How has the Lord showen you what cirriculum to use?

This is where new posts begin. All questions or discussions about any of Heart of Dakota's curriculums start here. If you wish to share a one-time post about your family's experience with our curriculum, you may post under the specific curriculum title (found beneath this "Main Board" heading).
mindywp
Posts: 32
Joined: Sat Aug 29, 2009 10:43 am

Re: How has the Lord showen you what cirriculum to use?

Post by mindywp » Mon May 30, 2011 7:47 am

I began homeschooling my dd in 6th grade & had no idea what all was out there. I began an all out search for every subject, trying to piece something together. I felt overwhelmed & scattered! :o I was actually purchasing an item from someone on a used homeschool site & for some reason, she mentioned HOD...I think maybe for my pre-schooler. I asked a few questions, then began researching the website & was so excited about my new "find"! :D I poured over the placement chart, then finally decided to purchase CTC, which was the newest guide at the time. The whole school year, I was so proud when I told others we were using HOD (we live in Shreveport, LA & I have yet to find anyone else using HOD). I would brag about how easy it made my first year homeschooling & it was truly a blessing to our family. However, the following year, we had to go a different route due to financial reasons. I was miserable & kept longing to use HOD again. It is such a rich program & I cannot schedule anything close to what Carrie has put together. Finally, after a few weeks, my husband told me to do whatever I needed to do to order RTR for my dd. It felt so good to be back! I have already ordered part of the Rev to Rev package & can't wait to get the rest of it, it looks so exciting. My son will begin LHFHG in 1st grade. I also have to mention the HOD message board, it is so encouraging & full of helpful ideas. I don't post as often as most, but I read it almost every day. I am so thankful God led Carrie & Julie to share their wisdom with us. It is so obvious by their posts & after meeting them at a conference, they truly care about HOD & the people who use it.
In Christ,
Mindy
Married to Brian & the mother of two beautiful blessings:
dd 13 yrs, RTR, Rod & Staff math, La Clase Divertida 2
ds 5 yrs, LHTH, La Clase Divertida Spanish 1, Handle on the Arts

my4sugars
Posts: 70
Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:06 am
Location: GA

Re: How has the Lord showen you what cirriculum to use?

Post by my4sugars » Mon May 30, 2011 9:24 am

I was reading the posts here and just feeling thankful for a Heavenly Father that truly cares about His children. Speaking to our hearts about what curriculum to use for schooling our children is as personal as it gets. Truly blows the common thought that God is too busy to be bothered by our everyday concerns, and I love that!!! :D

My now 10 yr. old son was starting K, and I had spent timeless hours researching curriculum that I thought was going to be a good match. Now this is going to seem strange, but I actually ordered LHFHG after coming upon the website and then promptly forgot about it. I think it had alot to do with the fact that I discovered I was pg with my 4th child right after my twin girls turned 3, and I was very overwhelmed with 3 children under age 5 and being fatigued and sick with the pg. The box came and it got lost in a pile. I continued to look for curriculum and just never could find what I thought would work for my son. We eventually enrolled our son in a Christian school for K and 1st grade as a last resort. My dh and I made a decision to bring our ds home for 2nd grade, as his sisters were going to be starting K, and our budget couldn't handle 3 in private school.

Wouldn't you know that I came across that HOD box the spring before my ds finished 1st grade. I wish I had opened it 2 years prior. I was elated to find the "perfect" fit for my dds for K! I immediately went to the HOD website and looked at the curriculum that would be appropriate for my son and ordered it asap. Hindsight is always 20/20. How could I have forgotten about the LHFHG that I ordered for my son? And why didn't I pay any attention to the box after that? The school we put our son in was fine, but I wonder how much better off he would have been had I only opened the box the day I got it. What matters now is that we are lifelong HODdies!! I love the curriculum and the peace of mind that I have about my childrens' education and the strong Biblical foundation that they have the privilege of having included in with it. It has truly changed our lives and made homeschooling a complete joy for our family. :)
Kimi~
Mama to the 4
greatest kids
this side of heaven!
Jesse, Shannon, Mary, & Seth

3sweeties
Posts: 430
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2009 9:00 am
Location: GA

Re: How has the Lord showen you what cirriculum to use?

Post by 3sweeties » Mon May 30, 2011 10:11 am

Hi Kimi (waving) !!!! :D :D :D Good to see you on here! Eli misses hanging out with Jesse -- hope to see you at co-op in the fall!!! :D
Jessica~married to my sweetie for 21 years!
[DS17]~U.S. HISTORY 2~2019-20
[DS14]-World Geography~2019-20
[DD12]~ RTR, DITHOR 6-8~2019-20
[DS9]~Bigger~2019-20
Enjoyed LHFHG, Beyond, Bigger, Preparing, CTC, RTR, RevtoRev, MTMM, WORLD GEOG, WORLD HIST, US HIST 1~LOVING HOD!

mamanlait
Posts: 259
Joined: Mon Apr 06, 2009 10:01 pm

Re: How has the Lord showen you what cirriculum to use?

