I'm new... can you share experiences?

[pollo_la]

Hello everyone! I'm new here. My plan is to start my dd, who will be 5 this summer, with Little Hearts this fall. I'm interested in hearing some "testimonies" of how HOD is working for your family. Also, do you combine children (I have a 1 and 2 year old that I will mostly likely combine someday)? Do you do more than one "level" at once? What is a typical day like for you?

I guess I'm all full of questions. I'm very excited to be here!

Laurie

[Jessi]

Hi Pollo-la (I am the4Rs on HSR). Glad to see you here!!!!!!!!

I am doing Little Hearts right now. Since my daughter is younger we are doing it at half speed but you'll be fine with having your daughter at full speed in the fall. It is such a great program! I think you'll love how the Bible is woven into the entire left side of the plan every day. My daughter is blowing my husband away with her Bible verse memorization- hiding those treasures in her heart! The Thornton Burgess books (we are still in Reddy Fox) is great for pointing out characters issues and discussing them with our own children. And it is nice that even though Carrie does offer phonics and math suggestions, HOD is written so you can pick whatever works best for you family for those areas. We are using Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching your Child to Read (after using 100 EZ lessons) with no gap in the program.

As for combining your younger two later on- that is NO problem. HOD is designed to fit your needs. There are many on here who combine kiddos close in age. I am sure they'll come on and help you with that particular question.

Again glad to see you here!

[water2wine]

Welcome to HOD! You are going to love LHFHG! I have been using it a little different in that I stretched it out to meet our families needs. There is just so much there that we have and no problem doing that with all the wonderful resources listed in the appendix. I also do a little chronological Bible story study with them as well using the Story Bible listed in the extension. Telling you all this because we honestly have typical time but not a typical day. HOD has organized me so well I do not have to be rigid with our day if that makes sense so let me just tell you about our typical time with it instead. I have a 4 year old and a newly 7 year old in LHFHG. I find it flexible enough to meet both children's needs very well. My 7 year old is highly motivated and does things like reading, copy work and math for fun on her own. So she is getting more than enough when you add LHFHG to all she puts on herself. In fact I usually have to shut her down at some point and send her off to play. She would do school all day if I would let her.

Anyway here is what it looks like with LHFHG. When I am done with the Bigger kids reading I call out to them that it is reading on the couch time and in come the pillows and sometimes blankies. We all cuddle on the couch and we read. We always start with Bible time. It's my preference and my four year old always hands it to me and says "Bible first mommy". They know the routine so well that if I skip one thing they will let me know and they want to do every part of it and some more than once. I am not allowed to stop because this is "their" time and they will let the big kids know it. When we do the Bible time we have been using the 101 Bible Stories version and the Bible as well as needed. They do the questions in 101 Bible stories as well. We have a thing that we always do with the memory verses. There are voices and sometimes very loud tones. It is not that we do not respect the Word of God it's just that we have a lot of fun time memorizing it. In fact my four year old will come into our Bigger time and she has those verses memorized as well. It's just fun for them. Then we take some time to talk about what the verses and the stories really mean and talk about anything in our life that is similar or somehow related. The Bible and the History box mesh into one for us. We have lots of fun talking about all that and I am always amazed at their insight. Then we move to story time and we always talk about the trouble a critter was in and imagine what will come next, usually that can get pretty silly then we read and find out. When we read the stories the characters tend to have voices on my part. They love that. Then I have them narrate it back to me. Since there are two I usually let one do part and then the other or have one do it and the other add what they missed. After that we get to Rhymes in motion and this is the one they will do over and over and beg to do again. I will admit that sometimes we have my oldest daughter read these and I jump in there with them just to add to the fun but usually only when they beg. After that we have our music time and they sing with it. Sometimes that is more than once on the song as well. Then we do our math and reading. I usually have one doing Math while I am doing reading with the other and last but always very important to them is whatever the activity of the day is. They stretch that one out and take it as far as they can. Sometimes it ends up being something entirely different than I think it was intended to be but they always enjoy it. They try very hard to make the big kids jealous with our activities and I will tell you it works. Often my oldest comes to me and says she wishes she was 4 so she could do LHFHG because she missed being able to do it with me when she was 4 sadly. And that would be out typical day for LHFHG. We love it and are looking forward to Beyond next year with these two.

Combining works well for us. Sometimes my little ones will sit in on part of Bigger but they are not allowed to answer questions. Usually they are just traveling through and taking a look at what is to come for them some day. I read with the bigger kids first and do that early. Then let them have their independent time. I find it works well to juggle the together time with the independent time. That way everyone gets the best of me time as well. You might be interested in looking at some of the schedule threads int he FAQ part. That gives you a good view of how people do it. You will see we all do it differently and it works for all of us. That is one of the things I live about HOD. I fell like I could stomp on it every day and I would still not mess it up. Our day always flows no matter how crazy I manage to make it. If I knew why that was the rest of my life would be more organized.

Welcome! You will love LHFHG and when time comes you will enjoy two programs as well. It keeps me going actually. I love having the two to look forward to every day.

[Carrie]

Laurie,

I just wanted to pop-in and welcome you to the boards! We're glad to have you here. Jessi and water2wine have already done a great job of answering your questions. I'm sure more moms will be along to share their experiences and to welcome you too. Until then I'll link you to some threads that will help answer a couple of your questions.

