 weeks = 105 days worth of DITHOR). Basically, I am coming up short by 2 books (135 - 105 = 30 days and 30 days is equivalent to 2 books).

However, if I schedule it 4 days a week instead of 3, then I can get it done (4 x 35 = 140 days to complete it and it only takes 135 to do it).

So....is DITHOR meant to be completed in one year or not I guess if my first questions. And if so - how? We do actually school year around (somewhat) at my house and I have thought about just having my kids do it over the summer or just skip the written activities and enjoy the book. I personally kind of like the thought of getting a new set of lit books each year. And my kids do pretty much love the books anyway and will read ahead regularly because they like the books so much.

Thanks for your time.

From Preparing on up, as you already figured out, it is not intended to do a whole set (all the genres) of DITHOR in one school year. You could certainly rework your schedule or do summer school in order to finish it within the year if you want to. I don't see a big need to do that. If you look, the levels are 2/3 and 4/5/6 so think of how many times you are going through each of those student manuals and sets of activities if you would do that. Or some people even use DITHOR 4/5/6 for 7th and 8th grade lit with harder books of course.

If you do it as scheduled each round of DITHOR takes 1 1/3 school year to complete. You can do the genres in any order you choose and of course you could change the book selections if you find by the end of your time at one level the books you originally chose are now too easy. DITHOR is a wonderful program but it is also a lot of work and I just don't see a need to try to speed it up.

Its' technically 20 days per genre... because you have 15 days of reading and then 5 days of your end of genre project. So it takes four units of 5 day weeks to complete a genre. In Bigger ( I cant remember what's scheduled in Preparing) it's scheduled daily. So you'd be completing all 9 genres. In the older guides it's scheduled to do basically 5 one year and 4 the next (to get through all 9 genres before you start over)

I was struggling actually desiring to get DITHOR done because that extra time it added in per day really made it difficult for some reason. Like you we school year round... so this past summer I started a new routine. We do 4-6 units of the regular guides, then 3 weeks in DITHOR, math, grammar, and dictation.... the project week does overlap with their regular work, but the actual time required for DITHOR doesn't. This also allows me to skip math, grammar, and dictation on days in the regular guide when we need to speed it up a bit. We are really enjoying this schedule! It feels like you are having 3 week breaks every 6 weeks or so because there's so much less intensive work.

Whoops, you're right Lora Beth. I knew that seemed wrong somehow. 2 years to complete DITHR doing it 3 days a week. In Preparing it is scheduled 3 days a week.

Thank you ladies. We are actually skipping those last 5 days project this year. So that is why I based my calculations the way I did. But this makes a lot of sense. I guess as kids get through the program they end up skipping some of the book levels also. So I would do about half of the book sets. We are doing level 3 books this year. And once we get to the geography level, we will just do the literature as written for that level.

We LOVE the book projects. I bought "Book Projects to Take Home" and those projects are really fun. They have developed my daughter's presentation skills too. Just a little plug for that. I don't always take 5 days to do the project if she can get it done pretty quickly. Then some, like the diorama, she needed a lot of time even taking the 5 days.

Honestly, this year I felt a little overwhelmed. We actually came from a different curriculum company for school so this is my first time using HOD. I was eclectic originally but switched to MFW last year. Last year was great and so glad I switched to a company that lesson planned for me. This year we started again with them but I just didn't flow as well for my kids. By 7 weeks in I could tell it wasn't a good fit for us anymore so we ended up selling everything I bought on ebay and we purchased Preparing and Beyond to use instead. I had found this year - I needed to split my kids up because my oldest was at a much higher level than the younger ones. So - we decided on HOD. When I placed my order, I called HOD on the phone with a few questions but I didn't really get a chance to review it like I would at the convention (I know many people buy without that opportunity. I am so spoiled though and lucky that I have a convention near me and can see everything.) So I placed my order after asking the questions I thought I had at the time LOL.

Now we are 11 weeks in - and absolutely LOVING it! We have finally found a perfect fit for our family. But now as we work through I am finding more questions LOL. After reading your (both of you) previous comments I think I finally understand why the book lists are listed for 2 grade levels. It is because it is meant to be used for 2 years. I had ordered in Level 3 for my daughter who is in 4th grade because I was afraid that the 5th grade books in the level 4/5 list would be too hard and overwhelming for her this year. Oops. I should have ordered Level 4/5 and she could have done those books over 2 years instead of thinking we would be doing them over 1. I actually like most of those books a little bit more for her reading preferences in the girl 4/5 set. So after Christmas I usually buy some of the next years curriculum because that is where one of my extra paychecks falls (we get paid every other week so there are 26 paychecks but bills are based on 2 paychecks a month - 26-24=2 extra paychecks). I am ordering CTC and Bigger anyway and I think I am going to add in the girl 4/5 book set and that book Beyond the Book Report too. It does look a like a lot of fun. And I think my dd would really like it - plus I like the extra skills it will teach. Also, I am think we will just do only half of her DITHOR level 2/3 book this year. Next year I am still going to have her bump up to Level 4/5 book because she would be ready for it. I actually already own it because I ordered in both level 2/3 and then level 4/5 to see the difference. And she can finish level 4/5 with CTC and RTR. And then do level 6/7/8 with 7th and 8th grade.