Post by mamanlait » Mon May 30, 2011 11:32 am

Great question! My wish list was... a guided curriculum for starters (I didn't want to spend time creating my own), a literature-based curriculum and not textbook-y at all (the love of learning was extraordinarily important to me), an historically Christ-centered curriculum, and literary (more CM focused with poems). I quickly narrowed down my choices of curriculum and there was just one standing. :D Now those reassurances are a bit different than the ones that got me started with HOD...in a nutshell, HOD keeps me sane. :) When I hear about a new curriculum that might set me off course (or a co-op that might lure me off pace), I feel confident that HOD will provide the right academic information and Bible teaching for my family. I'm not sure I'd be as confident a homeschooler without HOD's help. I'm really grateful, can you tell?! It is remarkably clear to me that God has provided this curriculum to help me raise up my children in a Light-inspired home. I do Pray for those glimmers and clarity to keep confident in His path for us.

Amy
Currently:
dd 16 AH1 -bits & pieces (previously used Bigger, Preparing, CtC, RtR, Rev, MMtM, WG, WH)
dd 12 REV (previously used LHTH, LHfHG, Beyond, Bigger, Preparing, CtC, & RtR)

lisaha1
Posts: 53
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2011 10:28 am

Re: How has the Lord showen you what cirriculum to use?

Post by lisaha1 » Thu Jun 02, 2011 7:37 am

I love hearing how the Lord leads and answers prayers! I'm waiting on Him and trying not to lean on my own understanding! I'm excited to see what way He leads me with cirriculum for the children! He is faithful in every area, big or small in our lives! I so want my children to see this and how He works in all areas of schooling and daily lives. :)

doubleportion
Posts: 198
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2010 12:40 pm
Location: Arkansas
Contact:

Re: How has the Lord showen you what cirriculum to use?

Post by doubleportion » Thu Jun 02, 2011 11:56 pm

I have been homeschooling our dd for five years and every time I have felt the Lord direct us to a different curriculum it has been exactly what we needed for the season of our life and my dc's needs. There was one year where we felt God impress upon us to stop homeschooling and enroll our dd in ps. Then about four months into it I felt God tugging to take her back out and homeschool her again. I sat there scratching my head asking God if I had heard Him right. So I said "Lord if you want me to homeschool her again I only have 15 dollars for curriculum and she needs a desk." We were given two desks and loaned or given everything that I needed to homeschool that year. The only think I lacked was a Math book and that costs me 15 dollars! God provided and confirmed that we were exactly in His will. That year was her 1st grade year and we did SL.

The next year I was really praying for something else but didn't know what that was. I got a pack of little homeschool ads in the mail and came across a flier for MFW. I read it and was so excited because that was everything I had been asking God for in a curriculum. We joyfully used MFW for two years. The third year felt different and I was in a different stage of life and family- I was pregnant for the 7th time and having a very challenging pregnancy, I had a 4 year old dealing with allot of health issues and a 2 year old running around. I just "happened upon" Jessica's blog aka Mom4Him and saw the preschool curriculum she was using with one of her dds(HOD). I had never heard of this curriculum but it looked so wonderful and MFW didn't have a preschool curriculum. I loved what I saw and prayed asking the Lord to provide to buy it for our ds.

I also decided to look into getting a HOD catalog and find out what else HOD offered. I had no idea that they provided Guides for upper grades. When I got the Catalog I poured over it and felt my heart quickening. It looked like everything that I had been needing and the change that my dd and our family needed. Long story short, God provided so we could get the books and Guides for my dd and ds. It has been a breathe of fresh air in our homeschool and we are so thankful that the Lord guided us here. The one thing I have learned now after all these years of homeschooling- God will send you what you need for the season that you are in. He knows best and directs perfectly. I think I know enough to say now that there may not be a perfect curriculum that will fit my family for every year of of our schooling. I thought a long time ago that I had found "it" and would use the same thing all the way through until my dc graduated. Needless to say that "it" didn't stay "it" because God had other plans and knew better than I did. So for where we are right now, HOD is a perfect fit and I hope that it will remain so for many years.

:)
Edie
dd 13 -Rev2Rev (enjoyed PHFHG, CTC, RTR)
ds 8 -Beyond
ds 6 LHFHG & ds 2 & ds 6 months
4 waiting for us with Jesus

netpea
Posts: 714
Joined: Fri Mar 27, 2009 7:39 pm
Location: Michigan
Contact:

Re: How has the Lord showen you what cirriculum to use?

