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For some reason, DITHOR is a little scary to me. I've had a hard time making myself teach it. I love it, but am just not real confident with my teaching skills when it comes to literature. Sometimes, I don't trust myself when I have to come up with ideas or answers. You know, like if there isn't one straight forward answer. Anyway, shortly after ordering my Beyond guide, I noticed that the Storytime Box is the 9 genres. It is easier for me to use for some reason. I like the way it is scripted. It doesn't look as overwhelming. So everyday we do DITHOR, I get my Beyond guide, the DITHOR TM, and the student books out. I compare the Beyond guide to the DITHOR guide for that day, and use what I want out of both. I know it sounds like double work, but it's not. And, it's helping me learn how to teach DITHOR. Every week, it gets easier for me to teach more out of the DITHOR guide. I hope that makes sense.

Anyway, today my ds(11) and I had a great chat, because of using the Beyond guide along with my DITHOR guide. We are doing Fantasy right now, and in Beyond the scripture for brotherly love was out of Acts 10. This is when Peter visits Cornelius to share the Gospel. What is so awesome about this is, I am reading in Acts right now during my quiet time, and I just read this scripture 2 days ago. I didn't understand it completely when I read it, so I did a little research to clarify it for me. So, when I saw this was the scripture given for today, I couldn't believe it. You know God worked that out for me, so I was able to really talk with my son about brotherly love and accepting people no matter where they are from, or what they look like. And get this, my ds had also recently read this same scripture. He remembered Peter's vision and I was able to explain to him what it meant. We talked for at least an hour about Peter and Jesus and how we can show brotherly love to people around us (especially the little brothers). God is so good!

I know this is long, but I just wanted to share how God is working in our home. It is because of Heart of Dakota and the people that make it possible. Thank you Carrie and HOD. This is gooood stuff!

That's awesome, Beth! I think that makes total sense to use what is being learned in Beyond to help teach DITHOR. The carryover is intentional, and it sounds like you are making wonderful connections.

In Christ,
Julie

Beth,

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the connections you and your children were making within your reading and your Bible time. It's amazing how the Lord coordinates things for us, isn't it! I know the Lord blesses us when we strive to talk about His word and learn about Him during our school day AND our off-school hours. He brings so many connections to us, doesn't He! That eases my load, as I know the Lord is the orchestrater!:D

I know the DITHR guide can be a bit overwhelming looking at first, but fear not that as you move through the HOD guides you will have plenty of time to get used to it! You can ease into DITHR as your comfort level raises through the storytime activities in Beyond and Bigger.

Thanks for sharing!

Blessings,
Carrie

Thank you Carrie and Julie. I love the way you wrote the guides to build on each other. My two youngest sons will benefit from that. I wish I would have found you guys a few years ago, and so does my oldest son.