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The Lord willing this fall will be my first year homeschooling. Right now my son and daughter attend a Christian school using Abeka and I have a preschooler at home. I really want to try a different curriculum because my son struggles badly with math and writing/copywork. These are the only pages he gets sent home from school, and it will take us literally hours sometimes for him to complete the couple of pages. He is really bored with it and looks around alot, etc. I know there are better and different ways to present information out there, but to be honest I am very nervous about leaving the straight-forwardness of the Abeka curriculum (which fills all of the NYS regs for subjects). I am also very overwhelmed w/ the # of curriculums available and which one is the best choice for us. Someone please help me!
I am really drawn to HOD, but have several questions:

1) Are the dictation passages located in the appendiz of the guide? Will the guide tell me when I am supposed to work on them?
2) Does anyone know what level he would be going into for the English? The catalog says students who have previously used an advanced program for English, should use English 4. He is just finishing Abeka English for 3rd grade and his teacher says he has absolutely no problems with it, but I would hate to have any gaps in transferring to this program by putting him too high, or being bored from being too low (by putting him in English3).
3) I've been told that HOD is a great program for parents with active boys, but it seems like a lot of reading and writing (which my son struggles w/writing -but not w/comprehension!). Right now, just doing short writing things through Abeka takes him forever. Is he going to struggle with this program?
4) Using the placement guide, my son looks like he should be in PHFHG, but I am thinking of using the BHFHG w/ the extensions as he is coming into a whole new program/style of learning after using Abeka's curriculum for 5 years. I thought the extra year might be good for him. But how do the extensions work? Can he do the whole BHFHG AND the extensions, or do the extensions replace the science/history books in the BHFHG?

Thank you for ANY help! I know once we get past this first year I will get better and better at this.

Jennifer

Hi Jennifer and welcome to the HOD boards! You will find that there are a lot of kind, helpful ladies here that can totally relate to the "new homeschooling" concerns and that will give great advice on the HOD programs.
It is a big step to change to a new style of learning but when the Lord calls you He also equips you! God's strength has been essential to our family's homeschooling path!

I hope I can help with a few of your questions. We are using Bigger Hearts this year and really enjoy it.

As for dictation, YES, the passages are in the appendix of the guide and it DOES tell you in the daily plans when to do them.

As for English it would be my suggestion to start with Rod and Staff English 3. If you come to sections that your ds has already mastered then you can skip ahead to areas that he may not have covered yet. You wouldn't have to worry about having any gaps then. (We are doing Level 2 this year (for "third grade") and it's been just right.) I have not used Abeka so I cannot compare the two programs... although I am sure someone on the board will be able to help you with that.

As for doing HOD with active boys... my oldest ds has only done HOD from the beginning and it has been such a nice balance of "seat work" and more active work. There is a lot of reading but it is done in small chunks so that it managable and enjoyable.

As for doing the extensions, we have not used them but it is my understanding that they are SUPPLEMENTAL to history and science and do not replace the core program. The schedule for the extensions are in the appendix of the Teacher's Guide.

I think your idea of doing Bigger for your first year of homeschooling is a great idea. It will be content that will challenge your son yet not overwhelm him as he learns a new style of teaching and learning.
Many blessings to you as you plan and ponder...
Andrea

I would add that I think you should just try the Bigger program first as written, then add the Extensions only if he needs more challenge. The Extensions are for ages 10-11, and are to be read by the student independently, and also have follow up activities in the appendix which include oral and written narration.
For history and science, Bigger has you reading aloud to your student. The only independent reading at this point would be the Drawn into the Heart of Reading literature program. I would suggest using the 2/3 workbook with whatever reading level books are appropriate for him, to ease him into the reading program. The 2/3 workbook requires less writing than the 4/5 workbook.
As for Rod and Staff, I second using level 3 to start. Rod and Staff goes quickly from 4 on up, and for this reason 4 and 5 are scheduled half speed in the guides Creation to Christ and Resurrection to Reformation. The goal is to finish level 6 by the end of grade 8.
Heart of Dakota's Bigger provides a wonderful balance of seatwork and active work-you can see that on the sample pages here: http://www.heartofdakota.com/pdf/BHFHG-first-week.pdf
The intro to Bigger can give you a better feel as well: http://www.heartofdakota.com/pdf/BHFHG- ... -07-11.pdf

