Helping New Homeschooling Friend

[amwg2694]

Hello! I am currently using LHFHG with my 6 year old ds. We are absolutely loving it.

I have recently had an old high school friend contact me wanting info on homeschooling her son. She sent an email today saying that she had the withdrawl letter all ready and that she was really interested in HOD. She thinks the level she would need is Beyond. However, she was questioning exactly what she needed to order. I personally would want to order it all, but I'm not sure if that would overwhelm or right now and also I'm not sure what her budget is to spend on curriculum. So, my question is what does she absolutely need for a child who is currently in ps 1st grade. I'm a little nervous to give her advice because I'm kinda new to this all myself and I don't want to mislead her. Thanks for any help and input you can give!

[pjdobro]

I would think that the economy package plus the basic package would get her started nicely unless she already has some other ideas for math and science. Then she would need to decide where to place her ds in reading. If he is still need phonics instruction she would need to choose one of phonics choices, Reading Made Easy or The Reading Lesson. If he is an emerging reader, she could get the emerging reader books or see if she could reserve them from her library. The story choices are also a nice choice, but she might be able to get those through her library as well. I think the only thing really needed to get started is the economy package plus the basic package which for the first grade level would be around $108. If it were my friend I would recommend that she come to the website look around and look at the placement chart for her ds. She could also register on the board and ask any questions she might have before getting started. She might decide to start with LHFHG even though her ds is in 1st grade. I used LHFHG for my dc for 1st grade and it worked really well. You're a wonderful friend for pointing her this way. I wish I had started here when I started homeschooling 3 years ago instead of floundering for a year first!

[my3sons]

Well, that is exciting! You are already encouraging others to homeschool, and I'm glad HOD could be in another family's home. I think it would be really helpful for your friend to get her hands on a copy of the HOD catalog. You can request one here:
http://www.heartofdakota.com/catalog.php

Also, if she goes on the website and clicks on the "Helpful Tips on How to Order" light bulb at this link, that will help her as well:
http://www.heartofdakota.com/byd-little ... ckages.php

Personally, I find it is helpful to have everything at my fingertips to be able to homeschool happily. So, I agree, the economy package, the basic package, one of the reading options, and one of the deluxe packages would have her set to homeschool easily for the year. If she is short on funds, she could drop the deluxe package and try to use her library or her own books - but from my own personal experience with the library, I'd shy away from this and try to just have the books on hand if at all possible. HTH! She can always join the HOD board and ask as many questions here as she would like too - we'd like to meet her!

In Christ,
Julie

[Kathleen]

Personally, I find it is helpful to have everything at my fingertips to be able to homeschool happily.

Ditto! For me, it is so much less overwhelming to have everything right here at home!

But, we don't run to town when we need something. When we go to town, we try to remember to get everything we know we need. SOOO, if we come upon something that we need for a meal we want to cook, for school, etc. We either improvise, change plans, or go without. (I almost never follow a recipe as written anymore...it's actually fun to re-create. I've accidentally come up with some really yummy things. ) Anyway, I would feel like I needed to go to town if I didn't have books we needed, and that just really doesn't work well for us. However when I was growing up I lived in town and it was super easy to run to the store or library whenever. So you can consider that as you read my advice.

Kathleen