Post by netpea » Tue Jun 28, 2011 11:03 am

When my oldest was 4, we enrolled him in preschool. He went for a month and came home every day crying. We learned that he thought he would learn to read at preschool. We pulled him out and decided then and there to homeschool. At the time we had a homeschool store in our town. I went in and was looking around and just felt drawn to go to a particular aisle and then to a particular shelf where my eyes fell on LHTH. The moment I picked it up, I knew that was what I was supposed to be using. We continued on with LHFHG. But Beyond was not yet available. It was coming out in the Fall and I was too afraid to buy something i had not yet seen.

I saw MFW at the convention so I switched to MFW. The placement advice they gave me was WRONG and my son was put into a guide higher than he should have been. It was an awful time and we gave up and just did FIAR for a while. We came back to HOD for Beyond and Bigger. then My husband lost his job and we had no money to buy curriculum so I dusted off the MFW program I had bought since it was never really used and we used that. I'm happy to be back in HOD. HOD fits our family so much better. I am very much looking forward to doing CTC and Bigger this year.
Lee Ann
DD3 - LHTH
DD10 - no longer schooled at home
DS12 - no longer schooled at home

Have used LHTH, LHFHG, BLHFHG, and BHFHG
http://netpea.blogspot.com

mater est laetus

Re: How has the Lord showen you what cirriculum to use?

Post by mater est laetus » Wed Jun 29, 2011 6:48 am

I'm verbose. Apologies (for the sake of politeness) in advance. :P

I have vague memories of briefly looking at the HOD website 2yrs ago. I was starting to work with my oldest and was reading up on all manner of curriculum and philosophies. I recall not taking enough interest to look at samples but I can't recall just what lead me back to the website 1yr ago. Somehow I ended up looking at samples and seeing not only the Biblical centeredness but the fun little activities and crafts that went with them. My creativity is impaired when it comes to that kind of thing but knew the children would love it. I remember emailing DH at work asking him to tell me I didn't need to add such things to our day and he wrote me back saying it would be great for the children. Not the response I was expecting but at least I didn't feel bad about buying LHtH because it was now his idea. :lol:

I had just the guide and the little ones did love the activities and although it was a difficult adjustment for me, their joy was worth it but couple of small problems combined with other unrelated things going on for me at the time resulted in me laying it aside. By this time I'd entirely forgotten the primary reason I'd bought LHtH to begin with and wouldn't remember again until this year. I was burned out in general and when I started back doing some school with my oldest I was doing my own thing while pulling together my own plans for the following year (this is why I get burned out - way ahead of myself) and was considering HOD for just history but found something that had not only an attractive history schedule but a schedule for a number of things I was already pulling together. I opted for the schedule and within weeks had ordered the TM and all I needed, having already abandoned what I had been doing and deciding to start over with this new PreK/K program.

It didn't have HODs daily boxes and those had just sung to me when I first saw them but I was beginning to enjoy the greater flexibility. An internal storm was very slowly brewing however with random things converging. I was learning that some educational elements I had seen no purpose in were actually valuable and important experiences. I was noticing that I was just getting things done to say they're done and without direct guidance about what was to be done and how, what I was actually doing was a minimalist interpretation of the scheduled activity and I was starting to question why I was bothering to do it at all. I was feeling grieved over unbiblical content and influences at large (not in what I was using though it was easily secularized) which was driving me to consider the reality that I myself had secularized homeschooling. I wasn't praying about it (as if, God has given me this to do so it's mine to worry about). I got to thinking about God's commands in Deut. 6 and about the most logical place to start in teaching my children God's word - "In the beginning God created ..". Desires were stirring for more purposefully and aggressively teaching my children Biblical truth and desecularizing school time. There was a providential encounter with an author (whose book I read regularly) on a forum where I learned that they were not following their own recommendations in homeschooling their own child. I was questioning who I was listening to, what was forming my educational value system and searching my heart for idols. Coming to this board and witnessing the prayerfulness and compassionate guidance of Carrie and Julie had a profound influence on me during this season.

Meanwhile, I had received the HOD catalog in the mail, been so torn between it and what I already had that I made DH sit down and listen to me pour out my heart over all the perceived pros and cons of both. DH had decided on HOD because of the schedule, direct instruction for me and Bible centeredness. As time passed, I decided I must not have made the relevant points clear enough and decided to overthrow his decision. Not only did I have no peace with this in the midst of all this storm but over the next month it became clear to me - daily self scheduling is not my strength and neither is integrating Bible. The only things I was ever remotely consistent at teaching have been the very tangible, solid subjects of phonics, math and handwriting and I needed something that would lead me just as systematically with other subjects (and whose content was Biblical). For us that was clearly HOD (because, just like a year ago, DH said so :lol: , well, that and it is the only thing I know of that accomplishes our primary goals in a format that works for me as the teacher).

So, there I had been convinced DH just didn't have the full picture because he didn't understand the important details accurately when in fact, I just wasn't seeing the forest for the trees.

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