Thank you ladies for the great help! I was getting really stressed about ordering the "correct" curriculum, but the more and more I read about HOD, the more confident I am feeling about it.
In regarding my sons placement, I realized that I never gave much info about my sons age or skill level. I thought I should give a little more info on him to see what you still thought of him using BHFHG beause according to the HOD placement chart he really should be in PHFHG. The only reason I thought of putting him in the lower level was not so much that I was concerned about him doing well in PHFHG as I was concerned about one year of HOD curriculum being enough to get him ready for the amount of independent work and writing that is in Creation to Christ. (And I didn't want him to do 2 years of PHFHG) So my logic was to put him in the lower level which would allow for 2 years of different HOD curriculum before using Creation for Christ.

But he is turning 9 in a few months, and is very bright (he will sit and read non-fiction science, ocean, or history books on his own, and he would watch the History channel all day if I let him). He does all his Penmanship in cursive (though he doesn't enjoy it), and according to his teacher he not only completes his grammer work accurately, but she feels he really understands it as well.
I am going to test him on the SIngapore math to see where he place in that, and I actually found a placement chart for R&S that I can use to compare what he has learned in Abeka to what he would learn with R&S. And Julie had a post w/ examples of the dication levels (which my son should definetly be on level 2).

Having used the HOD curriculum, do you still feel using BHFHG (w/the right math and English levels chosen) will be enough of a challenge or do you think it will be too easy for him? And if I go w/ PHFHG, do you think the one year will be enough to get him ready for Creation in Christ?

Sorry for so many questions, but I would rather ask them than try to guess. And just knowing other people can help gives me more confidence.
Blessings,
Jennifer

I just wanted to share that if writing is not so fun for your son and since this kind of learning will all be kinda new I dont think it would be such a bad idea to start in BIGGER. I have a son who was 9 when we started Bigger and is 10 now. He is in the 4th grade. He is also very smart and loves non-fiction. He loves to just grab a book about the solar system or birds or whatever. At first he did not really love to sit and read other books though (which he does now thanks to DITHOR and Carries book choices, I believe). He has wonderful handwriting and does not love to write a lot, but will, and is minding it less and less.

All of that being said, BIgger has actually been just perfect for him. We came from another cirriculum and he actually placed in Preparing also, according to the placement chart. I ended up combining him into Bigger with his 2nd grade brother (so that I would only have to do 3 guides instead of 4). He is thriving!!! I do not regret putting him here at all. It has been plenty, though I think he would do very well with the extensions now, only because he loves to learn more about science and history that we are reading.

So I think that you would love Bigger for your son. If I were you, I would start it as is then see how he soes, and then add the extensions latter if you are feeling that he nees or would enjoy them. Also with this same son we were using ABEKA grammar level 3 before comming to HOD. He totally understood it and was doing great. I also struggled with the choice between the two. I eventually just went with level 3 Rod and Staff instead of 4, and feel like it is just fright for us. It has not been to easy, but actually just right. Rod and Staff teaches in a differant way than ABEKA. The reason that I decided to do it this way is because Carrie has posted before that she feels that Rod and Staff levels 7 and 8 are sufficient for highschool level grammar (and actually suggests these for beefing up hOD for highschool). So I figured that I wasnt going to "mess" him up. Anyway I hope all of this helps And dont worry I have learned that if we are trully trying, we are not going to mess them up

I know that I already talked a lot, but i wanted to answer one more of your questions

3) I've been told that HOD is a great program for parents with active boys, but it seems like a lot of reading and writing (which my son struggles w/writing -but not w/comprehension!). Right now, just doing short writing things through Abeka takes him forever. Is he going to struggle with this program?

