Preparing Hearts and Writing Questions...

[butterfly113]

Hello,

We are planning on using HOD next year, the Preparing Hearts program. DS9 will be in 4th grade in the fall. Through 2nd and 3rd we have worked on copywork, and added in dictation this year as well. He is doing pretty good with it thus far. I have not done as much narration as we should be doing probably. We have been using Just Write, and he is doing good with it, sometimes he like it and other times it's the "do I have to... sigh"! SO, for next year with Preparing Hearts I was thinking of doing one of the following...

WWE implementing narration and dictation from various bible, History and Science read alouds from HOD each week.
--OR--
IEW Themed Writing ( Fables, Myths...) and using those in addition to HOD.
--OR--
Imitations in Writing (Fables) and using those along with HOD.

Can anyone tell me if it is necessary to implement more writing? Are there enough "writing" assignments in HOD? Is narration covered in HOD? Has anyone used any of the above writing curriculums with HOD? What was your expericence? Any input is greatly appreciated! TIA!

[Allison TX]

Hi! I am using Preparing this year with a 3rd and a 4th grader, both boys. There is a lot of writing in our week. Carrie has done a great job spreading the writing out through the week, so each day has a manageable amount. There is dictation, copywork, narration (oral and a written one for history), creative writing based on poetry, written responses to science questions, and the writing lessons that are scheduled in Rod and Staff Grammar. I have had to require a little less writing overall from my 3rd grader as he is writing phobic and overwhelms easily . If you plan on using a different grammar program than R&S, then you might want to add in one of the writing programs you referred to. But, I would wait until you start the program and see if you think you need to add on after using Preparing for a couple weeks. Hope this helps a little.

By the way, we have really been enjoying our year with Preparing. It is such a rich program! And it is so nice to have everything thoroughly planned for me. I think you will love it.

Allison

[butterfly113]

anyone else???

[deltagal]

HI there,

I think you're good to go in the writing department with Preparing, as is. Carrie has a plan to ramp up the writing requirements in expectations in the future guides as the children move closer to high school. There is a nice balance of writing activities each week, between poetry, written dictation, R&S assignments and dication. I'm probably missing something else, but I'm very pleased (at this point) with what my 12 yo is doing in the writing department using Preparing. Set those good resources aside and enjoy Preparing, as is (IMHO).

[MainelyJen]

Although I only received my Preparing manual this week, I thought I'd chime in and agree that Preparing has lots of writing in it. Let's see. . .I'm going to randomly flip open to a week's worth of plans and give you a general idea of how much writing would be done.

OK, the book opened to week 18. Here we go:

Rod & Staff English text daily for 4 days (this will include writing assignments) or English text of your choice
Science notebooking page (to be done in cursive)
Bible verse copywork (more than one)
Poetry writing assignment (write a paragraph)
Answering science questions in writing
Writing a history themed narration
Written science experiment report (lab report)

Now, in addition to all this, there are daily discussion questions and oral narration, which are a tool to hone the communication process and really help sharpen composition skills.

It seems to me that all the weekly plans include this much writing and meet the challenge of spreading out the writing assignments to the varied subject areas. I don't often see this balance in other programs, and I think it is important to not have my son only writing about history or only science and so on. That's a trap one can easily fall into when cobbling together an eclectic program. I would suggest you give Preparing a try as written. If after a few months you aren't seeing an improvement in writing skills, you could always add in one of those extra resources on a regular basis or on a Friday as a "writing workshop day" where you focus on a particular skill.

[my3sons]

Hello,

We are planning on using HOD next year, the Preparing Hearts program. DS9 will be in 4th grade in the fall. Through 2nd and 3rd we have worked on copywork, and added in dictation this year as well. He is doing pretty good with it thus far. I have not done as much narration as we should be doing probably. We have been using Just Write, and he is doing good with it, sometimes he like it and other times it's the "do I have to... sigh"! SO, for next year with Preparing Hearts I was thinking of doing one of the following...

WWE implementing narration and dictation from various bible, History and Science read alouds from HOD each week.
--OR--
IEW Themed Writing ( Fables, Myths...) and using those in addition to HOD.
--OR--
Imitations in Writing (Fables) and using those along with HOD.

Can anyone tell me if it is necessary to implement more writing? Are there enough "writing" assignments in HOD? Is narration covered in HOD? Has anyone used any of the above writing curriculums with HOD? What was your expericence? Any input is greatly appreciated! TIA!

We're over 2/3 of the way through PHFHG, and I don't think it is necessary - at all - to add more writing to it. There is written narration, guided notebooking assignments, creative writing using poetry as a model, copywork, dictation, R & S English, Common Place Book writing (CM style - journal like a bit) - not to mention writing for science lab reports, answering questions in science, history projects - and then of course, there is all of the writing in DITHOR! We are loving PHFHG - this is all done in a very balanced way - but I don't think you should add more writing to it. Make a pledge with me not to add anything extra for writing until you've given PHFHG at least 1 - 2 months? I think you will be very content with the amount, variety, and instruction of writing in PHFHG - but if I'm wrong - in a few months, you can always purchase one of the above writing programs then. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie