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I'm new to HOD. We will be using CTC for two children and are planning to add DITHOR to it. I know for other guides you only use DITHOR three days per week. However, it isn't scheduled as part of CTC, unless I'm more confused than I thought (LOL). Has anyone used DITHOR with CTC? Do you do it each day or only three days per week? I have very avid readers so my initial thought was to do it daily.

Second, I'm confused about the projects. I didn't realize that the Projects to Bring Home book was essential for this so I didn't purchase it. Since my group is only two children, the group projects might work, but they might be difficult. Has anyone done something else in place of the DITHOR projects or have any suggestions for me? My children (at least these two) aren't particularly creative. I honestly think the CTC History Projects will tap their creativity to the limit and trying to eek anything else creative out of them might result in a huge battle. I certainly don't need that.

Thank you so much for your help!!!

DITHOR is scheduled in CtC three days a week like Preparing, RtR, Rev2Rev, and MtMM. It is in the Language Arts box.

I've used DITHOR for the better part of (I think?) 3 years, and we've never used the book projects book. I'm actually getting it for this year to give us some new projects to choose from, but it's certainly not essential. There are 2 projects scheduled for each genre in addition to the one from the book projects book. And it is scheduled in CTC under language arts. Hope this helps!

If your kids wouldn't enjoy the book projects, you can certainly choose the other ones. I think with 2 kids the group project would work just fine. I thought those were also interesting but only have one child in DITHOR so didn't think that would work. Also the character trait projects will give that extra emphasis on good character development.

My DD LOVES the book projects so that's why we do them.

Thank you so much for your replies!

Wow! I guess I am more confused than I thought. In my defense, we aren't doing the HOD Language Arts piece so I never even looked at that box. I was looking for a DITHOR box, and of course, there isn't one.

Has anyone done their own projects or a book report type thing?

Thank you again for all your help!!

So are you planning to use the HOD language arts box in it's entirety then? Just curious. When I firsts came to HOD, I didn't really see how well all of the box flowed together. Now that we have done it for a few years, it has worked great! The LA box has far exceeded my expectations

As for the book report to send home book, it does make life easier if you can acquire it. If not, then the guide does give 3 things you can do at the end of each book. Since you don't have the book report book, then you can do the group project or the character training. If you are creative, you can always do your own thing. I would just be careful on how long that item will take. HOD has you schedule the project over 5 days only.

We are not planning to use the Language Arts Box. We will do DITHOR. I'm still trying to decide if I want to do it five days a week since in reality that'll probably end up being two to three days for my crazy fast readers. We will still get through all of DITHOR in one year, but then may do it again next year with a different set of books.

I'll look more closely at the Book Projects to Bring Home book, and maybe get it.

Thank you again for all your help!

One of the purposes of DITHOR and many of the activities in HOD is to cause children to slow down and take in books more slowly. So I would encourage you to really hold them to the required reading pace of DITHOR, and all of the workbook pages (because if you do less than 15 days in a genre you will not complete all of the assignments). Digesting a smaller portion of a book at a time is a skill that is supposed to be learned here, more in-depth study.

I would also encourage you to at least look at the LA box in scheduling the LA you plan to do. So on DITHOR days do less with the other LA to make it balance out. That's what the LA box does for you if you use HOD recommendations. CTC only has 4 days of plans, so if you were going to do other things on the 5th day you could do DITHOR that day if it fits in with the other stuff you are doing.

I didn't buy Book Projects, either. We did the character project for the first 5 or so genres that we did (my kids never read the same book to do that project - we may try that this year?). After that it was time to try something new and I found a list of book projects online that my kids chose from. They picked a project and had to tell me which they were going to do by Day 10 of DITHOR. When they finished it (they had to Day 20) I initialed it and they can't do that project again (there are about 30 to choose from).

Blessings,