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How do I place my daughter who is turning twelve in august?? I wanted to start her in the time period of creation to christ, but would it be too advanced for her?
She reads really well and is finishing sonlight core 4- second part of us history. Beyond reading her skills are behind. Her spelling is 2nd- 3rd grade level (AAS level 2), she is just starting formal grammar studies- working through abeka 3 la. For math she is finishing saxon 5/4. She finished the first level of IEW writing, and will be working through one of their topic guides this summer. She is learning summary dictation, she tells me, I write it down, then she copy's it. She has the memory for oral dictation but her spelling is so terrible that I thought it would be better for her to just copy it correctly the first time!
Curently she does 3-5 sentence narrations 3x week. spelling each day with simple dictation sentences using those words. Grammar each day, math each day, and practicing cursive copywork each day- 7 lines. She also reads each day to herself and I read to her about a chapter.

Any ideas as to what is a better fit for her?? Could she handle the CtC? It says 4 hours a day, is that accurate and does that include math, spelling, everything for the day??

This is just my opinion, so take it for what it is worth. I don't have a 12 yr old yet. Preparing is a four day week with about 4 1/2 hours of work per day. Everything is scheduled into your guide for you. If you are adding extensions then you may have to add more time to the day (I don't know this for sure). Dictation, spelling, etc are in the guide. You can choose which language and math you want to do. R&S and Singapore are scheduled into the guide for you as well as DITHOR (2-3 days per week). History, Science, Poetry, Bible Study, & projects are scheduled into the guide.

Given what the strengths and weaknesses you have described with your dd, she might do very well with Preparing using the extensions. She would fall easily into the age category. You might want to be sure and check the placement chart http://www.heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php

We did a good amount of Creation through to about the Trojan War or so with another program. I was worried that repeating history topics would be boring for my dd. But HOD handles things so completely differently, my dd has never complained (even when we reused some books that had been included in that other curriculum). I think you will be very happy with what you find in HOD.

Welcome along!


Edie

I agree with doubleportion that PHFHG with extensions sounds like a good fit for your dd! PHFHG would really be a terrific place to begin with HOD. The one year sweep of history is amazing, and the books are so good. PHFHG would have you reading a portion of her history, and her reading the other portion. It would have her reading and doing her science. It does an excellent job of teaching written narrations, along with beginning editing skills using the resources in the Appendix. It also would have the right levels of dictation and R & S English for dd. Creative writing lessons based on poetry are included as well, and these were integral in launching my ds's interest and capability in writing creatively. I also loved that PHFHG helped my ds begin to develop doing his own Bible Quiet Time. I think you'd find it to be a great year for you and your dd! But what do you think?

In Christ,
Julie

I think preparing sounds good because it has a lighter work load, and from finishing up sonlight this year thats what I want! Together my daughter and I will have covered 50 books just for this year! My concern is keeping her moving forward. She has not really studied ancient history, well we did do 2 years of it with sonlight but that was 1st and 2nd grade. Being so young back then 6-7, she doesn't really remember much anymore! As far as placement she fits in the CtC for age, reading, and writing and she is interested in the apologia science text. The grammar she is not quite there yet. If we do preparing I'm not sure that I would do CtC next year, I'm just not sure what she needs of history before starting highschool. She has three years before high school, not sure how I can make anything work!! My concern with CtC is burning her out with the amount of time it might take to complete each day.

I think preparing sounds good because it has a lighter work load, and from finishing up sonlight this year thats what I want! Together my daughter and I will have covered 50 books just for this year! My concern is keeping her moving forward. She has not really studied ancient history, well we did do 2 years of it with sonlight but that was 1st and 2nd grade. Being so young back then 6-7, she doesn't really remember much anymore! As far as placement she fits in the CtC for age, reading, and writing and she is interested in the apologia science text. The grammar she is not quite there yet. If we do preparing I'm not sure that I would do CtC next year, I'm just not sure what she needs of history before starting highschool. She has three years before high school, not sure how I can make anything work!! My concern with CtC is burning her out with the amount of time it might take to complete each day.

If you go with Preparing, you won't be disappointed! I think that it is my personal favorite of the guides so far. (Although that is a tough pick!)

If you go with Preparing with Extensions, you'll have everything you need scheduled for you. There's the dictation, copywork, narrations (both oral and written), notebooking, creative writing, and then you can choose to use HOD's choices for math and English or your own. If you're finishing Abeka 3, I'm guessing you could use R&S 4 when you begin Preparing. We've liked switching from Abeka to R&S in English.

Kathleen

It's good to know she can go from Abeka 3 into R&S 4! And it sounds like everyone thinks preparing is the way to go.... is the level 2 dictation pretty basic? I'm thinking she could do it but not seeing examples its just a guess! I think she will use rod and staff next year but does that include creative writing? We've been using IEW for writing. And the more I think about her skills and knowledge the more I realize she does know! Maybe I just think she needs things easy and I'm hindering her from her potential??
thanks so much

The creative writing in Preparing is based on Robert Louis Stevenson's poetry. On Day 2 of the plans each week, the student has a writing assignment based on the poem they're studying that week. You'd have to ask Carrie if you should add to that writing for her. I think I remember another mom using Igniting Your Writing along with Preparing with an older student to up the writing level?

We loved the poetry writing. I made Grant's poems into a book for his brithday this year. He was so proud of it! I NEVER would have guessed that he loved writing poetry before we did it in Preparing! But he does. HOD uses a different writing program each year to build the different kinds of writing. I'm so glad that they're holding my hand with this! There is writing instruction in R&S, too.

Kathleen

I agree - PHFHG is an incredible guide to do - I think you will both love it! Here is a link to dictation samples...

Dictation Samples:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1221

We found dictation to be harder for our dc than it appears. After they study it and we take it away to read it phrase by phrase, they repeat each phrase as they write it. It must be written perfectly - perfect punctuation, capitalization, spelling, indentation - or they need to do it again the next day. It was tough for me not to help them when I could see they had written it perfectly but had forgotten something little, like indenting it. I actually used to give hints like, "Hmmmm, I wonder if you'd want to look at the very start of your dictation and fix something?" Anyway, I realized that this "help" I was giving them was no "help" at all because they just made the same mistake the next day. So, as you look at the dictation, I just thought I'd share this learning experience I had, as the dictation is harder than it appears and dc really learn the most and make the most marked improvements in their own writing from us not "helping" them along the way. If Level 2 Dictation looks too easy, then you could look at Level 3 Dictation, which is also in PHFHG. If the dictation is all too easy in the PHFHG manual, then you could get the CTC manual for the next levels. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie