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I am researching the possibility of making a switch from a similar program to HOD for various reasons. I have communicated with an HOD user on FB and she recommended I copy and paste my message to her on here. So, here goes....

Okay so I am overwhelmed. I have the HOD catalog and have been also looking at the website. I am still not sure what I will do, but something is just off with what we are currently using. I dislike the Usborne style books and really dislike streams of civilization. it feels light and my children have expressed they don't feel like they are learning much! Anyhow, HOD placement. My son is 7, will be 8 in October. He is working through first grade phonics . He is doing well with the phonics. He is doing RightStart Math and doing well with it. His handwriting is not good. He only writes uppercase (even though he can write lower case) and struggles with any length of writing. He has ADHD and fine motor delays. So, for him I was thinking Beyond Little Hearts. For my middle girl. She is an average learner. Has had zero formal grammar. She has done Primary Language Lessons and part of another similar book. She doesn't do cursive well. We are working on it. She has not begun written narrations. She narrates orally. She can do some short writing assignments but the grammar is pretty spotty. She loves the making stories but tires easily. She will be 10 in May. My opinion based on the chart is that she would fall either in Bigger Hearts or Preparing Hearts. My oldest will be 13/8th grade. She is the one I posted about in the group. Based on skill level I think she would place in either Resurrection to Ref or Revival to Rev. I am not sure. She is working through Essentials in Writing 7 now. She is making strides in narration but still needs some guidance. She is very easily overwhelmed due to her Aspergers and ADD. She is also very sensitive to learning about false gods. This is a recent revelation. She asked me to not have to read these things because she is finding herself questioning her faith and she is on a personal journey to God.

Is it really feasible to do 3 guides? And, that seems expensive. I can't really tell though because the website and catalog are overwhelming and confusing. I love the idea of more literature and analysis. My oldest peeked at the HOD catalog and loved the looks of the notebooking pages. She really wants to make this switch. My kids do not like learning together in the same cycle. It is too challenging and our how day is just choppy and derailed because of it.

I have read that the tm is cumbersome and hard to navigate. I assume you disagree. Can you comment on that? I kinda like the idea of only seeing one day at a time because seeing the whole week makes me feel like we should try to move to the next day if that makes sense. My oldest who has executive functioning issues with her aspergers is very very easily overwhelmed. I thought a daily plan might help with that. she is not independent yet if that makes a difference. she is capable; it just doesn't work well with what we are currently using and she needs some training on getting to independence.

I am nervous to switch curriculum when I am finally getting used to one, but even though I felt led to current curriculum, I am feeling led away now. hard decision.

Just saw about the basic outlining skill in Res to Ref. She hasn't had much (none really) in the way of outlining. Couple more things.....first, oldest had done no diagramming either. Her English background is public school up to fifth grade.then intermediate language lessons, all in one English, essentials in writing 7(working on it now).

How hard is it to swap out math especially at the higher grades? I have jacobs algebra I was going to use. Then here's my big concern...sticker shock ! 3 packages is pricey. Between that and managing the guides, I am nervous. However I do think that the kids would really like this.

Another big concern is I don't see how my oldest will be ready for the high school level in a year. And, if not, will she miss out by not using those levels and using the lower levels beefed up instead? Can they be made to be high school credit worthy? What would that look like?

Sorry for all the questions! This is a big decision and I feel a God pulling tug to HOD but want to make sure this is right for us.

A few realities coming from MFW (you didn't mention their name, but it looks like them):
- Academically & the work load in HOD is a lot harder than MFW. I strongly recommend stagger starting with at least a month in between each new TM, so you can get a good handle on one before starting the next.
- HOD has a lot more independence built in starting with Preparing. Coming from MFW training for that independence takes time. Be patient with it for at least 3 months.
- Enjoy the connections and a much easier TM to follow!

I also came from MFW and switched to HOD. HOD is a wonderful fit and I am running 3 guides. So the answer to your question, can you really run 3 guides? Yes you can! Some people even run more than 3 guides. I spend about 4 hours per day teaching school and that is all. With HOD, once they get to the level Preparing, they start taking on quite a bit of self learning. As LovingJesus mentioned, give your child/children some time to get used to it. It is very different and there is a bit of hand holding in the beginning. I give my children the guide and let them have at it. Even my son in Bigger, while there aren't boxes labed "I" for independent, I give him the guide for anything I expect him to complete alone. This here is the reason that people can do so many guides with their kids at one time, the kids take on some of the responsibility of learning alone.

And like LovingJesus mention, be patient with your kids when they start. With my oldest last year, she completed Preparing and it was also our first year with HOD. It was a bit rocky in the beginning of the year because she had a hard time following directions. But it got a lot better. This year, she is doing CTC and have not had to spend nearly as much time hand holding as I had in the past. It actually was a bit shocking how well her day has gone. She has usually completed most stuff she can do alone in the AM and then her and I meet after lunch to complete the rest of the boxes that she couldn't do.

