Preparing Hearts For His Glory
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blessedmomof4
- Posts: 1138
- Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2007 4:34 pm
- Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Preparing Hearts For His Glory
Hi-I'm excited, Carrie, that you have put this up on the website. I wanted to know, will the guide have a daily schedule for the math lessons in the textbooks and workbooks like Bigger has for level 3, and no activities like Bigger has for level 2? Also, would one need to add a writing program, like Igniting Your Writing, or will the lesson plans include enough writing? Thanks!
Woo-hoo! 
I'm so excited to see this on the site this morning....I have a few years to wait, but I can start collecting books now! I had always wanted to read CHOW, and now I get to!
When will sample pages be up? (I need to work on my patience virtue...)
Melanie
I'm so excited to see this on the site this morning....I have a few years to wait, but I can start collecting books now! I had always wanted to read CHOW, and now I get to!
When will sample pages be up? (I need to work on my patience virtue...)
Melanie
Using LHFHG with
ds - '00
dd - '00
dd - '02
ds - '00
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dd - '02
Ladies,
I didn't even know it was up this morning! You beat me to it. Our web designer has been hard at work to bring "Preparing Hearts..." to our website. I'm thrilled to see the first parts up as well.
As to your questions, there will be a daily schedule for math included in "Preparing....". At this point we plan to include a schedule for 2A/2B (for those who are coming into Singapore late and may need to start back a semester or two), a schedule for 3A/3B and a schedule for 4A/4B. Right now, we don't think there will be math activities included as we need to move the kiddos from hands-on to more pictorial representations as that is Singapore's strength.
You will not need to add an additional writing program, as we are writing creative writing lessons once each week into the guide to fill that void and are also writing weekly written narration lessons to teach the summarizing skills that are so needed.
The sample pages won't be up for quite some time as we are still trying various formatting options (daily versus weekly) to see what is going to work best. I'm thinking end of March or so for the first week of plans to be up, but a sample look at a day could be up a little earlier. Our graphic designer is working on the layout for an entirely new catalog for us and is snowed under with that overwhelming job, so it will take awhile to get the sample pages up.
On a side note, I too love Hillyer's A Child's History of the World, except for the opening chapters (which we skip). We have read it aloud to each of our boys and it is so narrative and storylike. Then, to add the additional Biblical emphasis needed we have put together some resources that flow so well. "Grandpa's Box" is a treasure to read-aloud and also very narrative. It points all of creation toward Christ.
It's getting exciting now to see it coming together. The choosing of the books is a phase that goes on so long. We've been at it since last March already!
Blessings,
Carrie
I didn't even know it was up this morning! You beat me to it. Our web designer has been hard at work to bring "Preparing Hearts..." to our website. I'm thrilled to see the first parts up as well.
As to your questions, there will be a daily schedule for math included in "Preparing....". At this point we plan to include a schedule for 2A/2B (for those who are coming into Singapore late and may need to start back a semester or two), a schedule for 3A/3B and a schedule for 4A/4B. Right now, we don't think there will be math activities included as we need to move the kiddos from hands-on to more pictorial representations as that is Singapore's strength.
You will not need to add an additional writing program, as we are writing creative writing lessons once each week into the guide to fill that void and are also writing weekly written narration lessons to teach the summarizing skills that are so needed.
The sample pages won't be up for quite some time as we are still trying various formatting options (daily versus weekly) to see what is going to work best. I'm thinking end of March or so for the first week of plans to be up, but a sample look at a day could be up a little earlier. Our graphic designer is working on the layout for an entirely new catalog for us and is snowed under with that overwhelming job, so it will take awhile to get the sample pages up.
On a side note, I too love Hillyer's A Child's History of the World, except for the opening chapters (which we skip). We have read it aloud to each of our boys and it is so narrative and storylike. Then, to add the additional Biblical emphasis needed we have put together some resources that flow so well. "Grandpa's Box" is a treasure to read-aloud and also very narrative. It points all of creation toward Christ.
It's getting exciting now to see it coming together. The choosing of the books is a phase that goes on so long. We've been at it since last March already!
Blessings,
Carrie
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marypoppins
- Posts: 115
- Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:21 am
- Location: OH
I think I'm a new HOD convert and I have some questions.
I was so excited to see Preparing Hearts up on the website this morning! I have been spending time looking up and reading the book summaries on Amazon. WOW! This looks exactly like the kind of study I have been searching for and have not found until now! Woohoo!
