Preparing Hearts???

[maggie lil]

Hello-
This is my first time on the message board although I have visited many times, we've been doing HOD for 2 years now. I've gained a lot of wisdom here pouring over all the questions and comments. Thanks. Now I have a question about placement and pray that I can get some guidance here.

I have two dd ages 8 and almost 6, we've done LHFHG and Beyond LHFHG. This was putting my younger ahead of the suggested age range but she seemed to understand quite a bit and loved the stories. I was doing math and phonics separately with her at her own level. Now, however, I'd like to skip Bigger and go on to Preparing Hearts mainly, to br honest, I'm just tired of US history and the teacher needs to have some enthusiasim on her subject right? Would Preparing Hearts be too much for my 6 yo. Can I tweak it for her? She would mainly be listening to the read alouds for history, Bible, science and doing her own phonics and singapore math. Preparing seems to be the right fit for my 8 yo but I don't want my almost 6 yo to lose interest studying the ancients!

Any ideas?

[Mommamo]

I'm not sure that I would personally skip Bigger. It teaches so many great skills. I also think that you'd miss a lot of what makes HOD so good. All the guides build on eachother so well. I know that you would adjust things to your younger one's age level, but that just seems like too much of a stretch. And not even just the amount of work-Carrie plans the content with a certain age of student in mind.

We're about to start Bigger with my almost 7yo and I think it will be more than plenty for her. And I don't think it would be too easy for your 8yo at all. I understand about being tired of the time period (we've done Beyond over 1.5 years). However, I've looked over Bigger (I have it sitting on the shelf just waiting for us to finish up Beyond) and I'm very excited about the approach. It's going to be quite a bit different from Beyond since it covers the period through a biographical perspective. I would definitely lean towards not skipping to Preparing, but that's just me. I personally have loved everything of Carrie's that I've used so far (LHTH, LHFHG, and Beyond). I actually haven't done Bigger or Preparing yet, so maybe someone who has done both will chime in.

[LynnH]

I just finished up Preparing with my 10 year old. It was a perfect fit for him. Honestly I can't imagine doing Preparing with a 6 year old. The history read alouds and independent history seems pretty mature for a 6 year old. Not only do I think she would get bored, but some of the topics it covers Carrie purposefully waited to introduce until a certain age. Even at 10 it was hard for my son to hear some of it. The readings are also pretty long. Also doing things like Draw and Write through History I think would be tough for 6 year old hands. The science is meant to be done independently and has a lot of writing that goes along with it. The science notebooking pages are some of my sons favorite things to look back over. There is so much in Preparing that is meant to improve writing skills and work towards doing much of the guide independently.

[Mumkins]

I just bought Preparing for my will be 7 an 9 yos. I'm stretching it 1.5-2 years so they'll be closer to proper age range. I really wish I didn't sell my Bigger, just for the skills for my will be 7yo. I didn't want to do US history/geography either but I'm wondering if I should have just added Canadian stuff. I'm still kinda nervous I made the wrong choice.

I've asked around a lot over the last year here and on Yahoo and most told me not to do Preparing with my 7yo even. You could probably search my posts and a lot would come up on why to hold off on preparing.

GL with your choices.

[annaz]

I just finished up Preparing with my 10 year old. It was a perfect fit for him. Honestly I can't imagine doing Preparing with a 6 year old. The history read alouds and independent history seems pretty mature for a 6 year old. Not only do I think she would get bored, but some of the topics it covers Carrie purposefully waited to introduce until a certain age. Even at 10 it was hard for my son to hear some of it. The readings are also pretty long. Also doing things like Draw and Write through History I think would be tough for 6 year old hands. The science is meant to be done independently and has a lot of writing that goes along with it. The science notebooking pages are some of my sons favorite things to look back over. There is so much in Preparing that is meant to improve writing skills and work towards doing much of the guide independently.

I have to ditto this reply. Skills build upon each guide. Bigger is more biographical and goes to the 20 century. There's not much repeat.

[gotpeace91]

I agree with the others. You might want to hold off on Preparing. We did preparing last school year and I think a lot of the content that we read for history and science would be way over a 6 yo's head. Also as mentioned before, the draw and write would be a little hard, and the reading times are longer. You could tweak it I'm sure but you might find that you are tweaking most of the stuff out and having to find easier things to replace it with. I wish we would have found HOD when my kids were younger, Bigger looks so fun. Maybe you could look at the Week in Review board and compare the work of the kids in Bigger and Preparing.

[momtofive]

I am new here too, going to start with HOD in the fall. So I haven't done any of the programs yet! But I did want to join in and give my two cents, if you don't mind!

Last year we did a program that was targeted for the older kids and the younger ones were supposed to just absorb what they could. (That's actually what their catalog and their customer service people say!!) Anyway, I found it to be a year of real struggling. Most of the material was very hard for my child to understand and he would just tune out. I felt like it was a wasted year, because he could have had rich, wholesome materials that were designed specifically just for his age group. I SO WISH I could have found HOD even just one year ago (although I really wish I could have started out with it!).

So my thoughts would be to really pray about it and ask the Lord to lead in this decision. Bigger looks so, so good and gives a lot of really great fun activities. Preparing is only a year or so away and will be so much richer when they are ready for it!!

Blessings as you decide!

~Lisa

[my3sons]

We did PHFHG a few years back, and though it is a wonderful program, I definitely would not advise to do it with a 6 yo. My little guy whose 7 yo can read and write extremely well, far above his age level, and though he was just shy of 7 yo we still had to start Bigger Hearts half-speed for him - there is absolutely no way he could have done PHFHG. We are doing Bigger Hearts a second time with our second ds, and I'm enjoying it my second trip through still. I think you would find the biographical approach to American History a new and fresh way to approach it, not to mention Beyond covers 1500's - 1800's, and Bigger Hearts covers 1500's - 1970's, so you'd miss out on the last portion of American history otherwise. We found for both of our dc, that Bigger Hearts is a key teaching year. It teaches the beginning of many skills that are then taught with much less modeling in PHFHG. Oral narration is a big part of CM style learning, and for both of our sons, Bigger Hearts was/is the year that skill needed to be focused on and taught well. Vocabulary Study is another focal skill taught within Bigger Hearts. BHFHG teaches how to do vocabulary cards - which involves many important LA skills - i.e. finding the word in the history book, looking at the word in its context, guessing at its meaning, looking it up in the dictionary to see which definition best fits, and then creating a card with all of this information and filing in alphabetically. These are just some of the fundamental skills that come to mind - there are more I won't get into.

Bigger Hearts is (IMO) a foundational guide for teaching LA skills that dc will need to be proficient at in the rest of the HOD guides. It was a big "growing up" year for my ds, and he needed it to be ready for PHFHG - I can see this repeating for my second ds. When dc do a guide too young, they often miss out on the teaching of the foundation of the skills inherent in the guide, and they don't ever really learn them from the roots up then. This can cause dc to struggle with these skills year after year, where if they had just been taught them at the appropriate age level in an appropriate way for that age level, they would have thrived rather than struggled with those skills over the years. There are many ways to go about choosing placement, but putting personal interests and time periods aside, and just choosing a guide based on proper age and necessary skills to be learned has always helped us end up with a happier homeschooling year for both me as the teacher and for my dc as the students. I really to think in my heart you'd find the same! HTH as you consider placement for your dc!

In Christ,
Julie

[maggie lil]

Thanks ladies,
I think you all are right. Preparing may even be a little much for my just-turned 8 dd. I think the biographical approach of Bigger may give US history some 'freshness'. I also realized if I'm tweaking it, HOD loses it's open and go element that is so very appealing to me.
Thanks again for the help,