Long! Crazy Family schedule--comparing HOD w/ Adventures

[AboveRubiesMama]

I have searched the threads and read tons of good info on these boards and the MFW boards.

But I have questions regarding our family's specific situation. I don’t want to make it sound as though I’m putting down or praising either HOD or MFW—just wanting to lay everything out there, to hopefully get the right advice and direction.

First off, our schedule is crazy. I have an SN child who receives 10 to 11 hours of therapy a week, and he attends 5 days a week. His schedule can sometimes change as well.

For our first grader, we’re currently using CLE for our Math, LA, and Reading, which is great. We were trying to use Sonlight for History/Geography/Read Alouds but we were only reading ¼ of the books, if that, so it wasn’t worth the $$.

We’ve been using CLP for Science and it’s great. I don’t use the TM—we just read a chapter a week and do the discussion questions. This is working out and she’s learning. Our CLE takes us about 3 hours a day, but the CLP Science is good because it’s portable, simple, and we can fit it into our schedule, meaning we can have Science in the van, in the Drs. Office, in the therapist’s office, if we have some free time before church, etc. We used to supplement with a hands-on science program (Backyard Scientist) but just couldn’t get the experiments in. BTW these were only done once a week and we *still* had trouble getting them in.

I thought about using the CLP books for History. Since we are using CLP’s books already, someone suggested I look into HOD, so here I am!!

The great news is that I think the Little Hearts for His Glory will be great for my SN son. I tried MFW K with my oldest dd and it started off great but then it became too much for her so there’s no way I can imagine my son using it. After week 8, things just fell apart.

Now I’m checking into history for my dd’s 2nd grade. I checked into CLP’s history and MFW Adventures. And now looking at Beyond Little Hearts, and it appears as though we'd only use it for History, Science, and Bible. Honestly, when I look at MFW Adventures, I love how it looks with the individual state studies, the stickers, and cute activities that are included, but I'm also wondering, if we go with MFW Adventures, are we setting ourselves up to fail because it looks very time consuming. In our “real world,” would these cute activities and other things really get done?

And then I looked into HOD’s Beyond Little Hearts and saw there are also some other cute projects and activities, but the price is a lot more family friendly and it looks as though it could be more flexible compared to Adventures.

But then I also wonder, would it be just as good not to use Beyond Little Hearts or MFW Adventures with oldest dd and just purchase the History and Science Readers straight from CLP and continue what we're doing—not using a lesson plan for those subjects, but just carrying them with us and reading a chapter a week?

While our schedules are hectic, I do want to be able to do Bible, history, and science. If you’ve used BLHFHG or MFW Adventures, what can you tell me about each that would apply to our family’s specific needs or could actually cause us too much stress?

I thought about purchasing Beyond Little Hearts to have the extra projects on hand, if and when needed, but would that be worth the costs? I would love to do all the activities in BLHFHG or MFW Adventures, but which one, if either, would be most realistic for our family dynamics?

So, if you got this far, you need a medal!!!!! Sorry this is long but I've done so much reading and researching lately that I'm starting to look like those women in those home improvement commercials with their hair sticking straight out!

[Kathleen]

I just wanted to pop in and give you a friendly welcome! I've only used LHTH and Bigger..., so I'm not much help for your specific questions. I will say though that I LOVE the activities in the guides I have. They're a lot of fun, they're meaningful (helping the kids to get the main point of the lesson), and best of all they're DOABLE! I'm one who would always think how much fun these great hands-on things sounded, and then in reality never go to the work to actually do them. But the activities in HOD really truly do use things that I have around the house. They're quick & easy, too. So, we actually DO the activities and I'm not 'scared' of them. My son has told me every day for the last 2 weeks how much he loves the school we're doing this year because it has so many fun things that we do. (Now honestly there aren't that many activities...1 in history per unit and 2 in science. But I guess compared to almost none that's quite a bit. ) I have to agree that Bigger... is interesting for both of us and because there's variety in our day it really is more enjoyable!

I'm sure there are several moms here who can answer your questions, but I will let you know that the board isn't very active on the weekends, so you may have to wait a bit to get help.

Kathleen

[inHistiming]

Well, I have not ever used MFW, so I can't compare anything with that...except the TM. I did look at a friend's and felt confused by it, so steared clear of MFW for that reason alone. I do know several people, though, who use it and absolutely love it.

