This is my school plan for next year...

[Leanne]

Want to give me some feedback?

I'm planning on doing Preparing Hearts next year with my girls who are 11 & 8. I'm only planning on doing the History portion of Preparing Hearts.

Bible - Narrated Bile and Draw to Learn (Jesus)
History - Preparing Hearts
Math - Teaching Textbooks (continuing on with this)
LA - Readers, Writing with Ease and Sequential Spelling
Science - Real Science 4 Kids
Arts - Artistic Pursuits, Piano Wizard
Health & Personal Development - Home Economics for Homeschoolers
PE? Not sure yet

My dd's will be 6th and 4th grades next year (yikes, how did that happen already??) and we school from Jan - Nov here (Australia) so we're almost done our school year and it's time to start planning. Also, we'll be doing school 3 days a week, but for more weeks per year.

So, how does that all sound?

[juliekay]

Dear Leanne,

We are doing Preparing this year - finishing week 4. May I encourage you to try doing the guide as written? If you do it includes your art- beautifully woven into your weekly History project, independent history study and science study. Bible is also included with music that is not only beautiful, but is a superb audio tool that aids in Scripture memorization. Preparing has a TON of drawing in it. I would NOT include anymore drawing! It's just enough for my older 2 and almost too much for your 8 year old.
Math - we love TT and we also include piano lessons!
Just within this past year we switched from Sequential Spelling to doing the dictation in the HOD guides and we LOVE it! My boys could spell when it came to "spelling" time but then when the wrote a story it looked like they didn’t know how to spell anything! Dictation is helping them to think about spelling when they are writing vs. just spelling during "spelling". I hope that makes sense! HOD again weaves writing & reading into your child's day through history and science.... so, for us, there’s no need to add more.
We love HOD science. We have included some more science for my older 2 simply because they need it and can handle it. SO, maybe your older one too can! A lot of people like Real Science 4 Kids. My 8 year old does Preparing Science as written – well, not really all the writing – so technically he does less than what is written – because at the moment that’s even too much for him. My 11 year old is doing Beautiful Feet’s History of Science – lots of reading and writing, but he’s that type of kid he is. My oldest does Preparing as written, runs the weekly experiment for himself and helps his younger brother through it and also does a chapter in the History of Medicine per week…

Please understand I'm not telling what to do! You're the mama and you can do whatever you want! We are just enjoying Preparing so much - I think because we are using the guide as written. It's rich enough and hard enough for my youngest that if I even thought of adding other things he would hate "school" and in the same breath I wouldn't be able to motivate him to do as much as he does IF it didn't all flow together as well as it does.

Enjoy planning your school year! We are reading some Australian books right now! The Pumpkin Runner and The Old Lady Who Loved to Read! So my kids think we should take a field trip there! (Me too! )

[water2wine]

Leanne I am just about to start Preparing on Monday. So keep in mind that I have it have read over it thoroughly and prepared for it but have not used it yet, although we did do HOD last year so I get how it works. I think if you are wanting to minimally do HOD more for History you could do the Economy Pack of Preparing but I would encourage you to consider doing the whole left side of Preparing because it is all connected which would include the Basic Package as well. You can do your own science, your own math and your own LA. If you wish to do your own Bible (which we read also from the Narrated Chornological Bible if that is the one you are using) you can and I do also, but I would encourage you to consider HOD's Bible as well because I have found personally that it is quick and it always adds a lot. I am very glad that we do not skip HOD Bibel even though we do our own chronological reading as well. But you would have to look at it and decide on that. I do think it could be used though with the whole left side and you doing your own thing for the right side of the program. See the sample to see what I mean. http://www.heartofdakota.com/pdf/PHFHG-sample-week.pdf In fact some people mix programs to meet their needs and will do the left side of one program and the right side of another so I think you would be fine.

In the end you are the mom and the one teaching and however it works best for you is the way to go but just wanted to encourage to consider not missing out on too much of HOD even if you wish to customize your own LA, Math and Bible (which we do too for some of our children). The history and the God connection are so rich you just do not want to lose all that. Praying you find a plan that works best for you!

[Leanne]

Thanks for the suggestions

I was already re-thinking my bible and science anyway, I think I will go ahead and do as much of Preparing Hearts as I can, but I still really don't want to change my LA or Math.... when something is going well, it's hard to justify a change, know what I mean?

[my3sons]

Hi Leanne - I want to echo what's been shared here already. We did PHFHG last year, and there were so many awesome connections between history/Bible/science - that I'd hate for your dc to miss those. I think it all worked together to help my ds remember more and fully appreciate the one year sweep of time. If you have something you are doing already for LA and Math that you enjoy, then I can see you wanting to continue with that. You can always begin that way and have in the back of your mind that the PHFHG manual has excellent, time conscious ideas for these areas as well as a back-up plan. Dictation is one area I'd encourage you to look at and ponder using. It only takes 5 minutes a day to do, and it has done more for my ds's spelling than anything else I've done.

That brings me to the last thing I wanted to share. All of PHFHG works together to make a time conscious manageable day. If your LA and math take much longer than the alloted times in PHFHG, your day will just naturally be longer. That's not necessarily a bad thing - just something to know about ahead of time so when you hear others are finishing PHFHG in less time, you're not left wondering why that may not be happening for you. Here's a link to the approximate times things take in PHFHG, so you can compare your LA and math to these and get an idea about how that may effect the length of your day:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4244&p=31219#p31219

Otherwise, using your own LA and math should be fine. I'll be excited to hear about your journey through history doing PHFHG - we had a blast with it last year.

In Christ,
Julie

[Carrie]

Leanne,

The ladies have given you wonderful suggestions to ponder as you figure out what will work best for your family. I just wanted to pop-in and welcome you too! We're glad to have you here.

Blessings,
Carrie

[Kathleen]

Hi Leanne!

I just wanted to pop in and welcome you, too. We're using Preparing this year and are loving every bit of it!! I'd echo the other ladies that the whole left page of the guide flows wonderfully together and hits a lot of great skills that I want my son to learn. We also love the Bible study and science! (Well, like I said we love it all... ) Using your own math and LA will not be a problem at all with HOD. I think your plan to not fix something that's working for you is a good one. We switched to HOD's reccommendations last year because I was needing something more time-conscious, and it's all working great now for us.

Looking forward to chatting more with you as you give Preparing a try.
Kathleen

By the way, if you want a sneak-peek at Preparing, there are a lot of fun things that your kids will get to do posted on the Week-in-Review thread. I love "peeking" ahead.