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Hi, I am a homeschool parent of 8 children. My oldest graduated our home school last year, so I have been homeschooling for 15 years, and somehow, this year I'm feeling like I'm beginning from scratch and I have no idea of where to start... argh! This year, I will have 7 children schooling, ages 7-15. However, my teens all have quite significant learning disabilities & delays, and are several grade levels behind their chronological age. My best "guess" as to what our actual teaching grade range will be for this year is 1st-6th. Honestly, with such a large family, and several of our children with significant special needs (we also have two who are physically handicapped and have a complicated medical picture), there is just no way that I can possibly do more than one curriculum for this year. I do have 3 children (1st, 4th & 5th) who are average or above-average learners. My preference is to use a Core that will work for everyone, and then do individual or small groups at their levels for math & language arts. The programs that I have been considering are HOD, MFW & an Eclectic approach, using MOH as Spine. I have never used any of these programs. I have sometimes used Sonlight, but mostly been very Eclectic in our curriculum. My hope is that I will find a curriculum that I LOVE this year, and that I can stick with from year to year, and stop the Crazy Curriculum Obsession Game that I play with myself (and torture my family through) each year. I *think* that if I went with HOD, I would need to use BHFHG or PHFHG, with Extension Packages for this year... My 4th & 5th Graders are my average to above-average students, however, unfortunately, we have a lot of gaps, because we have gone through several special needs adoptions during the past few years, and every one changes our family dynamics & takes so much time to find our "new normal" and since it hasn't been just once or twice, but pretty much every 18 months (average), we've almost been in a constant state of flux, which I do feel has taken it's toll on our academics (not education, since we've all learned so much, and grown in so many amazing and equally important areas, but our academics are definitely behind). I want this to be a really solid academic year, and hope to get my average learners "caught up" and ready to do Jr. High studies. So, this is where my request, my plea, for help & assistance comes in. Any advice, recommendations, would be amazing! I've been waiting for our Homeschool Conference so that I could look at the curriculum I'm considering in person, and I just found out that none of my ideas will be here - so bummed, so I'm back to asking for help of strangers... forgive me! Thank you in advance!

If you haven't looked at the placement chart yet, I would certainly start there, weighing the 1st set of boxes the most. You can find it here, http://www.heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php. You could probably place your 4th and 5th grader in the same guide, placing them each in math, English, and reading where they belong. It would be hard to place your 1st grader with them in the same guide, but Little Hearts would be a great place to begin with a 1st grader and wouldn't take a huge amount of time. I wouldn't go higher than Preparing for your older two. I accidentally posted this before I was done, so am editing now to finish and hope this will get you started. I am sure some of the other ladies will have other thoughts for consideration, I mainly wanted to direct you to the placement chart to get started.

Oh! Bless you, Carrilynn What an honor to be in your shoes. As I read this, I think you may be right on considering BHFHG and Preparing. I know it is not the intention that pieces of these programs be skipped, but yours is certainly a unique situation. I would definitely call HOD and talk through some options with them, but I think all the hands-on activities in HOD will really appeal to your youngsters I agree with pp that LHFHG would be great for your 1st grader, only taking an hour or so a day, and probably an older child could do some of the reading. Depending on ability, the program may even be adjusted slightly for other dc...I don't know the degree of challenge for each of them. I can certainly see how some modifications could be made to accomplish fun learning without strict adherence in all areas to accommodate all of you. Do call and get personal help from the Austin family...yours is a really challenging position, but in a fun way

Carilynn,

Our situation is similar to yours; however, we have only been homeschooling for 4 years. We have 8 children (aged 3 years - 18 years) and my oldest just graduated from high school, too.
We have adopted six children internationally (several with special needs) in the last 10 years and this has added excitement and challenges with life in general.

We have been using HOD for two years, and we love it! We run only two guides. This year I had my 6th grader and 3rd grader in Bigger Hearts. The sixth grader used extensions and they both used age/skill appropriate math and English. I put my two 1st graders and other 3rd grader (who came home from China when he was 7) in Little Hearts together. The 3rd grader started in Bigger, but he had more confidence and understanding once we moved him down to Little Hearts. Again, they each used their age appropriate math and English. All the different levels of math, reading and English take the most time for us.

Our family has really enjoyed HOD. I like that I have very little preparation and that my kids are exposed to a variety of activities.

I am so glad that you posted - I know I received a lot of helpful advice from the people on this board when we were trying to figure out placements. Everyone is so helpful here.

Praying that you get your questions answered and find the best fit for your family.

Debbie

I know that you mentioned that you only want to run 1 guide but HOD is very different. It is created in a way that the kids do much of the science and history alone as they get older so that mom only needs to help with 3Rs. It is wonderful. One thing that would really help is to list your children's ages instead of their grade and what level of writing and reading they have done. Because HOD is very different, you may say your kids are behind on skills. That may or may not mean that they would be down in level. Grammar, spelling and math are always adjustable to any level of HOD and the writing products they recommend as kid get older are multi grade level anyway.