We used BLHFHG and enjoyed it so much. I thought everything from the History readings, science experiments and readings, and storytime readings to the math, language arts, and poetry were all great. It was not time-consuming but was very thorough in what we learned. I feel confident that you could easily work it in if you needed to take it to Dr. appts, etc. If you are planning to use LHFHG with your son, then I think it would be worth the cost to buy Beyond...even if you will only use science, history and bible from it right now. When your son finishes LHFHG, Beyond... is the next level, so he could move right into it then. We've really enjoyed all of the HOD products we've used, and you may find yourself using more and more of the lessons in Beyond... once you get it. There is so much there, and it always brings it back to God it seems...that's something I love about this curriculum. And it is flexible, so you should be able to adjust it to suit your needs. You can always economize too, and try to find the storytime books and the read alouds at your library; you can substitute a different book if you like, you just wouldn't have the questions written out for you for the ones you substitute.

I hope this has made some sense, and was at least somewhat helpful. I'm sure you'll hear from others soon. God will lead you in the right direction, I'm sure. If you have other questions, feel free to ask. We all love to chime in and try to help!

[annaz]

I have both.

MFW works on a 4-day week.
BHFHG works on a 5-day week. You'll need to double up or miss something. But if you're only doing history, bible and science, then doubling up should be okay.

MFW will take longer if you do bible, science and History. The lessons are longer. The bible is reading straight from the bible.
HOD is more doable time wise, but works on a 5-day week.

Both have great activities, in fact, I've kept my Adventures for some of the activities.

State study is easy to add in if you want to HOD. It's basically the subject of geography. What do you feel is important? Adventures is a filler for 2nd grade. However, with MFW you don't get more US History until much later. So, you need to answer where you'll want to go after this. What do you want to accomplish next year? HOD does events in Beyond, then biographies in Bigger, then moves on to "Preparing" which is ancients material. MFW after Adventures goes into ECC. If you did MFW Adv, where do you want to go next? You probably wouldn't want to do Bigger, because both contain biographies, i.e. Franklin, Daniel Boone, Washington, etc. You'd be repeating.

If you're looking for time, you're trading minus a day for more work, or adding a day for less work. Each has engaging activities, although in my personal opinion the bible is drier in MFW, because it's reading verses which can be long and tedious day after day for this age.

HOD definitely has a better price and IMPO is more "fun", but will you get to it? MFW Adv is more of a topical study and Beyond is beefier, using 2 years to accomplish US history now. MFW continues US later and if I'm not mistaken and mixes it in later on in World courses. Don't quote me on that, but I know US history studies are way later.

Not to sway either way, but with a schedule like that I'd prefer to go eclectic on every subject, so I'm not paging back and forth all the time. Grab a biography and read it in the car. But that's a personal opinion. I don't believe one is easier than the other. MFW is missions oriented and HOD has age appropriate bible verses. MFW's can get long bible wise.

You'll have to figure out your goals. I suggest if you don't have any, just read some biographies on US like I mentioned and be done with it. Use Beyond's History books and just follow the page numbers given on a day and have them read it in the car. Or find some quickie little workbooks you can take with you, but you really only need the 3 R's until you can get a slower schedule. I wouldn't get either, but if I had to choose, HOD would be the one, you could have them read the main book in the car in HOD's order and do a quickie Science project on the weekends, like "Science in the Kitchen".

Make your life easier. Don't buy something you'll feel like you need to finish or can't complete.

[Kathleen]

MFW works on a 4-day week.
BHFHG works on a 5-day week. You'll need to double up or miss something.

Above Rubies,

I just thought I'd add that Bigger (the one I'm using this year) is also written as a 5 day week, but we don't use it that way and it works beautifully! We typically do 4 Day weeks. I pick up the guide and open it to the next day of plans and off we go. So, next Monday we'll be on Unit 6 Day 3, and it doesn't feel awkward at all. (I'm saying this because if it were labeled Mon, Tues, Wed... and I wasn't on the right day...or even worse if there were dates in the guide, it would drive me nuts to not be on the "right day"! ) Just thougt that might be helpful as you're considering.

Kathleen

[AboveRubiesMama]

First off, thank you all SO MUCH for the advice and suggestions. It's a relief to hear such personal experiences that can directly relate to the info I need to know.

And Anna, you're right about grabbing the biography and "go." That's very much what our life is like sometimes. We do our Math, Reading, and LA/Handwriting at home and quite honestly, it's about as much structure as we have time for. If history, science, and Bible are just as structured, we'd be burned out. We're avid readers around here, so we're constantly reading and that's why I want something which will incorporate living books.

And Kathleen, I can SO relate to the "date" thing you're talking about. I get caught up on what "should" be done and what day I "should" be on and eventually school is just no longer fun. We enjoyed the reading we did do with Sonlight, but my biggest issue was that none of the readings tied together. Not so much that they didn't tie into our 3 R's, but it would've been great if the readers just related to each other.

