heartofdakota.com

Hi. I'm new here and looking into HOD for my family. My dc are 8yo, 6yo, 4yo, 2yo and newborn. I realize I can't plan the future perfectly but want to have a possible plan in place to aim for.

I have mapped out how I could combine some of my children together doing various levels. Here's an example of something I am wondering about:

If I do Bigger, Preparing or one of those levels that have ext packs with a child that is on the younger end of the appropriate age range. Then 3 or 4 years later can I repeat that same level with this child and add in the ext packs? Would it be enough new information for them? Is this how people do it with several children?

Also, to get them on track together I have my oldest doing Beyond this year. Then she would jump to Preparing next year while the next 2 do Beyond. Then the third year I would put them all together doing Bigger. That makes my oldest skip over Bigger. She is in the age range for all of them except this first year for Beyond. It goes to age 8yo and she will be 9 in June. But I really think she would still enjoy it since she's not done HOD before.

Thank you for helping me wrap my mind around this.

Welcome to the HOD Board! HOD has different spans of age levels for each guide, as we all know age is not the only determining factor for placement. That is where the placement chart comes in handy, and I have really found that to work so well for placing our dc. Your dc are close enough in age to combine, but many combinations are possible. So, first it would be most helpful to look at the placement chart:
http://www.heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php

The extension packages are used to extend the subject area of history, and sometimes science, so an older child can learn along with a younger sibling. HOD doesn't advise repeating guides, other than possibly the preschool LHTH guide with different resources a second time through. Each HOD guide builds skillwise and maturity-wise upon the last, so doing them out of order or repeating them makes progress difficult.

How is your 8 yo doing with Beyond? Where does your 6 yo place according to the placement chart? If your oldest is like most oldest dc, she may be quite far ahead of the 6 yo academically, even though she is only 2 years older. Or, maybe they are quite close in ability and needs. We've found our oldest just took off, probably because he had me all to himself for awhile, and the others have not. Anyway, it's worked wonderfully well to let him soar for us. As he has moved toward more and more independence as he moves up the HOD guides (which means less teaching time for me ), my youngers have needed me more, which has been fine because I have then had the time to give them as my oldest is more independent.

Anyway, I'd guess, looking down the road...
your oldest could be in her own guide
your next 2 could be combined
and your last 2 could be combined

But, I'd love to hear more about your kiddos, especially with the first page of the placement chart in mind.

In Christ,
Julie

Thank you Julie. That was very helpful. Yes, my oldest is an excellant reader. Her handwriting is lacking but not terribly. My 2nd oldest (and only boy) is just now learning to read. He struggles, whereas my oldest basically taught herself to read at 4yo. LOL My current 4yo is picking things up with reading and writing just by osmosis. So I don't think she would have any trouble keeping up with her older brother.

One question - in looking at the future levels - there is a beautiful girlhood devotional in Resurrection. Is that something that could be done on its own or along with a different level? I would love to do that at a certain age with each child. But if I have all three olders combined then my oldest will be older than I would prefer and I wouldn't really want my third doing it yet. Plus I think it would be a nice thing to do one on one with each of them. Do you think that would be possible?

TammyTE wrote:Thank you Julie. That was very helpful. Yes, my oldest is an excellant reader. Her handwriting is lacking but not terribly. My 2nd oldest (and only boy) is just now learning to read. He struggles, whereas my oldest basically taught herself to read at 4yo. LOL My current 4yo is picking things up with reading and writing just by osmosis. So I don't think she would have any trouble keeping up with her older brother.

One question - in looking at the future levels - there is a beautiful girlhood devotional in Resurrection. Is that something that could be done on its own or along with a different level? I would love to do that at a certain age with each child. But if I have all three olders combined then my oldest will be older than I would prefer and I wouldn't really want my third doing it yet. Plus I think it would be a nice thing to do one on one with each of them. Do you think that would be possible?

We are doing Boyhood and Beyond right now in RTR, which is the boy equivalency of Beautiful Girlhood. The follow-up copywork, journal entries, and discussions planned to go along with the readings of the boy and girl options are excellent follow-ups to the books. I say this because while you could do Beautiful Girlhood and its companion book on their own, the RTR guide schedules it out so well with meaningful connections, and because of that, I think it is wise to use the RTR plans for it. So, the short of it is, yes, your dc can do the Beautiful Girlhood study on a different year than the RTR year, but it would be very, very nice to have the RTR guide on hand for the plans no matter which year each girl does it. I'm thinking you would have it on hand anyway, so that shouldn't be a concern, but I just thought I'd mention it. I do think it's nice to do this study individually with dc if possible, as personal struggles and strengths are shared and come into the discussions more easily. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

Thank you Julie. So do you mean that even if we have already done RTR with a child or if we are planning to do RTR the next year with the child it would be good to have the RTR guide on hand as a reference when we do the Beautiful Girhood study?

Sorry I'm so dense! LOL

The way it would work out is all three of my olders would be combined every year. By the time we would get them all to RTR together they would be 14yog, 12yob and 10yog. I was thinking 10yo might be a good time to do the Beautiful Girlhood. Not sure till I actually look at the material and also depends on how mature they are at the time. My son I'm guessing around that same age as well. So I'm assuming I would want to do it earlier with my oldest. My boy and my younger girl might end up right around the time we are doing RTR. Again not sure.

help;-)

TammyTE wrote:T...So do you mean that even if we have already done RTR with a child or if we are planning to do RTR the next year with the child it would be good to have the RTR guide on hand as a reference when we do the Beautiful Girhood study?

That's exactly what I mean! I can get to rambling and make things about as clear as mud sometimes. I'm so glad you asked this!

In Christ,
Julie

Thank you! That makes sense:)