So with Bigger, even though it states DITHOR can be done that year, did either of you do it over that year? I was thinking I would only do half of it for my youngers and save the other half for Preparing. They can do plenty of reading but I was just going to hold off on having them do the DITHOR activities each time so that we only do half. Plus, I know Bigger is schedule for 5 days week and if you do it only 4 days a week (like I plan to) is takes 1 1/3 years. Plus, I am not really sure when I am going to start Bigger. I eventually plan to split my 2 younger kids up because they are at different levels but was planning to wait until my oldest is in CTC to help me out a bit since Beyond, Bigger and Preparing are so teacher intensive. So my son (middle child) is going to have a little bit of a wacked out adjusted schedule that doesn't line up with the program at some point because he isn't going to finish one of the levels (either Bigger or Beyond). I know next year I am doing R&S 2 no matter what 4 days a week with him because he will need to finish that book prior to starting Preparing. And I am now planning to do DITHOR with him next year and do only 5 genres. Math is not a problem to adjust and neither is spelling. But I was just curious about the DITHOR. And as I wrote all this out - this is sounding more and more appealing to me anyway - only doing half of DITHOR next year with my son.

Thanks so much for the help.

I did start DITHOR when my oldest was in Bigger. She was past Emerging Readers and that's what it said to do next. But she needed a LOT of help with the activities in the workbook and answering the questions. I know a lot of people do it orally, or get the child's answers, write them on a whiteboard, and have the child copy it onto the workbook page. So she was quite capable of reading the Level 2 books and even talking about the story elements and the activities but could not compose and write well enough to do the pages on her own. She is just now starting to be able to do that.

Because I started DITHR with Bigger, but I did skip DITHR occasionally when I needed to, or if we were about to have a break and I didn't want to start another genre for DITHR before the break, she finished Bigger with 2 genres of DITHR not done. Our schedule on doing more DITHR is all messed up! After she finishes the first round of DITHR we will pick more books and start again with DITHR 2/3 so she can do most of the assignments on her own this time. I hope this will make it a lot easier on me!

I think it could be really good to just do reading for the first 1/2 of Bigger and then start DITHR. Or start it a little earlier than that, but try to finish 1/2 of it in the Bigger year. I still haven't decided about my 6.5 YO. She will finish Emerging Readers when she finishes Beyond but I don't know if I want to jump right into DITHR as quickly as I did with my oldest. And we still have some time to figure this out.

So glad to hear that HOD has been such a blessing for you! It sounds like you are really thinking through things well and figuring it out. It took me at least a couple of years to grow into the curriculum and understand it. HOD came to a HS conference near me the first year I started but they haven't been here since. Such a bummer! But I know they need to try to spend their time wisely and the conference here is pretty small compared to some.

That is kind of what I was thinking about Bigger too. Read and read and read some more and then maybe half way through next year start the DITHOR. I would get about 3-4 books done in it by then. There are a lot of skills needed for that DITHOR book.

And btw, I jumped online last night and ordered the Book Projects to Send Home book. I am also a little bit OCD, as my husband affectionately calls me, and I ended up typing up a spreadsheet with all of the books by level. Then I put together a tentative book schedule for each child that shows which book they will read for the DITHOR 3 levels and then which level that books will fall into with regards to the history and science levels. This way I could see which books we would order and when to make sure we covered each of the 9 genres in each level. Plus, I really wanted to make sure that I was able to pick out which books I think they would each enjoy most based on their personalities or the books I wanted them to read specifically. The scheduled turned out great IMHO and I think the kids will be ready for the books on it. I tried to attach it but I couldn't find a file type that it would allow. Oh well.

Thanks again.

That sounds great! I kind of wish I was that organized. I think you and your children will really enjoy it and learn a lot from it.

I also didn't completely use the book packs. I picked some from level 2 and some from level 3 for my daughter for this year. I didn't even buy the last few when we first started so I would be able to assess where she was at by the time we got there. And now I already have most of the girl interest 4/5 book pack for her to start after we finish these next two genres and start it over again.

MomtoJGJE wrote:I was struggling actually desiring to get DITHOR done because that extra time it added in per day really made it difficult for some reason. Like you we school year round... so this past summer I started a new routine. We do 4-6 units of the regular guides, then 3 weeks in DITHOR, math, grammar, and dictation.... the project week does overlap with their regular work, but the actual time required for DITHOR doesn't. This also allows me to skip math, grammar, and dictation on days in the regular guide when we need to speed it up a bit. We are really enjoying this schedule! It feels like you are having 3 week breaks every 6 weeks or so because there's so much less intensive work.

We're doing something really similar to Lora Beth this year, and really enjoying it! I did feel that my kids were not getting enough reading practice during the regular guide times, so I've added in books (without activities) from the suggested reading list; and then when it's DITHOR time we just choose another book to cover.

We are also able to do more fun things... or extra things... or however you want to put it. Like over the summer it actually just worked out that VBS and swim lessons were during those three weeks... so they were able to get their school DONE before those things, so after they were over they were DONE for the day. Now I planned it out so that they started DITHOR after T-giving until Christmas and we are doing a Jesse Tree lapbook and a Twelve Days of Christmas unit study/lapbook... and even with all that they are still done before 10am. I LOVE this schedule.

MomtoJGJE wrote:We are also able to do more fun things... or extra things... or however you want to put it. Like over the summer it actually just worked out that VBS and swim lessons were during those three weeks... so they were able to get their school DONE before those things, so after they were over they were DONE for the day. Now I planned it out so that they started DITHOR after T-giving until Christmas and we are doing a Jesse Tree lapbook and a Twelve Days of Christmas unit study/lapbook... and even with all that they are still done before 10am. I LOVE this schedule.

Those things sound so fun!!!

Daneale