For the past year, I've been working a lot on personal growth and have really changed a lot. Just tonight DH complimented on how much I've grown Spiritually. So I want to find a curriculum which implements daily Bible reading and lessons, BUT, I'd like something that was actually applicable. We're all for reading the Bible and find it extremely important, but we're also wanting to build character and instill life-long values into our children, too. So a Bible program which goes beyond straight Scripture reading would be ideal.

We also enjoy using "life as school," and not limiting ourselves to the "classroom." But at the same time, we don't really have a choice anyway with our schedule--going all "traditional," just wouldn't work.

Basically, we already spend 3 hours a day doing our "traditional" work, and realistically, we can't fit in another 3 or 4 hours of more.

BTW I will say, for some reason, over the past couple of days I've been more and more drawn to HOD.

[AboveRubiesMama]

So I spoke with DH this morning, mostly in regards to the Bible integration. I thought he'd be all over MFW because of the strong mission's emphasis but after going over both programs, he said with the strong traditonal route we're taking with our 3 R's, he would like the kids to have something lighter and thinks the Bible in HOD is a bit more balanced. I will note that we're in ministry (DH is a Reverend and has worked in positions of Youth Pastor, Sr. Pastor, Evangelist, etc.) and is the product of an American Missionary himself, so is a big believer in missions. But as he put it, we spend so much time reading straight from the Bible and would like the kids to have more of an application type Bible program that's aimed at their level of understanding.

Also it looks as though if we wanted to, we could also do MFW Adventures for her 3rd grade year, so this is great.

[netpea]

Also it looks as though if we wanted to, we could also do MFW Adventures for her 3rd grade year, so this is great.

Beyond Little Hearts uses some of the same books that MFW Adventures uses (some but definitely not all). We used Adventures for 12 weeks then switched to Beyond which was a better fit for our family.

[MamaMary]

Dear AboveRubiesMama,

Welcome! It is so nice to meet you. I don't know how I missed your post until now? I just want to tell you that I use HOD with my SN children. I actually was in the process of purchasing MFW from a friend when we found HOD. I LOVE MFW. However, I was in a unique situation. My girlfriend was letting me try her program out before buying. During my one month trial I realized it wouldn't work for my boys. I was heartbroken, because I LOVED the layout and the missionary focus. This is what I know now. I was upset because I could only see that moment. However, God knew my tomorrow's and He knew that within 6 weeks He was going to lead me to HOD.

A few weeks after giving back the MFW program, I was posting over on the Homeschool Review's board about my disappointment that MFW wouldn't work for me. When another gal (who also happens to have SN children) popped in and started raving about this program called, "Heart Of Dakota". It piqued my interest enough to check out their website and discussion boards. Within hours I had printed off sample lessons, read through tons of posts from other moms over here on the boards and was sitting on the couch gushing to my husband about my excitement over the possibility of using HOD. Within a month I placed my order and here we are almost a full year later. I own 4 full HOD programs. Because of our SN situation I had to tweak and work things out to fit their specific needs.

Let me say, that I understand how incredibly rewarding yet overwhelming going to therapy can be. My children are no longer going, but we did it for a LONG time. I remember being pregnant, having a one year old and my two older boys, who were of coarse the patients. Oh My, I remember all the time and effort it would take every Tuesday and Thursday to get everyone up, dressed, packed and out the door. I don't regret it, but when we graduated I felt like dancing, jumping and clicking my heels

However, even now I needed a program that will give me the tools to teach to my children using all of their senses. HOD has them work on their Auditory skills while reading aloud and still pulls in their visual and kinesthetic skills through the projects. Let me also say that though we are no longer involved in therapy outside our home, we are still very busy. I do understand the desire to find a program that meets your goals of wanting to find something that will not only educate, but has the projects to help build those forever memories with my children. I am the President of our Homeschool Support Group and it takes quite a bit of time each month, as I live in a county that has 2200 homeschoolers. (Praise the Lord that I have 12 other Mama's who serve on our board of directors and do such an amazing job) I teach four highschool and one 2/3rd grade class at our co-op on Friday's and sadly, my sweet dad is going through terminal cancer and lives 4 hours away. But you know what? With HOD, I can still do those very important things the Lord has called me to for this season and still have time to school my children the way I want to.

I am going to close by telling you all the reasons HOD was a good fit for my family and I'll be specific in how it worked with my SN boys.

1- Perfectly Propotioned! Many programs are history heavy. I love that HOD is balanced perfectly with bible/science/poetry/etc.., I say all the time that each box in the instructor's guide is like a bite and at the end of the day I feel completely satisfied. Not to full and not hungry. Why is this important because you can still live your life, take care of your home, serve your husband and your children, all the while making amazing FOREVER memories!

2- Christ Centered! My biggest complaint over the years we've homeschooled has been how, so many programs teach history,science, etc and throw bible in as a subject. HOD saturates the Word, the living God into every subject. It is the core of what makes HOD work.

