heartofdakota.com

Hello Everyone,

Well, my other thread was getting quite long due to the wonderful responses I have received, so I thought I would begin a new one. I have more questions about homeschooling and figured it would be best to start fresh.

So here it goes....

I am trying to figure out how you determine when your child is ready to move to the next grade level with HOD. I am a bit confused since I have never done this before, but all the other curriculums I have looked at go by grade level. That was helpful to me because I figured once my son finished the curriculum set for that particular year successfully, then my son would move to the next grade.

With HOD, it seems set up differently. How will I know that my son has completed everything he needs for Kindergarten, then 1st grade, 2nd grade and so on??? I know there has to be a very simple answer to this and I am just not seeing it, but I really need to figure this out. So far I am really enjoying what I am seeing with HOD, but this is the part that stumps me.

I guess I just want to make sure that my son has everything he needs academically so that he can move on successfully through each grade. Also, in GA., they test every three years beginning in third grade. Will my son be able to keep up and do well with the testing? Is everything provided that he will need? Lots of information and help are welcome with this question.

Thanks so much everyone! This is an incredible board and I have been enjoying it greatly so far. Thanks for all the help and information so far, it has been greatly appreciated.

Catrina : )

Hi Catarina and welcome to HOD. If you are concerned about what your child should know in each grade, you could check out your library and see if they have the "What every child should know in --- Grade" series. We've picked up a couple of those at yard sales and I think most of what is in there is taught in HOD. Some of the things that weren't were kind of silly things like Common Expressions. You learn some as you read about the famous people who started them, but it's never seemed too important to me to make sure my kids know things like "He's giving me the cold shoulder". Why in the world would that be core knowledge for a 3rd grader? Anyway, LHFHG makes a good K or 1 grade program, up to 2nd if you add the supplemental readings in the back. Beyond is a good 1st or 2nd. Bigger could be 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th with the extensions. etc..

From what other people have posted, their children do just fine on standarized tests. We haven't done any yet.

hope that helps a bit...

Hi Catrina. Welcome. This question has come up before. I am not sure if it was here or not but it is a common question. With unit studies it is a little different than with textbooks as far as the ease of determining grade level. We let Math and LA determine grade level since the other subjects do not as easily have things associated with them that are grade level in elementary. Even LA can be a bit tricky because some programs are advanced like R&S. So we advance our children to another grade each year at the end of our school year having progressed another level of Math and LA. I do not let the unit study determine the grade level. So if I was in the middle of a unit study that would not matter to us. We would just pick up where we left off the next year and do higher level Math and LA. There are many levels to each unit study and the things covered are pretty much cyclical anyway. I hope this makes some sense. I am not in a state that has strict regulation. Hope this helps. Welcome to HOD!

We're doing Bigger for 3rd grade, but I started it in January. I am doing one unit a week, but faster in math and LA because I placed her lower in those to make sure we hadn't missed concepts in ps. I will school through summer and will complete the guide sometime in late summer and will move into Preparing for 4th grade. At that point I will consider myself "on track" and can move at the pace of one unit per week or a little slower for vacations or breaks so that it keeps going some through the following summer (I don't like to take the whole summer off, I think they lose too much).

I guess that means I'm kind of opposite of water2wine. She uses math and LA to determine when a grade level is completed and I'm using the HoD guide and self-pacing math and LA. Since I pulled my daughter out of ps and she has lots of friends still there, it's important for her to advance with her friends in grades. So this fall I want to be able to say "she's in 4th grade".

I wish I could say I had some insight about testing, but I don't. TX doesn't require anything of me, so I haven't really looked into it other than for my own satisfaction to make sure we are on pace. Hopefully someone else will chime in!

Hi,
As a former ps teacher, I understand your focus on grade-level. We are so used to that because that has been our common experience. Carrie has many years of ps teaching experience in multiple grade levels and has a good grasp of what children should learn as they move along. I suggest you spend a lot of time with the placement chart and really work to place your child with the right program. Each program then builds on the other as far as skills and content. I don't know about your future plans, but my dh wants to transition our children back into school at some point, so I do think it is important to make sure they are up to par, so to speak. I am in my first year with HOD and feel completely confident that my ds is well prepared to handle what he would be getting if he were in ps. In fact, I think he is receiving a far superior education and is way ahead. I will paste a really handy chart as to what kids should know at each grade level below, but please keep this is in mind. As a ps teacher, I NEVER finished the curriculum for the year and would have been thrilled if my students retained half to two-thirds of what they studied. I think I was a great teacher too! That is just the reality of large-group instruction with textbooks, worksheets, and formal tests that basically just test to see how good a kid's short-term memory is! I suggest you give HOD a try. After using it, you will really see the value to the program, how well your child is doing academically, and most importantly, how you are able to bring the things of God to the heart and mind of your child on a daily basis.
hth,
Laura

http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Students?cu ... /preschool

We don't have to report in my state or anything, but what I do is just count my dd as the grade she would be in if she were to attend ps, more or less. I'm counting her as K this year (even though she misses the cut off by 3 weeks) and will count her as 1st grade next fall, even though she'll be doing 1st grade work long before then. We school year round, and have already finished LHFHG and will be starting Beyond soon, and she's in Singapore 1B math, and is almost through with phonics, so if I was using math to give us guidline for her grade, she'd be in 1st grade, but I'm not. Another thing I thought you were asking is when to go on to the next curriculum. You just keep going with the next one after you finish the current one. Each guide does a great job for preparing the children for the skills needed in the next guide.

Catrina,

I also wanted to mention that each HOD guide is equal to one year of instruction, so when you complete one guide you move up to the next one in line.

Blessings,
Carrie