As for math - you can use your math program. I am not sure what you were using before or if it was just the series of books recommended by MFW, but jumping around is not a good idea. If your child is thriving with that math series, then sticking with them might be wise. I know both MFW and HOD use Singapore in the lower level. But I guess what I am saying is that if you have used Saxon for Algebra and they recommend Jacobs, if you want to use Jacobs, just go ahead and use it.

As I looked at your kids - I agree with Beyond for the youngest. I also think that Preparing for the 10 year old would be a great year. In Preparing, they beginning learning written narrations and if she can read well, she will be fine. She should just use R&S level 3. My oldest dd didn't have any formal grammar prior to coming to HOD. She finished the PPL books as well. On a side note - that was the one book I was sad to not use with the younger two. It really opened my dd up to the idea of writing. I digress.......she completed level 3 and understood grammar very well. There were days I had to go slowly. And there were days of hand holding. But honestly, it was a great year. She learned a lot. As for your oldest, R2R sounds like a great fit. Even though she hasn't had any formal experience with doing written narrations, she will get there. And I would just be patient about it. It will be a bit of trial and error when you first start out. She will have a weekly written narration for history and then one for science. I think that her completing the guide as is without extensions for this upcoming year would be fine. I do know that she is 13 and in the extensions age range, but if you think it will be overwhelming for her to navigate her day, then I wouldn't add in the extensions. I still think she will have a fantastic year. As for grammar, I would have her complete R&S 4. R2R schedules grammar 2 days per week because it spread that book over 2 years. But with her age and grade, I would do all of R&S 4 that year. You would complete 1 lesson per day. In addition, HOD recommends completing 2/3 orally with only 1/3 written. This makes your grammar time move along quickly. I do this with my kids also. We do 2/3 oral and 1/3 written. As for your oldest moving into high school for in a year, you will then be able to modify the next two guides to make the high school worthy. Finally, she would skip the last 2 guides and that is okay. As LovingJesus also mentioned, HOD is very academically rigorous. That was one of my main reasons for choosing it. I wanted my kids to be challenged but also to enjoy learning. HOD has done both in this family. So, even if she doesn't finish every guide, she still will grow in skills, learn a ton and receive an excellent education overall.

On a side note, we came to HOD last year. I started out schooling tradition and then quickly switched to eclectic. But it got to the point that I wanted a boxed curriculum and I wanted my kids to have fun learning. So many people I knew used MFW. My first year with them, my kids were K, 1st, and Adventures so no one learned together at this point. Then I went to the cycle. Disasterous! We do not learn well together LOL. One person didn't understand anything while everything was way to easy for the oldest child. I also did not like those Usborne books either. I know many people do like them but they just weren't my style. I also never mastered the book basket. I think with MFW you have a lot more freedom to change things up if you want and modify stuff as you want. I picked a boxed curriculum so that I didn't have to do that LOL! I found HOD because I was looking for books and ideas to modify in MFW. After seeing all the resources in HOD, I completely fell in love! I was actually 7 weeks into ECC when I had decided that it wasn't working at all and I needed to do something different. Sticker shock...yes! I had already paid money for everything else I was using that year and then I had to buy all new stuff again. Agh...... My husband was saving money up to build a shed in our backyard. When I talked about wanting to switch and how much I hated my year, he gave me all of that money to buy HOD. He knew that what we were doing wasn't working at all. Unfortunately at that time, I had been curriculum jumping a lot because I still hadn't found my perfect fit. So while he told me I could buy HOD with his shed money, he still didn't think I would use them for more than a year. That first year I completed Beyond with my two youngers and then Preparing with my oldest. I did everything as is except for spelling and math (I had previous had my own programs and wanted to stay with them). It was serious the best year ever! So.....to my husbands dismay.....I stayed with HOD again! This year I split up my youngest and middle children and they completed Bigger and Little Hearts. My oldest moved up to CTC. I also have switched every subject to be completed using the HOD products. Completing 3 guides has gone very well! It is definitely my preference that everyone works alone. I have bought my material for next year and I will officially be using HOD again! To be honest, I have finally found my perfect fit. I plan to use HOD to the end. Because this is the HOD forum, you will find that most people here are their cheerleaders. We reply to people's questions because we just absolutely love their curriculum. We are probably all biased to that extend. But I can honestly say that I do feel like God led me here and I am very grateful. When I first even considered HOD, I only decided to try it because the author has 4 boys who like their school work. My oldest is easily distracted and always wants to run around. I figure if this was written with 4 boys in mind, it should work for my highly active girl, right? I also know that Julie has 3 boys and her boys have done well with it too. Two of my kids actually struggled a ton with reading as well. But the books here are extremely engaging. That was not my experience with some of the texts with MFW. I was reading quickly just trying to survive! With HOD, they are reading it themselves and they really seem to like what the read. So, having excellent and interesting books on hand does make for a desire to read. A desire to read definitely increasing reading abilities because they want to figure those hard words out since they want to read these books. I am just so thankful that Carrie wrote this curriculum. It has blessed me and my family immensely. I can't even imagine my school day without it. So I guess I just wanted to share my story as an encouragement to you and to share why I picked HOD. There are many users who have used them from the beginning and there are many more who have jumped in a bit later. Every one has a story and everyone has a reason they have chosen HOD. For us, I have 3 very different kids who learn very differently and HOD has honestly fit each one well. I just love it. As for sticker price, yes, it is expensive. My first year I bought 2 levels and then my second year I bought 3. This upcoming year was cheap, I only bought 1! I don't know if you have ever considered selling some of your old curriculum but I have done that in the past to help offset the cost of starting over. As for selling my HOD levels once I am finished......I am pretty sure I can't do that. They are like my BFFs! For me, it was worth money to buy the multiple levels at one time. As I look at the price of some of the higher guides, it does get expensive. But I do feel like it is well worth the money. Curriculum is expensive in general, especially the higher grade products. And I do feel like I have always gotten what I paid for. Luckily you will be able to reuse most of the stuff you buy. So when you buy Preparing and R2R, those levels will definitely be reused. And most stuff with HOD is not consumable, especially in the lower levels. You will have to buy student sheets and some of the workbook items again but I feel like it is minimal in comparison with some programs. That is a blessing when you consider how much each level costs and how much you have to replace with each child.

