heartofdakota.com

Morning HOD families, Thank you for helping me ahead of time, this is my first year ordering HOD, and I am having a little trouble deciding what is best especially with a limited budget. Let me first say we started HOD last year because someone sold me their used curclm, so I kind of got it in pieces and used what I had. Either way, what we used worked for us, so I wanted to stay with it this year aslo. My son who is 10 July 7 did Bigger last year and this yr I am going to buy Preparing HDHG. We did not do DIHR last year, as we just couldn't afford the extra and it didn't come with what she sold me. So far with the PHFHG, I know I am buying the Economy package and the Science pack add on, not sure if the history books are in the economy or not. After that it is difficult because of our expenses. I think I am ordering the CD and the English Beginning Wisely. My son didn't do a whole lot of extra reading last year, we had gotten some of the books from her that were from the extension pack I think, but with our schedule it just didn't happen. Can anyone help me to know what to do or order?

Hi LaDonna! You and your son are in for a wonderful year with Preparing!! We absolutely LOVED it here last year!!! It was a wonderful year of learning and growing...and it was fun.

If you go to this page where the Preparing packages are listed, and click on the lightbulb at the top of the page it will walk you through ordering. http://www.heartofdakota.com/preparing- ... ckages.php

I really think that you'd want the Basic package for the read-alouds that correspond to the history. That's what the storytime box in the plans uses daily. You could check with your library and see if any are available there and only order the ones you can't find.

The Self-Study Deluxe History Package: for the newly independent reader - are the books used in the "Independent History" box on the bottom of the left page daily. I think those will teach your child MUCH, too. My son loved them, and that box was so good at teaching him to read and follow directions on his own (as well as many other skills, I'm sure).

Then, you will need English, math (either HOD's choice or your own), reading instruction. We LOVE Drawn Into the Heart of Reading at our house. You keep reusing the teacher guide over & over, so I think it's VERY economical besides being the best thing I've seen to teach my kids literature and moral discernment as they read!! You'd also need a student book. And if you're wanting to economize, books to use along with DITHOR would probably be the easiest to find and check out from a library. You'll just need to make a selection from 5 of the genres this year. You could look at HOD's packages for ideas or get the DITHOR package that includes the teacher guide, student book you need, and Carrie's suggested book list.

I'm typing this really fast, so I hope it's not too scatterbrained. Here's a past post, too, where you can read the books you'd need for the 1st 9 or 12 weeks of Preparing if you need to break up your purchases throughout the year to economize. viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6521

Hope that helps!
Kathleen

Hi Kathleen, and thank you for replying. OK, so I would order the Economy, the science add on, and the basic package which includes the books such as Tirzah, The True Story of Noah's Ark, Aesops Fables etc... Then you recommend the Drawn into, would that be used along with the basic package? or would I have to buy a whole other set of reading books to go with that? Also, I know there are the extension packages for 5th and sixth grade, but I cant afford all of it. So would I be OK just ordering the Economy, Science, and basic? I also checked with our library and they unfortunately don't have anything I need:( I know I can try to also find some used over time, but you know how that can be! So I guess what I am looking for at this point, is the least amount I can get without being detrimental to my sons 5th grade education.

Thank you Kathleen or whoever else would like to chime in!

LaDonna,

The basic pkg has books that you'll be reading aloud (and that bring the history to life). The storytime box in the daily plans is where they are used. Maybe Carrie or Julie can tell you which would be more essential to your child's education - the basic pkg for storytime OR the deluxe pkg that's used with the independent history box. There are some pretty important skills covered there. I'm not sure which would be considered "priority" if you can't do both. Maybe getting 9 weeks of those would make it affordable enough for you?

For DITHOR, you would need to use different books to study (not the history ones in the guide). Here are the packages for DITHOR. http://www.heartofdakota.com/drawn-into-packages.php I'm guessing that you'd need the 4/5 student book package that comes with the teacher guide & the sample book list. (The teacher guide has ALL the levels included...and you keep reusing it yearly as you go, using different books to go with the genres.) At the top of that page, there are links to the optional book packs that HOD sells to use with DITHOR. Here's the link to the 4/5 book packs, to give you an idea. http://www.heartofdakota.com/drawn-into-optional4-5.php What I would do in your situation here, is look at HOD's suggestions for the different genres either here on the website or on the sample book list and choose 5 genres that you can find books at your library for. Here's a link to the "book shop", too. http://www.heartofdakota.com/bookshop.php This shows books that HOD reccommends for all the different guides for the genre-based storytime and DITHOR packs. This might give you more ideas of good books to look for. I know that this year, my son is going to be reading King of the Wind as his "adventure" for DITHOR. We didn't use it for storytime in Bigger, and he really wants to read it.

Ok, that's the LONG way to say, I'm sure that you can come up with 5 genres worth of quality books to use with DITHOR through your library. As far as what's essential to Preparing, wait and see if Carrie or Julie can tell you whether they'd skip the basic pkg or the deluxe pkg if necessary. I'm not sure which is more "essential".

Kathleen