Here's a link to our LHFHG folder, where some moms have shared about their experiences with LHFHG. Make sure to click on the "Please share your experiences" thread too, as many moms answered there as well: viewforum.php?f=3

Another thread that may be helpful is the scheduling thread that water2wine mentioned. Here's a link to that: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2093

We're thoroughly enjoying LHFHG this year with our third son. Even though I've been through the program before with one of my older boys, it still feels new (since I'm doing it with a whole different little guy this time around). As my older sons are growing up FAR too quickly, I am really treasuring this time with my LHFHG guy. That precious time is gone so quickly.

We pray you'll enjoy LHFHG as much as we do! We look forward to getting to know you better on the boards!

Blessings,
Carrie

[Candice]

Laurie,

Welcome to HOD!
I posted a reply to you the other day on the HSR board, I think the post was about comparing HOD to another publisher.
I post using the same name here...my own name, Candice! But I had changed my username over at the other board to HisGlory just wanting something different . Anyway, I will just continue to be "Candice" because well, that's who I am, and also because I did not want anyone to think that HisGlory was some sort of code name used to indicate that I represent HOD in any way. I love, love, love HOD but I did not want to appear that I was affiliated in any way! Okay, so all of that extra info was probably not necessary, but I am goofy like that!

Anyway, I just wanted to share a post from some time ago that I shared here on the HOD Forums. It might give you a bit of an idea as to why I (and my 5 year old DD) love the HOD programs.


A neat moment for us today...
by Candice on Fri Aug 08, 2008 9:33 am

Okay, so I have this vision of how I want our homeschooling/learning to go. I envision it as unfolding naturally as we discover new things throughout the day, everyday. An extension of our daily lives with a sense of direction. Well, HOD is my sense of direction and today it really hit the mark in helping me to teach my daughter in a natural, fun, productive way.
We sort of happened upon the rhymes in motion, "God's Creation", the one that teaches the continents. We are in the backyard and we are playing with sidewalk chalk and I decide to start drawing the animals that belong to each continent. It just completely takes off from there and we are drawing the animals, the names of the continents (and my daughter is trying to read them) seeing which continents begin with the letter "A", what other things are found there, and so on and so on. Then my daughter takes a piece of chalk and draws a huge outline of North America, we then draw in CA where we live and I point out to her that this is where we are. I then say where are you standing right now, what is under your feet? She looks amazed and realizes that she is standing on the continent of North America. Just her realization of how all of this related to her made her light up and she started jumping around screaming North America! I am not totally concerned with her memorizing the continents just yet, but she is definitely well on her way because of the way this "lesson" evolved.
Thank you Carrie (and Julie) for an awesome learning experience that played out how I have always dreamed it would.
My daughter is really having fun and learning too!

HOD is really so much more than just school, it is a wonderful way to incorporate education into our lives and the best way to bring God in to the center of our lives.

Candice

[deltagal]

Welcome to HOD! What a great find for you. We stumbled upon HOD through the homeschool maze. One great curriculum led us to another, which led us to another and then to HOD. Looking at the ages of your children I can honestly say I find HOD's material for the little little one's - precious. When asked by her brothers the other day what is her favorite thing to do, my 4-year old said, "School!" HOD does a beautiful job of keeping the lesson creative, varied, engaging, fun, and effective. The samples on-line just don't do it justice. Jump in... the water's fine!

[pollo_la]

Thanks for the replies everyone. It is wonderful to hear how God is using HOD in your lives! It's nice to see a couple of you hear that I also know from HSR. Carrie, thank you for the direct links. Candice, thank you for sharing that special moment.

Florence, I see that you are currently doing several levels of HOD right now with your children. HOw is that working for you? I'm just looking ahead to the future (probably getting ahead of myself ) and thinking that if God blesses us with more children that might be me some day!

[deltagal]

Florence, I see that you are currently doing several levels of HOD right now with your children. HOw is that working for you? I'm just looking ahead to the future (probably getting ahead of myself ) and thinking that if God blesses us with more children that might be me some day!

It's working well. Ironically, my intention when I first started lurking on the HOD board was not to pursue multiple programs. BUT one of the main reasons I was drawn to check out HOD was that I felt that I consistently was doing a good job of meeting one or two of the children's needs, but not all of the children's needs. I was okay with that for a while, but it just always seemed that my oldest got the meat and the rest of the crowd an occasional bone. HOD makes managing multiple programs so doable - it's a marvel. And the children enjoy listening in on each other's assignments. Today I was working with my 10 year old, discussing his Science reading and my 12 year old who was sitting across the table working on his Science started talking with us. He said, "I just can't help myself. It's so interesting!" Later in the day I had an activity set out for my 4 year old and the next thing I knew my 7 year old had pulled up a chair and was working on it with her. So, although the idea of separate programs may sound like you are separating your children - you are not. You're just meeting them on their level. There are a FEW things we all do together. The Storytime block we do as a family using the selections from Beyond. And we do the Beyond Bible and memory work together at breakfast, although my 12 year old still does the Bible in Preparing, as well. To underscore how well it is going. Everyone this week is on week 8 of their guides. I can honestly say, I've never before with any other curriculum managed to stay "on track" for 8 weeks...10 days is usually my max!