heartofdakota.com

Hi all. My name is Libby and our family is in Georgia. I am switching over to HOD from Ambleside Online. We have homeschoold from day one. We have 5 children. My oldest daughter is just about to turn 11 and will be in "6th" grade next fall. My second daughter turned 9 in January and will be in "4th" grade in the fall. I am struggling to figure out where to place them. I am leaning towards doing seperate programs for them. I am thinking of Preparing Hearts for my 9yo. I need more guidance with where to place my 11 yo. She is a strong reader but has not had much formal grammar. Our history studies thus far have been ancients, American and a little modern. Any history would still be interesting to us!!! She is a quick learner and self motivated. I'm trying to think ahead with four year history rotations. I'm wondering if Creation to Christ would be best or Resurrection to Reformation. If anyone could give me advice I would be so thankful!!! I feel very blessed to have found this program. (My sweet friend Debra told me about it.)
Blessings,
Libby H.

Hey Libby,

My name is Chandler and I live in GA, too. My sixth-grader did CTC this year and it was a perfect fit for him. My soon-to-be fourth-grader will be doing Preparing next year (he did Bigger this year and loved it). I think your daughter would do well in CTC. You could just do R&S 4 with her since you say she has not had much formal grammar. My son did R&S 5, but he did have a fairly strong background in grammar. If your daughter is a strong reader, she will LOVE the books in the CTC package.

You will LOVE HOD! This was our first year homeschooling and it has been such a blessing.

~Chandler

Just wanted to pop in and say Hello and Welcome! My girls are a little younger so I cannot really help you with placement so hopefully others will chime in. I can say that we started LHTH in March and we LOVE it! Pretty soon my older girls will start Beyond and it looks awesome too.

Hi Libby, and welcome to the HOD Board! The CM style of learning has been such a joy to teach with HOD - I think your friend Debra has just pointed you in a very good direction. The HOD placement chart has been very helpful in accurately placing our dc. The first page of the placement chart is the most important to consider. Could you take a peek at it and share a bit about each of your dc with those areas in mind? Then, I know lots of ladies will join in to help you with placement. Here's a link to that chart:
http://www.heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php

We have done all of the HOD programs up through CTC and enjoyed them so much. We just recently finished CTC, and had a wonderful year with that. Any HOD program is fantastic, but proper placement puts the icing on the cake and makes for a great year overall. I'd love to hear your thoughts when you get a chance to check the chart, and I'll check back to help you out, as I know others will too. I think you'll find this board to be full of helpful ladies who love the Lord. That is one of the reasons I come here so often! Looking forward to getting to know you here.

In Christ,
Julie

Libby,

I just wanted to welcome you to the board! We're glad to have you here. I did years 3, 4, and 5 of Ambleside with my oldest son and think you'll find the transition to HOD to be a good one. If you get a chance to give us your thoughts as to where each child places individually on the first page only of the placement chart, we'll be able to help advise you better. The link to the chart is in this thread already.

You could either lean toward doing Preparing Hearts with both kiddos or to separate them in their own programs. If you did combine them within Preparing Hearts, you'd add the extensions and a higher level of the 3R's for your older child.

I'm also wondering what the ages of the rest of your kiddos are - as that will affect how much time you have in your day. This will also be of help to us to know as we ponder possible options.

Blessings,
Carrie

Thank you all for the warm welcome and advice! It looks like CTC for my 11 yo dd will be best. My question is, will this work out in future years for a solid history rotation? After studying the placement chart it looks like Preparing hearts for my 9 yo daughter. We also have a 6 yo dd that I'm planning on Little Hearts with, 4 yo ds and a sweet 6 month baby girl! Thank you for your help and I hope to be able to help other mothers starting out one day. So basically my remaining question is the history rotation concern for my 6th grader.
Bless you all!!!
Libby

I'm sorry for the delay in my reply. We are looking to buy a new house and it has been consuming!!! We are trusting the Lord to lead us to the right home for our family!!!

libbyhall wrote:Thank you all for the warm welcome and advice! It looks like CTC for my 11 yo dd will be best. My question is, will this work out in future years for a solid history rotation? After studying the placement chart it looks like Preparing hearts for my 9 yo daughter. We also have a 6 yo dd that I'm planning on Little Hearts with, 4 yo ds and a sweet 6 month baby girl! Thank you for your help and I hope to be able to help other mothers starting out one day. So basically my remaining question is the history rotation concern for my 6th grader.
Bless you all!!!
Libby

I'm sorry for the delay in my reply. We are looking to buy a new house and it has been consuming!!! We are trusting the Lord to lead us to the right home for our family!!!

I have prayed that you are on your way to finding your new home - I know how busy that can be. It sounds like you are well on your way to a good placement for your dc. As far as your question about the history rotation, there are 2 more guides after RTR to finish out the time periods. So if your sixth grader did CTC this year, RTR for seventh grade, the next 2 guides would go through ninth grade. We currently have moms using RTR for high school, so I imagine that would work fine for your child as well.

In Christ,
Julie

Libby,

I apologize for the delay in getting back to you! If your kiddos end up in two guides that are back-to-back to one another in sequence (like Preparing Hearts and CTC), you may want to ponder placing them in one guide like Preparing Hearts instead (and then add on portions of the right side of CTC only for your older child). Othewise, you'll end up teaching the guides back-to-back each year!

Or, if you feel your oldest fits well in CTC, you could look to see if Bigger Hearts may be a better spot for your 9 year old to begin instead? There is much teaching of skills within Bigger Hearts that is great to have as you move through into the guides that follow it. Without knowing more about how well your 9 year old reads or how comfortable that little one is with written work, grammar, or read-alouds I won't venture in to advise more.

Just some things to consider as you ponder.

Blessings,
Carrie