3- Key Idea's! Oh my, whether you have SN's children or not this is revolutionary. When I begin a project or a book I will say the "Key Idea" to get them excited and then when we are done I will close with the "Key Idea". I love to do narration after we read. For two of my boys with SN's this is a difficult task, but after we've had a deep discussion I will close with the "Key Idea" and it helps the retention. Let me say, that because I am doing all of the leading the "Key Idea" helps me to remember what the purpose is in every craft or project. I might have rambled, but HOD helps me put it in a nutshell.

There are many other things I love but I don't want to lose that these are my personal top three. I hope this helps and I pray right now that the Lord would go before you and give you absolute and perfect direction.

Mary, Mama to a 17,(2 wks) 12, 8 & 6 year old sons and homeschooing since 1998!

[AboveRubiesMama]

Thanks, Mary!! I am familiar with you over on HSR and often follow your family's situation. When I saw you here on HOD I was so excited! You're the one who introduced us to Neurodevelopmental Therapy, I believe. We don't use it anymore but we found this new therapy center which incorporates all that they did and the great news is that we no longer have to travel AND Medicaid pays for it! YAY!

I posted another thread below regarding choosing the right program for the kids. So far no one has responded and I'm scared it's going to be buried. So, I'll post a link to the post here, in case you're interested in giving your input (or anyone for that matter). The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of having some activities which will fit in when we do have the time.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2086

[MamaMary]

WOW! We already know one another. You'll have to IM me. I would be glad to go read the other post. I'm sure some of the other moms will too! May the Lord bless you. I'm very excited to hear about your new therapy program......, Mary

"There is no one like the God of Israel. He rides across the heavens to help you, across the skies in majestic splendor!" Duet 33:26

[my3sons]

Welcome to the HOD board! I used LHTH with my ds who needed 2 years of speech therapy (he was born about 2 months prematurely). LHTH did WONDERS for him - he learned his letters, his sounds, and he LOVED doing it. My ds really struggled with speech, and also was very delayed in crawling, walking, etc. - yet he thrived with LHTH and now that he's almost 9 yo, he's doing Preparing... this year and doing super! I do think this is due to all of his years of doing HOD (and first and foremost due to the Lord's faithfulness).

I did Beyond... with my oldest ds when was pregnant on bedrest with my middle ds (which, btw, bedrest is not very possible when you have other children ). We were able to get it done, and I homeschooled from the couch basically. We still thoroughly enjoyed Beyond..., and were able to do all of it (I just didn't stand up to do the activities - I set the stuff out the night before in piles on our counter - or had dh pack them in the car if it was one of the multiple once a week or more appointment days I had for my high risk pregnancy.)

I did Bigger... and LHFHG last year, and we took it on the road a LOT because my baby had helmet appointments and reflux appointments every week. I had a backpack for each of the children, and we packed them the night before. I also asked if they had an empty room I could use while we waited (appointments took around 1 1/2 hours or more). Sometimes they were able to give me a tiny room, and that worked great; but, even if no room was available we quietly did our reading/ activities in a corner of the waiting room.

I think you'd find HOD is portable, fun, and easy to implement. You may want to just get started with LHTH with your ds now, or as soon as you can. It only takes 20-30 minutes a day, and it fits your primary focus of "finding him a good program which introduces him to his ABC's/sounds so he can go on into phonics" to a T!!! Plus, it's just precious to do - what wonderful memories I have of doing LHTH with each of my dc. As far as your other child doing LHTH, you could either have her do it too or not. I'd be inclined to wait with her, since she is young and also so you could really put all of your focus on your ds right now. As far as your older dd, Beyond... sounds like a super fit! I know firsthand that it is easy to take to appointments, and it only took me about 3 hours to do. Plus, we LOVED it! I'm like Kathleen, I used to think hands-on things sounded neat but would not get them done. I get them done with HOD. They're short, use things I have, and the dc can do them.

Finally, the Bible part with its personal application is a major reason we enjoy HOD. Kind of like the hands-on activities, I would read the Bible with my dc but the in-depth, relevant, personal discussions that I'd have every good intention of getting done probably would not get done without my using HOD. The Bible part is woven into virtually everything in a natural way in HOD. It's not just tacked on, like an extra subject. I feel that this immersion in Bible reflects what I want my dc to feel about the BIble - and our Lord Jesus Christ - that the Word and our Lord are a part of everything in life. Not just tacked on, on Sundays or at holidays, but a part of every day and how we live! I feel HOD helps me do that in a meaningful way that is doing amazing things to turn my dc hearts and minds to God on a daily basis! I'm going to post this on the other thread too, since I'm not sure if you'll see it here or there. God bless you as you decide what's best for you and your family!

In Christ,
Julie