As we were looking at purchasing new curriculum HOD was on the radar again merely because my youngest has been hit or miss for finding a love for learning. We were using a literature rich curriculum, but his passion for it wasn't there. The literature was rich, but there was little non-fiction which is where his passion lays. We were halfway through what he was using when the requested HOD catalog showed up.
Funny story, it was a horribly rainy day & our mailbox is not weather proof {of late} & the catalog was left in the box in the rain. We dried it out & enjoyed looking through it. My boy had me read him the book selections 4x & then said he hated to admit it but he would like to try it. Ha! So we contacted HOD a few times {because despite homeschooling for 11 years I suddenly felt like a newbie} & made our purchases.
The wait wasn't as long as we anticipated. Someone else in Australia said it was about 3 weeks, but it was only 12 days or so for us. We just wrapped up our 3rd week in the curriculum & I'm seeing a passion growing in my boy I haven't seen in a long time. As we were reading about the symbol for Christian in our readings that first week he asked me to stop & he ran out of the room. I really had on idea what to expect from him, but he came running back in with a Roman Game Dad had helped him find to play. The shields all had the symbol on it, & he wondered what it meant & was delighted to learn!
He's not an artsy crafty kid so I was a little worried how he'd do with the project side of things. We skipped the arch in week one because it used wheaten flour & he's a celiac. However, we did the craft from week 2 & he loved it which amazed me because he's always called glue his "arch enemy". Seriously, it comes just before pink, but just after snails.
This week he wrapped up the craft project that had him writing a verse in both Greek & English. He couldn't wait to write it out in Greek & then asked if he could learn Greek. He then hopped on DuoLingo to see if they had a Greek language & set himself to work. I was a little worried about doing DITHOR with him. My son has Visual Processing Disorder that wasn't diagnosed until he was 12. While he can read it was really hard for work him & has turned him off reading a great deal.
I was delighted that DITHOR started with Biographies, his favourites! A favoured family movie around here is Night At The Museum so when we saw the first book was about Jed Smith that rather excited him a bit. Yesterday as we were doing the lesson about character traits he was convinced he had none of the ones mentioned: Responsibility, Diligence, & Initiative. There was a drawn out sigh from him as he said, "I don't mean to be rude but I don't believe I have any of those! What am I supposed to do now?!"
So I took the paper from him & read what it said & then proceeded to write out a sentence for him of a time that week in which he'd shown each characteristic. Needless to say our boy was on cloud 9 by nightfall & bursting to share his work with Dad when he got in.
I know we're only 3 weeks in, but I have to say I'm absolutely delighted with his love for what he's learning. It's been a long time since we've seen him this passionate about anything school related.
I'm so glad his love of learning is growing. We've experienced similar "Aha!" moments here, too. I've been using HOD for nearly 7 years, and we are totally loving this curriculum so much. Quality Christ centered, God honoring resources, fun engaging projects, and meaningful assignments, as well as the best customer service around, are just some of the reasons we love HOD. A funny side note...I wrote my own *gushing* post a few days ago myself! Lol! 