This changes everything for next year. I have bought some stuff used already, and now I will probably have to resell it. (I also need to practice my patience
)
My questions:
1)I will have a 9yo 3rd grader and a kinder. Do you think Preparing Hearts works well with LHFHG? Seems like a nice fit to me from what I've read, but just wanted to ask the experts here. (We are currently doing MFW Adventures, but the next levels of MFW do not excite me, and I don't think are a real good fit for my kids' ages.)
2)We are Currently using R&S Building Christian English 2, but I had kind of planned on switching to BJU for all of our L.A. next year..... now I'm thinking BJU may be overkill if I want to incorporate all of the great L.A. in Preparing Hearts. What do you think?
3)I had so hoped to use BJU Bible truths with my 3rd grader...Do you think it's adding too much if I would add that to Preparing Hearts?
4)Science - I was also going to go the BJU route for Science. The science has been a little weak in MFW Adventures this year (imho), and I feel like we are "behind" (whatever that means, lol). How "academic" is the science in HOD? Carrie, do you follow any type of norms when writing your science courses? The scheduled books look great - - I guess I am still stuck in the trap of wanting the kids to do well on the standardized tests.
Help/Comments please!!!
Thank you so much!
This changes everything for next year. I have bought some stuff used already, and now I will probably have to resell it. (I also need to practice my patience
)My questions:
1)I will have a 9yo 3rd grader and a kinder. Do you think Preparing Hearts works well with LHFHG? Seems like a nice fit to me from what I've read, but just wanted to ask the experts here. (We are currently doing MFW Adventures, but the next levels of MFW do not excite me, and I don't think are a real good fit for my kids' ages.)
2)We are Currently using R&S Building Christian English 2, but I had kind of planned on switching to BJU for all of our L.A. next year..... now I'm thinking BJU may be overkill if I want to incorporate all of the great L.A. in Preparing Hearts. What do you think?
3)I had so hoped to use BJU Bible truths with my 3rd grader...Do you think it's adding too much if I would add that to Preparing Hearts?
4)Science - I was also going to go the BJU route for Science. The science has been a little weak in MFW Adventures this year (imho), and I feel like we are "behind" (whatever that means, lol). How "academic" is the science in HOD? Carrie, do you follow any type of norms when writing your science courses? The scheduled books look great - - I guess I am still stuck in the trap of wanting the kids to do well on the standardized tests.
Help/Comments please!!!
Thank you so much!
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blessedmomof4
- Posts: 1138
- Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2007 4:34 pm
- Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Hmm-after examining some of the notes on the site, I think it may almost be too much for my 2 daughters (and me!) next year-I may have to wait til they are in 5th and 6th grade (it would also be economical since I would then only need one extension package 
)-right now, we are using Bigger Hearts pretty well, but at a pretty slow pace, because it is very rich. But I sure am glad Preparing Hearts will be there when I need it!
)-right now, we are using Bigger Hearts pretty well, but at a pretty slow pace, because it is very rich. But I sure am glad Preparing Hearts will be there when I need it!-
water2wine
- Posts: 2743
- Joined: Mon Nov 26, 2007 7:24 pm
- Location: GA
Hello Ladies,
So sorry it took me a bit to get to all of you! We all had the dentist, doctor, etc. yesterday, and it is rare for us to be gone like that! So, I'm just catching up on everything today.
I'm so glad you're excited about Preparing Hearts! We are too. The book descriptions will all be coming within the next week, so you'll be able to get an even better feel for the program. Our wonderful web designer is working on that.
Now, let me answer a few of the questions asked.
First off, MaryPoppins:
1)Preparing Hearts and Little Hearts will actually work quite well together, both with the time they take to teach and with the historical time period that they cover.
2) You are certainly welcome to use BJU for language arts if you desire, however, I do think it will take more time to present and do each day than what will be planned in "Preparing Hearts...". We did use BJU one half of a year in third grade with my oldest son and found it took quite a bit of my time to present. We also struggled with the writing portion, which I know many moms love! While it did break down the creative writing into manageable steps, it seemed to steal the joy of writing from my very creative first-born child. This is a problem with many writing programs, and so we'll be including our own writing lessons in Preparing Hearts... each week to fill this gap. Language arts is such a broad area, here's a link to our website that explains our thinking on that area:
http://www.heartofdakota.com/subject-ar ... guage_Arts
3) You can easily add anything you'd like for Bible to our programs but don't feel like you need to. We have actually done all of Bob Jones Bible 1, 3, and 4 at our house and enjoyed them thoroughly. Once we started having more of our kiddos in school, however, I couldn't keep up with teaching more than one level of the BJU Bible, and my kiddos were too far apart to combine in one level. Consequently, in our programs we wrote more formal Bibles study into our guides beginning with "Beyond..." to make our guides have enough in that area for families so they wouldn't need to supplement unless they really wanted to.
4) As far as Science goes, I am a firm believer in using living books for science (and they are hard to find)! The kids retain so much more, and it is much more meaningful than a textbook-type science. That being said, we do use CLP's science texts for "Little Hearts..." and "Beyond..." to give a blanket coverage of various topics and also to keep the science light enough to give you time to emphasize reading, writing, and math as needed at that age. Once the kiddos can read the science books for themselves, we switch to living books.
We do look at the topics needed to be covered in each grade and make sure we give coverage to those, but science study in the elementary years varies widely from state to state and text to text, so it is not an exact formula.
You can, of course, use BJU, but would miss out on the correlation between science topics and history topics and the independent design of our science. BJU science also requires quite a bit of presentation, activity book, and experiment set-up with only half of the course being in the BJU textbook and the Teacher's Manual presentation being necessary for the rest.
I hope this helps answer your questions. You can certainly add or subtract any part of Preparing Hearts... to make it suit your family best. Structured flexibility is one of the things we strive for at Heart of Dakota. I just wanted to give you our thinking behind each of those areas.
Blessings,
Carrie
So sorry it took me a bit to get to all of you! We all had the dentist, doctor, etc. yesterday, and it is rare for us to be gone like that! So, I'm just catching up on everything today.
I'm so glad you're excited about Preparing Hearts! We are too. The book descriptions will all be coming within the next week, so you'll be able to get an even better feel for the program. Our wonderful web designer is working on that.
Now, let me answer a few of the questions asked.
First off, MaryPoppins:
1)Preparing Hearts and Little Hearts will actually work quite well together, both with the time they take to teach and with the historical time period that they cover.
2) You are certainly welcome to use BJU for language arts if you desire, however, I do think it will take more time to present and do each day than what will be planned in "Preparing Hearts...". We did use BJU one half of a year in third grade with my oldest son and found it took quite a bit of my time to present. We also struggled with the writing portion, which I know many moms love! While it did break down the creative writing into manageable steps, it seemed to steal the joy of writing from my very creative first-born child. This is a problem with many writing programs, and so we'll be including our own writing lessons in Preparing Hearts... each week to fill this gap. Language arts is such a broad area, here's a link to our website that explains our thinking on that area:
http://www.heartofdakota.com/subject-ar ... guage_Arts
3) You can easily add anything you'd like for Bible to our programs but don't feel like you need to. We have actually done all of Bob Jones Bible 1, 3, and 4 at our house and enjoyed them thoroughly. Once we started having more of our kiddos in school, however, I couldn't keep up with teaching more than one level of the BJU Bible, and my kiddos were too far apart to combine in one level. Consequently, in our programs we wrote more formal Bibles study into our guides beginning with "Beyond..." to make our guides have enough in that area for families so they wouldn't need to supplement unless they really wanted to.
4) As far as Science goes, I am a firm believer in using living books for science (and they are hard to find)! The kids retain so much more, and it is much more meaningful than a textbook-type science. That being said, we do use CLP's science texts for "Little Hearts..." and "Beyond..." to give a blanket coverage of various topics and also to keep the science light enough to give you time to emphasize reading, writing, and math as needed at that age. Once the kiddos can read the science books for themselves, we switch to living books.
We do look at the topics needed to be covered in each grade and make sure we give coverage to those, but science study in the elementary years varies widely from state to state and text to text, so it is not an exact formula.
You can, of course, use BJU, but would miss out on the correlation between science topics and history topics and the independent design of our science. BJU science also requires quite a bit of presentation, activity book, and experiment set-up with only half of the course being in the BJU textbook and the Teacher's Manual presentation being necessary for the rest.
I hope this helps answer your questions. You can certainly add or subtract any part of Preparing Hearts... to make it suit your family best. Structured flexibility is one of the things we strive for at Heart of Dakota. I just wanted to give you our thinking behind each of those areas.
Blessings,
Carrie
Last edited by Carrie on Wed Jan 16, 2008 1:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Hip! Hip! Hooray! I'm so excited about Preparing Hearts...! We'll be doing it next year, and it's fun to take a peek at it. It's a little bit like opening a present... thanks for all of your hard work, Carrie! It makes my homeschool a happier place to be, for both me and my kids. I can envision what our day will look like next year, and it's an exciting vision to look forward to.
Enjoyed LHTH to USII
Currently using USI
Wife to Rich for 28 years
Mother to 3 sons, ages 23, 20, and 16
Sister to Carrie
Currently using USI
Wife to Rich for 28 years
Mother to 3 sons, ages 23, 20, and 16
Sister to Carrie
Blessedmomof4,
Even though the list of skills covered in "Preparing Hearts..." looks daunting, I want to assure you that the skills are covered in a way that is not daunting The target age for Preparing Hearts... is actually grades 3 and 4 with extensions for grades 5-6, so your kiddos will be right on track age-wise to do "Preparing Hearts..." when you get there.
As you're doing "Bigger Hearts..." your kiddos will be growing in the areas they need for "Preparing Hearts...". So, while that skill list looks hard now, by the time they finish "Bigger..." they should be ready.
Many of my years of public school teaching were spent teaching third and fourth grade. Those are great growing years for preparing kids for the advanced pace of the middle school years. I'd wait to see if your kiddos will be ready for Preparing Hearts.... until you get much closer to finishing "Bigger...". I wouldn't slow the pace of "Bigger..." because you're worried they might not be ready. Often my children surprise me at what they can do!
Even now, as I look at 7th and 8th grade materials for my oldest son, I worry it will be too much, so I know what you're feeling. Yet, often when we actually get there I find he's more ready than I thought he'd be (and so am I!)
.
Blessings,
Carrie
Even though the list of skills covered in "Preparing Hearts..." looks daunting, I want to assure you that the skills are covered in a way that is not daunting
The target age for Preparing Hearts... is actually grades 3 and 4 with extensions for grades 5-6, so your kiddos will be right on track age-wise to do "Preparing Hearts..." when you get there.As you're doing "Bigger Hearts..." your kiddos will be growing in the areas they need for "Preparing Hearts...". So, while that skill list looks hard now, by the time they finish "Bigger..." they should be ready.
Many of my years of public school teaching were spent teaching third and fourth grade. Those are great growing years for preparing kids for the advanced pace of the middle school years. I'd wait to see if your kiddos will be ready for Preparing Hearts.... until you get much closer to finishing "Bigger...". I wouldn't slow the pace of "Bigger..." because you're worried they might not be ready. Often my children surprise me at what they can do!
Even now, as I look at 7th and 8th grade materials for my oldest son, I worry it will be too much, so I know what you're feeling. Yet, often when we actually get there I find he's more ready than I thought he'd be (and so am I!)
. Blessings,
Carrie
Hi BlessedMomof4!
I was just reading over your post and had to smile because I had that exact same thought when I was doing Beyond... last year and looking ahead to Bigger... But, guess what? I did decide to begin with Bigger... this year, and while the first month took a bit of adjustment, it is a great fit now! I can see how doing Beyond... prepared my son for doing Bigger... I wonder if it might be that way for you and your kiddos too? I always figure if everything is a breeze at the beginning, then what is there to "grow" into as the year progresses? I bet your kids may surprise you, as Carrie said, and be more "prepared" for "Preparing..." than you may think! (Boy, that was a poor attempt at a funny play on words... I should have answered this in the morning; I make much more sense then, and less sense as the day wears on... by evening... I've become useless. Is that a common trait of Betty's? I wonder!) Anyway, have a great homeschooling day!
I was just reading over your post and had to smile because I had that exact same thought when I was doing Beyond... last year and looking ahead to Bigger... But, guess what? I did decide to begin with Bigger... this year, and while the first month took a bit of adjustment, it is a great fit now! I can see how doing Beyond... prepared my son for doing Bigger... I wonder if it might be that way for you and your kiddos too? I always figure if everything is a breeze at the beginning, then what is there to "grow" into as the year progresses? I bet your kids may surprise you, as Carrie said, and be more "prepared" for "Preparing..." than you may think! (Boy, that was a poor attempt at a funny play on words... I should have answered this in the morning; I make much more sense then, and less sense as the day wears on... by evening... I've become useless. Is that a common trait of Betty's? I wonder!) Anyway, have a great homeschooling day!
Enjoyed LHTH to USII
Currently using USI
Wife to Rich for 28 years
Mother to 3 sons, ages 23, 20, and 16
Sister to Carrie
Currently using USI
Wife to Rich for 28 years
Mother to 3 sons, ages 23, 20, and 16
Sister to Carrie
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marypoppins
- Posts: 115
- Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:21 am
- Location: OH
Thanks so much for your reply, Carrie! You are a real GEM! 
I appreciate all the insight and experience you shared. It has really helped me narrow down my choices. The information you shared and your experiences with BJU were exactly the kind of information I needed to hear to help me make some decisions. Thank you so much for taking time to respond to my questions so thoroughly!