You have already been given great answers. I don't know that I can add much, but I will see that I was a little suprised to see the TM described as cumbersome. To me the TM is so easy to use. You know exactly what to do each day and in Preparing on up the TM is written to the dc and they then always know what to do and what is expected of them. My ds starts each day by numbering the boxes in the order he wants to do them. He then just works through them getting my help with the boxes that require my help. He has done this from early on in Preparing to now finishing up the high school World Geography guide. As he works through the boxes he checks them off. If you don't want them writing in the guide some people slip page protectors over the pages and then let them use dry erase markers on the page protectors.

The books truly are wonderful. They have made history come alive for my son. He is not one who will read in his free time. He would rather be outside exercising, but he does enjoy the books he reads during the school day.

I agree with pps. The guide for me is the best thing ever I am an ADD type, and having everything laid out so clearly and logically is a life saver...literally. I have been so ill this past decade, and being able to open and go, while also being able to see the heart of God every day has been such a blessing. I use Post-it tabs to mark dictation, extension, poetry, etc. sections of the guide, and I write a quick daily "agenda" for each ds to check off so we don't mark the guide... again, ADD I also have three very different dc, and this program works for each of them beautifully.

Thank you so much for those wonderfully detailed responses. I know I wrote a lot and asked a ton of questions so I really appreciate your taking the time to advise me. And, yes, it's MFW I am coming from (shhh ) I am going to go back and reread your responses and think about them and pray about this.

Blessings!

Welcome to the HOD Board! I think Beyond and PHFHG are a good fit. I think RTR probably is a good fit for your oldest dd as well, but in considering her age, just to be sure, I'd print off the first week of each of the guides and see which specifically fits her the best, paying special attention to the "I" independent boxes...

RTR's first week of plans...
http://www.heartofdakota.com/pdf/rtr-we ... glance.pdf

RevtoRev's first week of plans...
http://www.heartofdakota.com/pdf/Rev2Rev-first-week.pdf

The Introduction of each guide further explains the work that will be completed within the guide...

RTR's Introduction:
http://www.heartofdakota.com/pdf/Rev2Re ... uction.pdf

RevtoRev's Introduction:
http://www.heartofdakota.com/pdf/Rev2Re ... uction.pdf

I have taught multiple guides for years with HOD, and we have thoroughly enjoyed our homeschooling! Our dc are too far apart in ages and abilities to be combined. Instead, they each fit beautifully into a guide tailored just for their needs. We love this! The length of their school day, the level of independence, the maturity of subject matter, the difficulty of skills taught, the reading level of books they are reading, the reading level of books I am reading to them, the activities they are asked to do, the questions they are asked to answer, the things they are asked to memorize - ALL of these fit exactly what each needs for their specific age! This allows each of our sons to freely share temptations, triumphs, fears, and faith based on their maturity privately with me, which is HUGE! It also allows each to soar and shine in their own guide! Combining DOES work and IS a good thing when dc are similar in abilities and in ages, especially with extensions for the older if they are close in abilities/ages. But, it doesn't work when dc are too different in ages and abilities. In sharing about your dc, I think you've found a good placement for each, and that makes the year a stellar one! Yes, there will be a transition. And stagger starting IS a super idea. But also, YES, it is doable! It is enjoyable! It is a blessing! I searched through my old schedules to give a picture of our days, and I think actually one of these is about the closest to what you have going on...
http://s268.photobucket.com/user/happym ... ort=3&o=13


I hope this helps, but I too think you would find the HOD teacher's guides to be your best friends! They are totally open and go. Seeing what needs to be accomplished each day is just as empowering to the child being the student as it is to the mom being the teacher. I bet you would find the same to be true.

In Christ,
Julie