Got my BHFHG

[blessedmomof3girls]

Yay! I got my Bigger Hearts for His Glory last Friday. We started it yesterday (Monday) and this is perfect for my daughter. It has the right amount of challenge to stretch her. I have a question though, would it be ok to do some of the English orally? My daughter HATES handwriting and it takes her forever to write out sentences, so I was thinking that I could have her do her copy work, then have her do one activity in the English written and the rest orally. It might make our day a little more smoothe if I didn't have to harp on her about getting her written work done (it took her 25 minutes to write one sentence today).

[lmercon]

Absolutely! With my ds, we always did half of the practice page orally, and then the other half he did in his notebook.
hth,
Laura

[3musketeers]

blessedmomof3girls,

You will love Bigger! We are in the process of finishing it right now and it has been wonderful!!!!

Blessings,
Cindy

[my3sons]

Hooray for getting your Bigger Hearts things! We loved all of the learning that took place when we did Bigger Hearts with our oldest, and we are loving it again with our middle ds. It's a key year for growth, and the biographical focus in history is so inspiring! As far as the R & S English, a ton of moms on this board do a good portion of it orally, and that works just fine. Here is a past post where I described how we're enjoying doing this:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4659&p=34269#p34269

Also, you may want to just have her start doing 1 vocabulary card and work up to more throughout the year. I'm so glad you are seeing Bigger Hearts is the proper placement for your sweetie, and you have many happy days with Bigger Hearts ahead of you, as it just keeps clicking along as dc get down the rhythm and routine of it so they can then just enjoy it to its fullest!

In Christ,
Julie

[blessedmomof3girls]

Thank you all for your responses. We only have been able to complete 3/4 of one day. My youngest dd, who is 4 months old, is having some major medical problems, so school is being put aside for a while. At least for the rest of the summer. I'm so disappointed because I really wanted to continue throughout the summer and my oldest dd just loves to learn. I will probably pull it out as I can, but we definately wont be doing it every day, or every week. I have to travel with my baby for her medical appointments since I live on a very small base overseas. But anyways, if y'all could keep us in your prayers that'd be great.

Rebecca
dd-6 BHFHG, dd-3 (soon)LHTH, and my sweet baby dd-4months

[my3sons]

Praying for your sweet baby, Rebecca! I had so many doctor's appointments for our last baby as well. They took several hours, and I had the rest of the children along as well. I finally asked if they had an empty room we could use with a table and chairs, and I homeschooled in there while we waited for things off and on. I actually welcomed the diversion, as it was nice to think about school rather than the doctor appointment always. This may totally not be possible, and it may not be a stress reliever for you (as it became for me), but I just thought I'd share that it worked well for us. I guess it made me feel like everything wasn't centered on doctor's visits, and like we were still doing other things and moving forward, albeit slowly. I pray your little gal gets the care she needs, and I pray for strength for you too!

Love in Christ,
Julie

[sw1ssm1ss]

Big hugs, Rebecca. That must be really tough, going through that with your baby! I think like you said, you can get in some homeschooling when possible. But do not feel guilty about focusing on the baby for now. There are seasons when one child really needs us, and we have to put all we can into meeting their needs. Of course, your others have needs, too, and you can't put those completely on the back burner. But maybe you can find a way to meet them that is less directly demanding of your attention.

My daughter is also six. She loves to draw, cut up and glue together paper, tell stories, play with her brother and sister, etc. In a sense these things, though not school, are part of growing and developing, too. Maybe you can set her up with reading she can do when you are at the doctor's appointments? If she's bright--which she must be to be doing Bigger at six!--she should learn, even at a young age, how to keep herself busy and learning. When I was her age, I just read every. single. thing. I could get my hands on! I still recognize some books in my parents' house that I never read but tried to read and found too boring at that age!

Good luck and I'll try to pray for you and your family!

[Carrie]

blessedmomof3girls,

I am so glad that you've received your guide and are started! The ladies already did a great job of answering your questions, so I'll just pop-in to make you feel even better! I believe we mention in the Introduction found in the front of the Bigger Heart's guide to make sure to do much of Rod and Staff English orally. So, you are right on track in doing so and can feel great about your decision.

Blessings,
Carrie

[blessedmomof3girls]

Thanks for the ideas to help keep things a little normal through this time. I mostly don't take my older girls with me to appointments. While we're here my dh comes home to watch them, then for appointments outside of Japan I can't take them with me (which will be very hard on me and the girls). If I had to bring them with me, or could bring them with me I'd probably just homeschool where we are. Hopefully we'll get a diagnosis when I get to Hawaii and then, if needed send us back to the states.

We debated for a long time about what guide to use with Angel. With her only being 6 it was tough. She should have just completed kindergarten according to the public school, but she just finished first with our previous program, but most of it was all review (both her kindergarten and first grade years) of stuff she already knew. The only big thing she learned this past year was how to read and it only took her 2 weeks to catch on. I was going to go with Beyond, but after talking with my dh and other vetran homeschoolers, I decided on Bigger because if was too hard I could slow it down for her, but it is just perfect for her. She loved the challenge of learning the new stuff (for the one part day we've done), but it wasn't so hard that it frusterated her. She also loves being read to. She'll be 7 in October so she's on the younger end of the age range for that guide.

Thank you Carrie for reassuring me that doing English orally is ok. I read the whole intro to the guide, but I either missed that part, or with all that's been going on with my baby girl I forgot what I read. Probably a bit of both.


Rebecca
dd-6 BHFHG, dd-3 (soon)LHTH, and my sweet baby dd-4months