heartofdakota.com

Well, we're off and running with Bigger. Seems a little daunting to be starting a new year, but exciting as well! I know we will have an enjoyable time. My main goal this year is to start school earlier! We started at a little after 8:00 today, so hopefully I can keep that up. It just gets too crazy in the day if I start late.
Have a great day, everyone!
Laura

lmercon wrote:Well, we're off and running with Bigger. Seems a little daunting to be starting a new year, but exciting as well! I know we will have an enjoyable time. My main goal this year is to start school earlier! We started at a little after 8:00 today, so hopefully I can keep that up. It just gets too crazy in the day if I start late.
Have a great day, everyone!
Laura

Congrats on your start with Bigger! It is an excellent program. It took us about 3-4 weeks to hit our stride with it, and then it was smooth sailing. Our goal last year was to start earlier, and I cannot tell you what a positive impact it had on our day overall! Once I dragged myself out of bed and got going, it was soooooo worth it. It made our days very manageable because we had plenty of time left in the day for our own things after school was done. This is important for me as a wife and manager of our home, and it is equally important for our dc so they have independent time to play and explore. I think you are wise to choose this as a goal! Your day will continue to get shorter as routines are established and as your dc become familiar with each box of plans. I love this aspect of HOD - time literally begins to fall off our days the further we get into the guides! Have a wonderful year with BHFHG!

In Christ,
Julie

Laura,

We pray that you will have a blessed year with Bigger Hearts. I'm glad you're underway and are finding your pace. I'm not a morning person, and after years of trying to get our household to begin school day regularly at 8:00 A.M., I finally moved our start time to 9:10. We have eaten, are groomed, and have our beds made and rooms picked up by then. For me, the extra hour saves my sanity, as I find I can regularly stick to it. So, if you can't make the 8:00 time work for you, there's always a back-up plan!

Blessings,
Carrie

Just wanted to add my 2 cents for encouragement...We don't start school until 10am!!! I did that by design. I get frazzled easily. Having a late start ensures that we have MORE THAN ENOUGH time to clean up (hair, makeup, dressed to the shoes for me), eat , do chores, have my quiet time before the kids get up, do some housework, have alone time with the baby and 3 year old (LHTH) while the olders are doing their chores. Then, everyone is done with everything early and they get to have some free time before school. I just do better with some "padding" in our daily schedule. Like I said, I get frazzled if we are scheduled wire-to-wire before school. We also take a one and a half hour break for lunch and play. We start back up at 1pm and finish around 2:30. Not too bad!!! Anyway, thought this might help. We start at 10am for my SANITY as well!!

Liz
dh of 11yrs
dd9, ds7, ds3, ds8months

I was reading through this thread thinking what a blessing it is that we can all make our own schedules. What works for one family is often different from what works for another. What other school can take into account whether a person is more of a "morning person" or a "night person"? It's very funny when Carrie and I are working together on projects - about 9 PM at night I start slowing down to a snail's pace - by 10 PM I'm no help at all - and that is just the time Carrie is kicking it into high gear. It's the same with our dc - some love the morning, some not so much. Some love the night, others not so much. What a wonderful advantage of homeschooling for each of us to take advantage of!

In Christ,
Julie