I have also have been eclectic and used MFW. I started using HOD 2 full years ago and I am really looking forward to next (and 3rd) year. It may seem absolutely crazy that people would recommend using more than one level and that may seem insane that it can work well but it does. Coming from MFW, it actually took me longer each day to complete school with one cycle running than it did running 3 levels of HOD. In addition, once kids are in Preparing, school is written so that it can be completed in 4 days. With MFW, they say that it can be done but they schedule stuff for the 5th day. Most people I know would squeeze it into a different day but it was stressful for us to do that. In addition, the hands on projects in HOD are scheduled over 3 days. MFW would be scheduled in one sitting and it usually took up quite a bit of time. With MFW there is a lot more planning and you have to go to the library a lot. I never make it to the library. In addition, writing and grammar weren't nearly as balanced in nor did I like them as much. Writing Strands just wasn't my style. I much prefer the variety of HOD. HOD uses Rod and Staff for grammar - mainly orally to help cut down on time - I feel like this better prepared my kids for writing in general vs the grammar books recommended with MFW. HOD varies the creative writing books thereby creating more opportunities for growth in this area because kids are learning from various vendors. HOD also includes written narrations, which I love, because it seems like it helped my kids better gather and organize their thoughts helping them to make organized logical written documents. For me, MFW wasn't a good fit. It may be a good fit for you, and in homeschooling you NEED to find your groove. I am only sharing my challenges with you in regards to my personal experience. In addition, in was eclectic for the early years. I found it a challenge to get those fun activities into my week. We never did them. I usually scraped by with reading the history text. We usually did complete most science experiments but they were limited to the activities listed in the book. I also never really brought in outside books to read about inventors or scientists nor did my kids seem to connect with the material nearly as well as they do with HOD. I also found that overloaded at times with things that didn't matter so much.

So, I say all this to you as an encouragement. I know you mentioned that you want to work on the 3rs with your kids heavily and one neat thing with HOD is that some of this could be done in groups. If you combine your 4th and 5th grader, you can use the same writing and grammar book. That right there will save time. You can do the same with the older kids - whatever levels you run or use, you can combine here. In addition, I am not sure of your math program but Singapore is pretty simple in nature, to the point, and doesn't take a ton of time each day all while highly preparing your kids for higher level math. If you already have something you love, I would not necessarily recommend switching. But if you are looking to change, I would recommend Singapore. As for spelling - we use dictation recommended in the HOD guide. It saves a ton of time (5 min per kid) and my kids are learning to spell from it. It is also only completed 3 days per week. There have been several discussion on the board recently in regards to spelling. Many people (including myself) have kids that have learning challenges and dictation does work. But it takes time to see the fruit and when you do see the fruit, it is abounds abundantly! And finally - to save time for you, I would pick only one story time box to complete. Beyond, Bigger and CTC have story times that cover the different genres and might be the easiest to do with all ages. But as kids get older, they can read their own story time to themselves. So you might be looking to only read story time to a couple of kids anyway.

But when you get a chance, if you could provide ages for your kids and how much writing and reading they are used to doing each day, that would be great! Also - people on here would be very willing to help you think through a schedule that would work for you as well. I work from home so I can't have school take over my day. It just isn't a possibility. With HOD, I find school never does take over my day because my kids can do so much alone. I spend a maximum of 4-4.5 hours per day 4 days per week doing school with my kids. I also am doing 3 story times but if I did only 1, that would drop my time by 30 min. With my oldest, since she is in a more independent guide, the bulk of my time is spent on 3Rs and I do read her story time to her. As she gets older, I might have her do it herself. But she likes it when I read it to her so that is what I am doing. For my youngest, she is in a guide where I have to read history and science plus help her with experiments. My day takes about 2 hours with her. Next year, my son will be Preparing, I will have to read about 1/2 of history to him but he will take over for science. My day with him will take around 1-1.5 hours depending on how long it takes him to become more independent. Also - my son has some special needs to so I anticipate that it will be a while. So anyway, I do hope this gives you glimpse into what it looks like per child. As they get to the upper levels, you are looking to spend around 30min-1 hour a day per child depending on how much they can do independently and how much combine some of the language arts (grammar and writing levels). Math and Spelling would be done independently by all.

Hi there. I'm sure you will find the help you need. I have 8 too, and combining works well for me for right now. It will not always work well, I perceive, but I'm struggling with making the transistion. Check out the placement guide for each child. THat's the first step. Report back, and maybe we can help you plan your year.

Edited because I wasn't happy with my initial response.

Preparing starts with some independent work. CTC has even more. From there, the independence just grows and grows. Running several of the older guides doesn't actually mean that much extra work for you, thougj, I suspect you could combine a few places, especially with extensions.

Yes, I should have clarified. I don't mind running several of the older guides, as they are mainly independent. However, running several of the younger guides doesn't work for our family AT THIS TIME. This year, we will have 3 in CTC, 1 who listens in on CTC but does her own math and LA, and 3 who will be playing around with LIttle Hands. We will probably try to run multiple guides in the future, but for this year, we won't be.

I understand not wanting to run multiple guides. However with HOD, proper placement is key. I would be doing way more work if I tried to combine my kids than doing separate guides on their level. Starting in January I will be running five guides. I would definitely check the placement chart for each kid individually. Then come back and tell us their ages and where they placed, along with any reading difficulties. Then we could help you better!

Also, Carrie and Mike at HOD can help you tremendously if you give them a call and explain your situation.

Hi Carrilynn! I can see you have had a lot on your plate, and I want you to start being able to enjoy HOD with your dear family. I think you would enjoy it as much as we have. HOD does have many large families using HOD, but I would say they have different ways of doing so. I think that with the range of students you are talking about, 2 guides is feasible, but trying to do 1 may actually be harder to implement than 2. I am not sure though, especially as there are some special concerns here, so until I hear more about each of your kiddos, I don't feel I can specific advice. So, I am asking if you would please share about each of your dc with the first page of the placement chart in mind?
http://www.heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php

I think then we could really feel better about our advice here, as the more informed we all are, the better the placement advice we can give - and then of course, after we all share our ideas, the final decision is yours. I know it takes a little time to do the placement chart, and I know that we could just say 'sure, do whatever you want,' but we care about getting it as close to right as we can here. God bless!

In Christ,
Julie