Well all boys and children are differant of cousre, but I have 5 very active little boys and 4 of them are loving HOD. God will show you the right choice for your family. He reeeeeally confirmed it to us, and we have been sooo blessed by it. IT ha been PERFECT!! I have homeschooled for 8 years and this is our first with HOD. I (and the boys) have never LOVED school this much. I was even starting to dread it before. And we were using a very popular cirriculum, just was not for us at all. Anyway, hope all this helps

Wow, thanks everyone! That is definetly helpful. I think all you ladies are right about using BHFHG, but how do you use English 3 or spelling/dictation level 2 with the BHFHG? Online and in the catalog, it only offers English 2 and level 1 spelling/dictation for that level, so I am guessing that lesson plans for the higher materials are not included with the guide.

Beverett, you said you used English 3 with your son, was that with the BHFHG level? If so, what did you use for a guide/lesson plans? Also, I want to use the dictation/spelling level 2 which is only offered in the PHFHG. Should I order just the PHFHG guide and use it just for the spelling/dictation offered in the appendix and for the English 3, then use the the rest of BHFHG for all his other curriculum?

I'm thinking that you could go either with Bigger or Preparing. I don't think you'll find it too easy for him if you do Bigger. It's a wonderful program. We've been enjoying it this year for my dd and ds who will both turn 9 in May. It's been a fun year of character and skill building. I must say that the character traits that are discussed during Bible study this year has been wonderful for us. Bigger really helps build some skills that I think are going to be useful going into Preparing. In Preparing, the science box and independent history box are scheduled to be done independently. It is very similar to what the dc have done in Bigger all year so it is an easy step for them to take over these boxes. If you decide to go straight into Preparing you may have to take several weeks to train your ds in how to do these boxes before they become independent. The vocabulary is another area that they have been doing in Bigger so it will be an easy semi-independent to independent task in Preparing. There are little things like this that they have been doing for a year in Bigger that help them to ease into a lot of the work in Preparing. The other thing is the narration skills are something that the dc have been working on for a while and in Preparing they will take that one step farther by doing written narrations. This could be a more difficult jump for your son if he hasn't been doing oral narrations. Again though that is something that you could ease into. My biggest concern for you is the writing component. There is more writing involved in Preparing. I know there was a great post on this, but alas I can't find it. I do know that there are 5 additional science questions each week that the dc will be doing in Preparing that they don't do in Bigger and the written narration once a week is also extra writing in Preparing that is not in Bigger. I do think you could go with either program. If you do choose Preparing, you might choose to start it at half-speed allowing your ds some time to ease into the new skills and new way of learning. One thing you might do if you haven't already is print out the first week of each program and really study it and try to envision your son doing the program. Perhaps you can get a better feeling that way as to which would be best for him. HTH!

P.S. One more thing...I think if your son is able to complete Preparing as written this year, then he will be ready to start CTC the following year. Each guide does prepare a dc for the next one. So as long as he is able to do all of the guide as written by the time he finishes it, he will be prepared for the next guide.

ETA: I found that link in another thread about the writing in Preparing versus Bigger. That will probably be helpful for you: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3602

Honestly, I just have him do one lesson per day. If I counted correctly, there ends up being 145 lessons in all in the Rod and Staff book level 3, if you do all lessons, reviews, and extra activites. In Bigger there end up being 150 days in all (34 units x 5 days). So there would end up being 5 days at the end of Bigger when you have no grammar lesson for the day (which is just fine ).

With my son, I just finished out the spelling in the Bigger guide. I think we started on like unit 23, and we ended up actuallly skipping several units. I did this because my son had not previously done dictation and I was VERY new to the idea of not "doing" spelling lol... He is a very good speller and can recall phonics rules quite well (we could have easily gone into dictation) , I just get a little perfectionist in me sometimes. Anyway, when he finished the spellling we started dictation level 1 in the Bigger guide. I think that if you really want to do the dictation level 2, then you would have to purchase the Preparing guide and do it that way?? Which would really be easy. In the LA box, when it tells you to do dictaion for the day, you would just do your level 2 from the Preparing manual... easy cheesy

Brandi

Actually dictation starts with level 2 and that is the level in Bigger. In Preparing there is level 2, level 3, and level 4. I think in CTC it is levels 3, 4, and 5 that are included. I think it continues to go up one level each year with 3 levels in each guide. I only have up to the Preparing guide though so I'm not 100% sure on that.

Hi Jennifer! It looks like you are getting great advice from the other ladies here. I just wanted to pop on and say welcome to the boards! You will love HOD!