Family Learning vs Individual

[Mommato7]

How did you make the decision between family learning and individual guides? I'm having a hard time letting it go of family learning. We're coming from Gather Round, and other units, and it's been hit and miss. Either it's been way above my little oens' head or too easy for my older kids. We've also had so much fun together.
Thinking of making the switch to HOD this summer with my 7 kids.

[JPauls]

We are just finishing up our first year of HOD and it was wonderful. In the past we always had a morning basket and we worked together as one group before splitting off into independent work. I was not ready to let this go so I continued the same with our HOD. My 3 oldest girls are in grades 5, 7, and 7. I chose to group them altogether in Creation to Christ with the older two using the extensions. This worked amazingly well.
I love reading aloud and enjoy learning all of the sciences, history and geography, (somehow I don't even remember learning these things when I was in school,) so I read all of these subjects aloud as a group before sending the girls off to finish the boxes independently. This retained the "family learning style" but at the same time I saw incredible growth in their independent work as they wrote narrations etc.
As far as sharing a guide, there were a few hiccups at the beginning, but eventually they all learned to work on different things and pass the guide around when they were finished with it.

This next year we plan to continue with the same method in Resurrection to Reformation. My younger two are in grade 3 and K, both are actually at very similar levels with reading. I am hoping to put them both into Preparing at the same time in another year or so. At that time I will only be running 2 guides with 5 kids. I would plan to have a morning read-aloud with one group and an afternoon read-aloud with the other.

If my 6th child is ready for PreK I may have her in a separate guide, but that is a ways off so we shall see.

I hope this helps. I see a lot of people say grouping is too hard, but it has been very easy for us.

[StephanieU]

I thought I would teach my three oldest together when they were young. But then #1 was a go-getting and advanced, and I felt I didn't want to hold her back. At that point, we found HOD, and she started LHFHG at 5.5 years old. I thought I would combine the next two, and it FAILED. They are very competitive, which resulted in some poor behaviour and quality of work. So I separated them. I have combined them for writing and (sort of) for DITHOR. My third born still feels things aren't fair because she is expected to do the same things as her older brother! So that confirmed that having them in separate guides is best. And #4 is much younger, so it would be hard to combine him!

But they all do Awana and are involved in the same homeschool drama program. They help each other as necessary for project, labs, and actitivies. So, we are still together a lot!

[my3sons]

I really enjoyed reading both responses to your questions here! They just show - each family is different! Even if two families have the same number of children who are the same exact ages, HOD placement can be very different. Not to mention each stage in life is very different! Placement in HOD can be customized for each family according to priorities, goals, abilities, budget, skills, working relationships, and life challenges.

With 7 children, unless they are very spread out in age, I am thinking you might be able to combine several children and possibly in several combinations. Have you checked out the placement chart? https://heartofdakota.com/placement/

Like StephanieU, it worked best for me to do my 3 sons in 3 different guides, but they are each 3 to 4 years apart (oldest now 23 1/2, middle now 20, youngest now 16). I LOVED having them in their own guides! They were each the 'star' of their guides. Each guide fit their attention span, abilities, and skills.

Younger guides follow the CM short lesson format, so kiddos finish school more quickly. Older guides incrementally teach successful independence, but they also give the parent more exciting (age appropriate) things to teach/discuss than reading aloud. Just as Charlotte Mason advocated, children begin taking on independent reading at the age of 9, if they are able to - and that is the format HOD's guides follow. That is not to say age 9 is the magic number for this to happen for all children - just a CM guideline.

I often taught my youngest during my older two sons' independent work times. Then, one 'older' had a playtime with the 'younger' while I taught the other 'older'. Worked perfectly! Still today, they are each others' best friends, and they did HOD this way PreK to 12th! (Still finishing HOD with my 16 yo).

Our sons had AMPLE time to be together! Most homeschool families' children are together night and day! Our sons did HOD's DITHOR together and enjoyed that. They also shared what they were learning with one another in their(different) main HOD guides constantly in unplanned, natural ways (i.e. over hot cocoa and during meals and by saying "Hey, want to come see my volcano erupt?" or "I'm going to say my poem I memorized while we have our snack!" or "Hey, do ya want to come on my Crusades with me?" These are just off the top of my head to show you 5-minute "y'all come and check out this special moment that I'm still the one leading/focused on it" type family moments that were common in our home the past 20+ years of homeschooling!

Family learning is always happening in a homeschool home. Whether it is in the same 'guide' or not - family learning is taking place. We are together ALL day in the same home! It is impossible not to be learning 'together', living 'together', homeschooling 'together' - no one is off in a little room alone never to be a part of the fun. The fun is for everyone in homeschooling with HOD. How it looks from home to home may be different - but the fun and 'family' learning happens every day. The not-so-fun-part of being placed in guide you totally can't do as a child, or of being compared to your older sibling and always falling short or vice versa (it's not always the oldest that should be doing a higher level guide), or of being older and having to wait for your much-too-young-to-do-the assignments-sibling - those situations are not happy 'family' learning anyway.

So, the good news is HOD can be a joy either way! Sometimes the joy comes with kiddos doing the same guide and sometimes it comes with kiddos doing different guides. It is unique to each family. If you would like help with placement, give HOD a call! You'll probably end up talking to me, and I love to help! Welcome to the HOD board - this is a fantastic group of ladies who love to encourage one another!

In Christ,
Julie