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Hi All,

Blessed afternoon to you all. We just officially started today-3rd grade and Kindergarten. I was going thru the sample book ideas for my 3rd grader, and I have the books included in the boys interest set. That leaves me with some open sections meaning I have the book list recommendations, but not books for the following genres: Adventure, Nonfiction, and Realistic Fiction. My son is 8 years old, and I was just wondering if anyone had ideas for those genres either from the book list or not. So please pass those ideas along.

Since he's just started The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by CS Lewis, could you tell me if we could use that for the adventure genre? I saw the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was an option listed. I realize those on the list are just suggestions, but I happen to like suggestions Sometimes for me its refreshing being told what to do, or being given ideas. I have the books The Apple and the Arrow, and Mountain Born. What genres do they fall under, or what subject I am supposed to use them for? I'm new and I just wanted to check on that.

I was also wondering what people are using for 3rd grade Language Arts because I don't have anything for my son.

Thank you,

Marie

Hi Marie!

I'm not sure if you're using Beyond or Bigger for your 8 yo as he could fall into either. I'm doing Bigger with my 8 yo and we're doing the LA right out of the guide. This includes Cheerful Cursive for handwriting, R&S English for grammar, dictation for spelling, and then we're using DITHOR for reading. Everything's very well covered there. I don't have experience with Beyond as this is my 1st year doing HOD with my oldest, so if that's what you need to know someone else will have to ehlp out.

Are you looking for storytime titles (where you're reading to your son) or DITHOR titles (where your son is reading to you)? Either way, here's a link to HOD's book shop. http://www.heartofdakota.com/book-shop.php If you scroll down, you'll see groups of books under the different genre headings. I thought this was helpful when I was making my selections. Mountain Born is listed under Realistic Fiction and The Apple and the Arrow is considered a Folk Tale. These are both in the Storytime pack for Beyond...which is books that you would be reading aloud to your son. We didn't do Beyond with my oldest, so we're using The Apple and the Arrow as one of our storytime selections this year because he LOVES bowhunting and does a lot of it with dad. So, you can really pick and choose. If you are doing Beyond this year and planning on Bigger next year, you may not want to pick books that you'll need next year. There's a key at the top telling what each "book group" is for.

If you have any other questions, keep asking. The ladies here are great about helping!
Kathleen

I'm using A Reason for Handwriting for cursive, R&S English 2 for English, the spelling list in Bigger... for spelling, and we'll be adding DITHOR in a few weeks for reading. So far everything is moving along very well. I really do like R&S...we'd never used it before. It is very thorough and easy to follow the instructions. My daughter used Beyond...previously and did great with the spelling list there, so we were happy to do the list again in Bigger. I expect great things from the reading program as well.

Hi Kathleen,

Thank you so much for your reply! So basically what I was looking for were suggestions for DITHOR. Caleb is using Beyond. Thank you for pointing me to the book selection page. I do have all of the boy interest books listed. Some were not on the book list, which is why I thought that I didn't have certain genres. I may have missed them, which was quite possible. I really thought that Carrie had sent me Rod and Staff for his grammar, but I can't seem to find it now. I have to check on my order form receipt. I have it for my Kindergardener, Aidan though. He is loving Rod and Staff by the way.

Thanks!

-Marie

Kathleen wrote:Hi Marie!

I'm not sure if you're using Beyond or Bigger for your 8 yo as he could fall into either. I'm doing Bigger with my 8 yo and we're doing the LA right out of the guide. This includes Cheerful Cursive for handwriting, R&S English for grammar, dictation for spelling, and then we're using DITHOR for reading. Everything's very well covered there. I don't have experience with Beyond as this is my 1st year doing HOD with my oldest, so if that's what you need to know someone else will have to ehlp out.

Are you looking for storytime titles (where you're reading to your son) or DITHOR titles (where your son is reading to you)? Either way, here's a link to HOD's book shop. http://www.heartofdakota.com/book-shop.php If you scroll down, you'll see groups of books under the different genre headings. I thought this was helpful when I was making my selections. Mountain Born is listed under Realistic Fiction and The Apple and the Arrow is considered a Folk Tale. These are both in the Storytime pack for Beyond...which is books that you would be reading aloud to your son. We didn't do Beyond with my oldest, so we're using The Apple and the Arrow as one of our storytime selections this year because he LOVES bowhunting and does a lot of it with dad. So, you can really pick and choose. If you are doing Beyond this year and planning on Bigger next year, you may not want to pick books that you'll need next year. There's a key at the top telling what each "book group" is for.

If you have any other questions, keep asking. The ladies here are great about helping!
Kathleen

Marie,

The Beyond manual has gentle grammar lessons written right into it, as well as including spelling. HOD starts using Rod & Staff in the Bigger manual. We're doing R&S 2 this year. (You are totally free to do what you think is best for your family though. I just say that so that you realize that you would have had to specifically order the R&S separately as it's not a part of Beyond.) If you wanted to use R&S for grammar instead of what's in Beyond, you'd just do a lesson a day...at least that's the pace so far.

Now, the boy interest storytime pack that you got to go with Beyond should have every genre covered for you to read aloud to your son. Then...if your son is also ready for Drawn Into the Heart of Reading, you'd have different books for HIM to read to you. I purchased the "Green 2" pack from the book shop to use with my son this year. You can pick any book that is the right reading level for your child for each of the 9 genres. I decided to start with the pack this year because it's our 1st year doing DITHOR and I wanted to have the books all planned out for me. You may notice in the packs that there are sometimes more than one book per genre. THis is because Carrie has them scheduled to take certain amounts of days...and they always equal 15 days. So, there's one for 5 and one for 10 in the fantasy genre, for example. Some moms...most I think...do DITHOR 3 days a week so that they cover all 9 genres in 2 years. I happen to be doing it every day this year as we're using easier books and I wanted to. You can buy books for DITHOR (if you don't have them already) or you could check your library and get books there. Moms here do both.

Let us know if you have any more questions.
Kathleen

Marie,

The ladies are doing a wonderful job of helping you! With Drawn into the Heart.., you can either pick your own books, or use the Sample Book Ideas List, or use the Level 2 or Level 3 Book Pack suggestions, or use the Book Shop suggestions. Guidance-wise the Level 2 or Level 3 Book Packs are already all laid out for you.

Here is the link to the Level 2 Book Pack: http://www.heartofdakota.com/drawn-into-optional2.php

Here is the link to the Level 3 Book Pack: http://www.heartofdakota.com/drawn-into-optional3.php

Next, guidance-wise is the Book Shop, with all books categorized by genre and reading level. You can just choose from those books, if you scroll down past the key at the top: http://www.heartofdakota.com/book-shop.php

Last, guidance-wise is the Sample Book List or just choosing your own books.

Blessings,
Carrie