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Ok. I know I said I would just be quiet ("a fly on the wall") but I would like some input. HOD looks to me, to be the best complete curriculum out there. But there is a lot of other "good stuff" also. There are 3 things that I've seen that I REALLY would like to get to use somehow and they are; TruthQuest history guides, Apologia elementary science and A Child's Geography vol 1. Any way that I can work these in (or in between) the HOD guides? At one point I had considered just putting together my own thing using these products as a framework, but HOD just has too much good stuff that I don't want to miss. I don't think I could make my own program flow as well and I love the whole language arts/narration/dictation/poetry aspect of HOD. Any thoughts? I'll be schooling year round (probably 42 weeks) so that will give me a little more flexibilty. Thank you so much!!
Cheryl

I haven't found a need to add to HODs History or Science. However, because I have an older (5th grade) child doing Bigger, sometimes the Geog. can be a little bit simple for him. We beef it up a bit with an American Geography book for 5th graders and we are also learning the States and Capitals. I just add these things in after I do the HOD geography once a week.

We use Apologia Zoology 1 here. Since my children are pretty young, we just read a page or two and then they narrate a sentence or two (or sometimes I'll pick out a sentence for copywork). Then they draw a picture. When we get to an activity, we do it. It really doesn't take too much time since we are just doing little chunks of reading at a time (we do this twice a week). It'll take quite a while to get through the book at this pace, but that's okay. We're keeping it casual and fun.

Any other thoughts? My only concern with HOD (and believe me, it's a minor concern) is the use of so many textbooks for history. I've never read any of the ones included, can anyone reassure me that they are more interesting than regular public shcool ( and some private school) textbooks?

Thanks again for any input. You ladies are so gracious!!

mommyagain wrote:Any other thoughts? My only concern with HOD (and believe me, it's a minor concern) is the use of so many textbooks for history. I've never read any of the ones included, can anyone reassure me that they are more interesting than regular public shcool ( and some private school) textbooks?

Thanks again for any input. You ladies are so gracious!!

We don't have public school experience but we do have experience with ACE and Christian Liberty Press. The HOD History books for Preparing are WAY more interesting so far. One of my favorite things about it is the fact that you switch books from time to time. This shakes things up a bit and you aren't stuck with the Same textbook for the whole year. "So many textbooks for history" in my opinion is a very good thing. The books Carrie has chosen tell a great story that holds the children's attention. This helps them remember the facts about history like never before.

Leah

The textbooks by Christian Liberty Press are fantastic. I love their history & science books. They are supplemented with hands on activities. They are not dry or boring. They read more like story books. My son came out of public school last year and he adores HOD ( we are finishing Beyond).

I have used Truthquest and, although it is a good resource, I found myself missing a curriculum that would tie all the pieces together for me and explain the flow of history. This is what HOD does for me.

As for Apologia Science and A Child's Geography vol. 1, these are both part of the Hearts for HIm Creation to Christ package. So, if you can wait until you are there, it would be perfect for you. That said, we are doing a different Apologia Science than is scheduled in CTC with our science co-op, and I think that is going to work just fine. We are just substituting.

Hope this helps!

Thank you so much ladies!! I'm convinced I want to use HOD, now it's just a matter of LHFHG or Beyond. Age wise my 2 oldest will fit in either (they will be 6 and 7 next year). I'll just wait and see how far we get this year as far as reading and math. Now I can hardly wait until next year!! Maybe I'll have to start in the spring or summer ! And I can't wait for my little guys to be old enough for LHTH!!!!

Thanks again!!
Cheryl (future HODie!!!)

zookeeperof3monkeys wrote:The textbooks by Christian Liberty Press are fantastic. I love their history & science books. They are supplemented with hands on activities. They are not dry or boring. They read more like story books. My son came out of public school last year and he adores HOD ( we are finishing Beyond).

I need to clarify. I also like the CLP books. I just prefer the way Carrie uses them in the manuals mixing them in with other interesting books and switching them up from time to time.

Leah

Hi Cheryl!

I just wanted to pop in and welcome you, too! Here's another thought. You could do HOD 4 days a week, and that would leave you with your 5th day to add some extra things that you desire to. The programs from Preparing on up are written as 4 days a week, but the others can easily be done that way. I'm going to be doing that with LHFHG this year. It will just stretch it out farther for us. We're planning to just take LHFHG into the next school year as we'll just do 35 weeks - but since you are planning on more than that you could probably finish the guide in one "year".

I think this would work great with the science and geography. I'm not sure on the history program you mentioned as I'm not familiar with it. You'd have to decide if doing it once a week would work or if that would break up the flow. We'll be doing some extra art on Fridays, piano and violin lessons, composer study, nature study, and some 4-H curriculum that goes along with our projects. (Some not all of these will happen every week. )

I can tell you HOD is great!! We are thoroughly enjoying it and are starting up again next week. I love all of Carrie's book choices. The history books she chooses are living books (written narratively by an author who loves his subject). Grant and I learned a lot in Bigger last year - the history books that tell about American heroes were truly inspiring!

Kathleen

Welcome! We did ACG (not thew one in Preparing but the other one) with Bigger and that worked very well. We also did HOD science as well with it and found we were fine. I love HOD science but we also just love science and I have things on my shelf that I want to use so we have found HOD is very flexible to adding either by adding a little or doing a 4 day schedule. We have done both with Bigger and LHFHG and it worked great for us. You just have to be careful and talking to myself here really HOD is already very complete so when you add make sure you are not going to throw off the wonderful balance it has built into the program. That is the most important thing. But we do squeak a thing or two in here and there and really find that it works as long as it is not a huge thing.

You are going to love HOD!