Ok, we have completed our first two weeks with Preparing and...I am so blessed. I am using it with my 5th grader and right now I am just having him get the hang of the way it works; I did purchase the extension pack and am considering doing some of the books as independent reading once we get more settled. This is the first time he has done dictation and vocabulary (he is groaning pretty badly at vocabulary, but this too shall pass). He LOVES to draw so he is in heaven doing the Draw and Write through HIstory assignments and even the timeline cards. My 2nd grader joins us for Bible time, History, and Story Time, working on his handwriting and math as he listens. I can say I am so enjoying the books and the way the program flows during the morning. We start about 8:30 and are usually done between 12 and 1...perfect. The 4-day schedule gives me room to breathe: get the grocery shopping done, wrap up the week with my 12th grader who obviously uses other curricula, and just...let down a bit before the weekend. I do require reading on Fridays from both kiddos, and think if there is "leftover" work my son can do that independently on Fridays as well. We are used to having an ongoing read-aloud book for evenings, so I am going to keep historical fiction books going through the year that parallel where we are in Preparing.
Preparing has been so easy to implement...especially as my 12th grader is using new curriculum too, and I was a bit afraid my eyeballs were going to spin in different directions.
THANK YOU for such a sweet, gentle, thoughtful curriculum. This is going to be an amazing year!
Jenni
I hope you enjoy your year as much as we did in the past when we did Preparing Hearts with our son! Grandpa's Box was an absolute favorite here and the Draw and Write and timeline entries were beloved as well. We too had some groans over vocabulary, but my boys did learn much from it and know how to use a dictionary very well and how to guess what a word means based on its context. 