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Hi ladies,
I'm thinking ahead
We are almost midway through our first year of HOD. We are using CTC with my oldest and we couldn't be happier! She will move on with HOD next year for sure. I'm also thinking about starting my next daughter with HOD. It believe she will place in preparing but I will make sure to look over the chart again in a few months to make sure. So here is my question - what are your favorite things about Preparing? If I'm being honest, I'm trying to decide whether to switch her over or just stick to another program. CTC has been fabulous but I want to hear opinions about Preparing.
Thanks!
Poppy

For me, the books that the kids read were my absolutely favorite part! I loved that my dd read so many different books for science and for history. My oldest started HOD using the level Preparing and this level really helped her reading ability. I also loved all of the copywork. I hadn't very successfully found a language arts program that worked well for us. HOD made that area so much easier on me. I loved DITHOR. I loved the way creative writing was done and I loved the way R&S was used. In addition, I loved that a good portion of the guide is independent. I work quite a bit at times, from home but it still gets busy and I don't have time to always spend all day teaching my kids. Plus, the more hands on I need to be with my kids education, the more likely it will get skipped (just sayin...LOL). With HOD, it never got skipped because it was written to her. My dd loved the history projects each week. They were fun and easy to do. I love that with HOD, I rarely needed to go to the store and purchase any items for the activities and experiments. I almost always had the stuff on hand. And at the end of the year, I absolutely LOVED my dd's notebook!!!! It is so cool. My dd kept all of her copywork from history and science in the notebook along with her creative writing, timeline (we took the notecards and stored them in baseball card holders in the notebook) along with any other writing stuff she did for the year and put it in the notebook. My dd still looks through it. For me, we just love HOD and it always works so well.

I must admit, the year my oldest started HOD in Preparing, I had also combine my younger 2 kids in Beyond that same year. I am pretty sure that we will be HOD users for life because it has worked out so well in our home. My kids love it and I love it. HOD does a great job of making our day go smoothly and I love that my kids genuinely remember much of what they read about and learn. Even today, my dd in RtR came to the research day for unit 11 where they had to research and write about Jerusalem. My dd comes to me and says, "Mom, why I do I need to research these questions? I already know all of the answers." She did CtC last year so she did study Jerusalem quite a bit. She then proceeded to orally answer each question in much detail. I was impressed! Needless to say, she did not need to do any formal research on the computer for this location LOL. In addition, I told my hubby about this incident tonight when we were driving down the road to an event. I then asked my oldest what she was learning about for history and why she was studying Jerusalem (I just couldn't remember for the life of me LOL). She told me it was because of the crusades. She then went on and told me and her father about all 6 crusades that she recently read about, who was involved, why the crusade happened, what happened, and where it took place. Hello.....!!!!! I am loving it!!!!!! HOD just works so well for us. My kids just remember so much. I am always amazed. I was so glad when I switched to HOD 2 years ago and have been so impressed with what each of my kids remember. Even with my son repeating the history portion of Bigger (long story but I decided to combine my younger 2 kids so my son is repeating the history from Bigger with his younger sister this year), he is a hoot to see what he remembers. I have been very impressed with him as well. We will read something and he will be smiling in anticipation of what is coming next. Even some of the history notebooking activities he remembers well. The history activity always bring so much meaning to the period we are studying in Bigger. For example, today my younger 2 kids got a treat (M&M) but before they could eat it, they were "taxed." By the time I was done taxing them, my youngest was furious because she only had 2 M&Ms left and my son had 4. He was laughing because he knew that I would refill their bowl and they would still get plenty of M&Ms. But it brought home the compassion to each of them as to how the colonists must have felt losing all of their crops and money to the English due to high taxes. And as I had mentioned before about not getting the hands on activities done with my kids before using HOD, well, with HOD in the younger years, they activities are short and sweet. I can get them done with minimal prep work. So in the levels where the parents are teaching more to the kids, it is very doable and enjoyable (and successful) for me to complete the hands on activities with my kids.

I guess all I am saying is that Preparing is wonderful. In truth, I haven't yet met a level of HOD I didn't like and pretty much think all of the levels are wonderful. If you are considering starting Preparing next year, as long as your younger child is ready for it, I would make the switch. I love the books, I love the skills, I love the activities and I love that my kids love HOD too. Preparing is a ton of fun (even for me, I learned a lot too) and I am so glad that all of my kids will eventually use it.

My favorite things about Preparing:

*The growth I see in their writing with all of the copy work.
*The growth I see in their drawing with all of the drawing.
*The fact they make their own time line pieces through drawing.
*I really liked the history spines for the first 5 units (Ice Age and the Wooly Mammoth book from the extension package and the Scriptures that went with them and the Noah book).
*Grandpa's Box.
*Story time books.

I hope that helps! And, for me R&S English has been a favorite for years. I love the fruit of that program.

Hmmm.... hard to narrow it down. I could echo a lot of what Daneale shared - the depth of study and what my kids retain from doing a unified program are some highlights of all the HOD programs, not just Preparing. Specifically in Preparing:

* Grandpa's Box
* Starting independence, training the kids to read their own directions and complete assignments independently
* The gentle training they get in doing written narrations - this amazed me so much because any writing assignment has my oldest in fits, it is her least favorite thing to do. But the instructions for written narrations really walked both of us through it and it ramped up so she could be successful.
* They start doing the projects on their own! My kids love projects, and I struggle because I don't always want to do them.
* It is an excellent world history overview.