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We have been doing Bigger for a few months now (hit or miss over the summer) and really enjoying it. It has plenty to keep us busy but there are a few other extras I want to add like foreign language, some classical music study, maybe some extra art and more science experiments. So what, if any, extras do you add to your day/week? I am all ears

I am adding Home Economics Level 1 from Pearables, for ages 6 plus. It's really basic stuff, things I might not "think" to teach my daughters. Actually, I'm kind of excited about it! I ordered it through Rainbow Resource just the other day, and I hope to get it before we officially kick off the new school year.

With five little ones, and the craziness of life, I will be very satisfied with just getting HOD done for the day!

Good question! I can't wait to see what others are doing.

Have a good day,

Joy
Finished LHFHG
Starting Beyond and LHTH this Fall

Throughout the year and for various children (not all at the same time) we will have 4-H, sewing, soccer, basketball, and t-ball. DH is supposed to be teaching them organ but we'll see how that goes. I would love to do music or dance, but we just don't have the money.

We are adding some doorpost stuff for character and life skills, sewing is going to be big this year along with a mini chef school. I went through a pastry chef program so I want to teach them some of that but I am also thinking bulk cooking would be a good thing along with some regular cooking. Also Spanish, health, we are adding some science for the older kids, and some Christian world view material, an art study and I will say loosely a composer study. We will continue with our chronological reading of the Bible. We will be doing quite a bit of this on Fridays which are not HOD days and not every kid is doing every thing and we will not be doing it all at once of course but that is what I came up with for my six.Hope there is something there that helps.

My 8 yo does martial arts, and my 6 yo does ballet. I also have speech therapy for the 8 yo, which keeps us busy.

HI! This will be our first yr with HOD, but we have been homeschooling from the beginning with our oldest. When Lilo and Stitch came out she was absolutely fascinated with the opening sequence/ hula dancing...to the point she was constantly stopping and "rewinding" the parts so she could figure out the steps. After realizing what she was doing I went web surfing and found an instructional video for childrens hula. She loved to practice it every day, and it was fun for mommy to try and do it too! I think I only paid $15 for it, and she still pulls it and dances with it.

I can understand the money squeeze!
Try your library for intructional dance videos and music videos. You can extend the learning by using it as a unit study, do a small research project on it.
You could do simple rythm sticks (different diameter dowel rods make perfect sticks) or bells (get creative and use the craft bells and make a set) during the corresponding cd's. If you can clap you can teach rythm

You could also ask around for anyone in your church / homeschool support group who may want to teach music/instruments/voice. Maybe offer him/her trades for babysitting/housecleaning/ etc... in return for lessons. You may even be blessed to have someone do it for free, simply because they love music themselves. We were blessed that happended for us, Kasey took piano lessons for about 6 months for free because we had someone who loved being able to just teach.


As far as this year goes, we will probably do a couple co-ops for home economics and may be PE. I'll probably teach this year at least one subject. With my homeschool co-op, if you help/teach a class your child attends for free. You could look at forming a co-op with other moms...

I hope this helps... have a great year!

Our kids are little so we're still just doing story time at the library and preschool music (a real bargain at the nearby university where dh teaches). Glad to be able to keep it simple and cheap as we dive into our first year of HOD! But we have some good extracurricular resources I'm considering for the future: Boy Scouts, Upward sports, 4-H, bargain dance classes at a nearby community center...

My dd is in Girl Scouts, and this year I have enrolled her in a one-day enrichment program that will include Spanish/Art/Music/PE/Public Speaking. For both kids I would like to take part in a nature hike group but I'm still gathering more info on that. If it's a whole day, I won't do that, but do want to start a nature study hour several times a week.

I also plan to add some Health as part of cooking, which is more of a chore/helper task than enrichment. Also more Spanish with both kids and music appreciation. I thought that instead of a composer study we'd like to do a genre study first. Like what is classical, bluegrass, opera, big band, etc. I am going to use CDs from the library for this.

I just ordered a 10-drawer cart from JoAnn's on sale (a la workboxes) to make sure I fit all this in!!!

We are doing bigger with extensions for my 5th grade. We have added Spanish, Music, extra Art, and Typing thus far.

Grant and Allison play piano (I teach ) and violin (Grandma teaches ).

Grant will play soccer for 5 weeks this fall.

Allison is going to try ballet - which I am quite sure she'll love. In our town, they do ballet for K and 1st graders and then it turns into more of a hip-hop/jazz style for 2nd grade on up at which point we will bow out of dance.

We're planning to use the 1st Artistic Pursuits book on Fridays. (I got it last year and we started it, but then decided to do Bigger 5 days a week...so we'll use it this year!)

We're in 4-H, and we're planning on using some of their curriculum for our projects on Fridays, too. They have a great book on photography - and Grandma's going to help us, too. We're in the dairy project (which we only work on in the summer), photography, and the dog project. Grant spent a lot of time working with his dog this past year. It's been well worth it, too, as Hunter is turning into an obedient, enjoyable pet. (Although he hasn't yet outgrown finding and chewing up shoes!! )

HOD, piano and violin are the only things that we consider daily must-do's. THe rest is the fun stuff that I think we'll be able to get done over time in a year.
Kathleen