heartofdakota.com

Hello all,

We've never done HOD before. In fact, we haven't done any "formal" history study at all with my boys. We have lots of historical fiction and biographies at home that my oldest has read some of, and he also took an American Revolution class in co-op last year and loved it. He was in ps through second grade, so I think all they did was very light Social Studies. He was hs for 3rd last year, but we just did the basics.

With that said, I'm not a newbie to homeschool. I have two girls in public high school who were homeschooled in elementary.

I'm trying to solidify my plan for next year, so here's my dilemma . . .

ds 9(turning 10 on Sept. 1)/4th grade/avid, advanced reader/deep comprehension/identified GT (for what it's worth)/writing resitant/perfectionist (slow to complete hands-on)

ds 7(turning 8 in March)/2nd grade (but still finishing 1st grade R & S Reading and Phonics)/beginning, resistant reader/strong in math/loves to draw; likes copywork; will dictate to me, but does not want to write his own picture captions, titles, etc./in constant motion (sometimes has to do his bookwork standing up)/loves hands-on and not fussy about it

So, I was all set to do Beyond for my younger and Preparing for my older; I can handle doing two programs at once. Then I sat and showed the different programs to my oldest ds on the website, and he really wants more American History. He devours the Childhood of Famous Americans series, and isn't ready to move to World yet.

My concerns are these:

I don't want to put my younger in Bigger; I have the Beyond manual and it's a good fit for him.

The Skills focus of Bigger is not enough for my older. If I do the left side of Bigger and the right side of Preparing, then next year I'm doing the left side of Preparing and the right side of CTC, etc. That feels just like what I don't want. I can't find the right word, but it's not "whole" enough-feels disjointed. What I love about HOD is everything for the day laid out on 2 pages. I can do that. I can even do that out of 2 programs, but to use all of Beyond for one and then half of Bigger and half of Preparing for the other. Ahhh!

I even thought about completely blending the history portions of Beyond and Bigger, but haven't studied it enough to know if that will work. Then I guess I could just do Beyond skills with my younger and R&S on level for my older. He is going to do Teaching Textbooks for math by the way.

Input? Advice? Experience?

Thanks ladies!
Adrienne

What about bigger with Extensions for your older?

I'm going to use Bigger with my 10 turning 11 yr old son this fall. I'm using DITHOR 4/5 , the Classic set and Child's Story of American & Exploring Planet Earth from the extension pack. My library has the rest if I decide to add in the rest of the extension package. Bigger has a lot to it, dictation passages, narration, notebooking. Also, since the focus is on biography style history, it will be very different and good for an older child.
I hope that helps.

I agree with the ladies in seeing that you have a couple of options.

You could do Bigger Hearts with Extensions, but would most likely need a higher level of grammar, along with a higher level of spelling/dictation and possibly writing (depending on what you do for grammar and whether writing is covered within your grammar choice). Otherwise, the rest of Bigger Hearts would most likely be enough for your son.

Your second option would be to do Preparing Hearts, and then choose American history based books to use with Drawn into the Heart of Reading to feed that passion for American history of your son's. This would also be a viable option that would focus on his desire for more American history while still moving him into a program that would require less tweaking. You could also, if finances allow, purchase the American history books from the Bigger economy package and any books that interest him from the Extension package to read on his own as free reading.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Blessings,
Carrie