My poor son has been the guinuea pig over the last 3 years of homeschooling, and I *really* want next year to be the year where everything just fits, and I can quit changing everything around from year to year. Now that I have found HOD, I think my wish may have finally come true!
God bless.
(Leaving you alone now so you can get back to writing this terrific curriculum!!)
I appreciate all the insight and experience you shared. It has really helped me narrow down my choices. The information you shared and your experiences with BJU were exactly the kind of information I needed to hear to help me make some decisions. Thank you so much for taking time to respond to my questions so thoroughly!My poor son has been the guinuea pig over the last 3 years of homeschooling, and I *really* want next year to be the year where everything just fits, and I can quit changing everything around from year to year. Now that I have found HOD, I think my wish may have finally come true!
God bless.
(Leaving you alone now so you can get back to writing this terrific curriculum!!)
Question for Carrie
Is Preparing ready now? For some reason I was under the impression that the guide wouldn't be ready until this summer/fall, but I see nothing about that on the new pages that are up.
Thanks!
Ronda
Thanks!
Ronda
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blessedmomof4
- Posts: 1138
- Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2007 4:34 pm
- Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
I welcome more input as I try to decide
Well...I shall have to wait and see. I usually like to purchase curriculum early, like in March or April, so I don't waffle and change my mind later
We have been enjoying Bigger, but I haven't slowed the pace because I wanted to, but because it really was a bit much to keep up with the pace at all times. Right now we are in week 11 and I was hoping to be at 17 by now.
Also, my grade 4 daughter is not a very strong reader, she is finding the extension package difficult, and a lot of the delay in our pace is me having to spend time reading with her the books she is supposed to read on her own. As it is now, she is using DITHOR 2/3 with lots of help from me and using books from the suggested list, and she really is just not a reading fan. However, she loves to write and does more copywork than I assign her just for fun! In math, Singapore started out as OK (more for me than for her) , but she is having trouble with the explanations in her 3A textbook, she does not find them clear enough and I wind up spending a lot of time re-explaining for her by using objects. She was doing much better with our old math program, the explanations made sense to her, without my help, and she still seems to need concrete models for grasping new concepts-using only pictorial representations seems to confuse her rather than help.
By contrast, my third grader is becoming a stronger reader every day and could very well be ready for DITHOR in a month or two-she is flying through the emergent readers and has just really taken a leap forward in her reading ability as compared with the beginning of the year. She is on target with math and Singapore 2A seems to be a perfect fit right now for her style of learning. She is the type to talk things through and figure it out, and can do quite a bit of math in her head.
By the time we finish, I counted the weeks, it will be the end of June, if we take no holidays, and if we keep up with the lesson plans, so I hope I have better described my dilemma. I almost feel like if there was something "in between" Bigger and Preparing, it would be perfect!
Does anyone think I should try Preparing without the older student extension books? Thanks in advance for any comments
We have been enjoying Bigger, but I haven't slowed the pace because I wanted to, but because it really was a bit much to keep up with the pace at all times. Right now we are in week 11 and I was hoping to be at 17 by now.
Also, my grade 4 daughter is not a very strong reader, she is finding the extension package difficult, and a lot of the delay in our pace is me having to spend time reading with her the books she is supposed to read on her own. As it is now, she is using DITHOR 2/3 with lots of help from me and using books from the suggested list, and she really is just not a reading fan. However, she loves to write and does more copywork than I assign her just for fun! In math, Singapore started out as OK (more for me than for her) , but she is having trouble with the explanations in her 3A textbook, she does not find them clear enough and I wind up spending a lot of time re-explaining for her by using objects. She was doing much better with our old math program, the explanations made sense to her, without my help, and she still seems to need concrete models for grasping new concepts-using only pictorial representations seems to confuse her rather than help.
By contrast, my third grader is becoming a stronger reader every day and could very well be ready for DITHOR in a month or two-she is flying through the emergent readers and has just really taken a leap forward in her reading ability as compared with the beginning of the year. She is on target with math and Singapore 2A seems to be a perfect fit right now for her style of learning. She is the type to talk things through and figure it out, and can do quite a bit of math in her head.
By the time we finish, I counted the weeks, it will be the end of June, if we take no holidays, and if we keep up with the lesson plans, so I hope I have better described my dilemma. I almost feel like if there was something "in between" Bigger and Preparing, it would be perfect!
Does anyone think I should try Preparing without the older student extension books? Thanks in advance for any comments