Homeschooling Mom,
I'll just mention the rest of the language arts that rounds out our guides. In Bigger Hearts, we do cursive handwriting using either Cheerful Cursive or Italic or a workbook of your choice. After Bigger, handwriting practice takes the form of cursive copywork scheduled daily in a variety of subject areas.
Dictation passages will continue to be our form of spelling, and new passages will be contained within each guide taking the level of dictation from Level 2 all the way up through Level 8.
Oral narrations or written narrations are scheduled daily within our guides to guide children in the skills of retelling both orally and in writing. Much guidance is given in each of these areas, first in the form of lessons and later in the form of points in list form of what to look for and accomplish narration-wise.
Classic poetry study begins in Beyond and will continue each year. Bigger Hearts has a study of poetry terms and applies them to the poetry in Bigger Hearts. Preparing Hearts continues that study and also has creative writing lessons weekly that correspond with the included poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson. Our new ancient's guide will have creative writing lessons scheduled twice weekly using Story Starters by Karen Andreola. The other half of Story Starters will be scheduled in the guide to follow the ancients guide. Then, we will most likely schedule Igniting Your Writing I and II in the last 2 years of our guides through grade 8. The writing lessons in Rod and Staff will cover the more straight-forward writing components, and when combined with the creative writing and narration practice will provide a complete writing course.
2 levels of Rod and Staff English are scheduled in each guide. 3 days of Drawn into the Heart of Reading are also suggested, however the order that you do the units within DITHR is left up to you. Book packs are currently available for Level 2/3 and are upcoming for Level 4/5 for DITHR. Otherwise, you may use any of your own book choices with DITHR.
In both Beyond and Bigger, we also include literature study within the Storytime box of the plans. This is to cover your child in the area of literature-study while he/she is learning to read. The Emerging Reader Set is completely scheduled for you in the Appendix of Beyond. The same schedule is also included in Bigger for those that need it then instead.
Memorization and recitation of Bible verses is included within each of our guides and memorization and recitation of poetry begins each term in Preparing Hearts.
These are the main areas of language arts and the ways they are covered at HOD. At HOD, we work to give you a cohesive plan for language arts coverage without it taking all day to teach. We strive to cover all needed areas and to help you get to often-missed areas like poetry, narration, and creative writing as well.
Blessings,
Carrie