Yes, I too would like placement advice. :)

[mamafox]

HI! My name is Stephanie and I am planning on purchasing HOD for the coming school year. I am so pleased to have found HOD!

I know you all are constantly asked for placement advise but us newbies are so unsure of ourselves!

I have and 8 yo dd who is well above level in reading but does not enjoy writing one bit. Copy work and dictation will probably cause issue at first. But she does want to learn cursive and has enjoyed using tracing paper to copy my cursive words. She will be in 3rd next year and turns 9 over Christmas.

I also have a 6 yo dd who is still learning to read. She knows all the sounds and can sound words out but is impatient when it comes to actually reading. I plan on starting her with SCM's Delightful Reading soon. Her handwriting is better than big sisters, but I haven't attempted to have her do much besides what is in her handwriting workbook. She will be in 1st next year and also turns 7 over Christmas.

I also have a very bright 3 yo dd who will turn 4 in the fall. I'm considering LHTH for her.

And bringing up the rear is my 1 yo ds who will turn 2 in the fall.

My thought is Beyond for my older 2. I just think I will be overwhelmed to try and do them separately in bigger and beyond and finances are an issue in that choice as well.

Any advice or wisdom would be greatly appreciated!

Stephanie Fox

[Heidi in AK]

Stephanie, I don't know what other ladies, think, but there is a decent amount of copywork in Beyond. Might you consider LHFHG, using 2nd grade options for your older DD? That might give her more time to do some handwriting practice. If it takes a lot of work to get your 8 yo DD to write, then you might be fighting some battles next year.

Also, when families come to HOD from other places, it might be good to start them at the lower guide. There are quite a few extension ideas in the back of LHFHG to ease both your daughters into HOD without causing too much frustration. That way, you can still combine your DD's but not extend their skill sets beyond a doable level your first year in HOD.

And, of course, LHTH sounds perfect for your other LO's!

Welcome to the boards!!!

[mamafox]

WOW! I honestly didn't expect that suggestion.

Ill have to look. I haven't even looked at that guide since it didn't match their ages.

[Heidi in AK]

Remember that it's not about ages, but abilities, so if your DD's match skill-wise into a certain guide, that is the one that is best suited for them. Remember that you can always tailor the phonics to match their abilities, but if you get the emerging readers you'd have to get the Beyond guide.

I think it matter most how much you are going to have to motivate your 8yo to write. If it will be easy, then you would have to see how Beyond matches for both of your girls if you want to combine them.

Carrie and Julie suggest matching to the younger one's abilities and then beefing up to match the older one's, if it makes sense to combine based on abilities, which it does.

There are 2nd grade extensions for language arts, and a 2nd grade science and math program, depending on abilities. If I were in your shoes, I'd choose LHFHG and beef it up to your older one, especially because you are new to HOD.

However, if you don't like that suggestion, I wonder what others would have to say? Please be sure to consult the placement chart at:

http://www.heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php

[Heidi in AK]

I have been reflecting on your response to me, and how to deal with your surprise.

You have two options and it sounds to me like you've picked one. Either you could run two guides for your older two or combine them to run one for them. It sounded to me like you'd rather combine them.

If you are going to do that, I would think you would want to consider your younger one's skills when you consider which guide to put them into, instead of your older one's, unless your 6yo's skills surpass those of your 8yo's. This may be a different process than that of other curricula, but HOD depends on the current capabilities of the child. If you put a child (say, a younger one) into a guide that doesn't match his or her current skill set, you run the risk of frustrating the child and creating trouble in your homeschool. That is probably why you got a response you didn't expect.

I'd look at the placement chart I recently linked and place your 6yo rather than your 8yo. Then, if you want to combine them, you can focus on what your 8yo needs in the program to reach where she's at. When you said she didn't want to write, that reinforced to me that LHFHG might be a good place to start.

HTH! Welcome to the HOD boards!

[mamafox]

Oh I really appreciate your reply and input.
Please don't interpret my surprise in a negative response. It just hadn't occurred to me at all. I am really going to look at the guide and contemplate what would be best.
I really appreciate your taking the time to think through our family situation. Sorry if my response sounded to dry, I was typing a quick response!
I will be researching and reevaluating.

Thanks again!
Stephanie

[frankesense]

Where does your younger one place on the HOD placement chart? http://heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php

When I first read your question I thought that placing them both in Beyond would work fine, as long as that is the place your younger one would place. You could easily beef up with LA options, math, and DITHOR for the older one at her level, if needed. If she is ready for learning cursive you could add that in instead of the copywork in Beyond. I don't think that the writing required for Beyond would be too much for an 8 yr. old. I used the Beyond guide for my dc starting when they were 6 & 7 yr. old. It was a good fit for us and we really enjoyed it. We did it on a 4 day week so it took us a little longer than a year to complete it before we moved onto Bigger Hearts.

Stephanie

[mamafox]

I really feel like my youngest does place in Beyond.
She is somewhere between phonics and emerging reader.
She can write well her upper and lowercase letters, and can copy sentences.
I am unsure of is spelling. We haven't attempted that with her.
She has had a good foundation in math already (we started with singapore so she will have already completed K)
I am not sure about if she is ready for a gentle introduction to grammer...?

I do want to have a successful year, but I also don't want boredom to be an issue either.

It is hard to weigh the desire for a gentle approach against the desire to see them achieve all they can. I feel I have already tempered that urge when I settled on beyond instead of bigger. I am second guessing myself even more so now.

I am happy to receive anymore input!

Thanks again ladies!
Stephanie

[montanamom]

My dd was 6 when we started Beyond this past year & turned 7 the end of Sept. (so she is similar in age to your 2nd dd) We had done LHFHG for K the year before. We are now finishing up Beyond with only about 5 wks left. From what you stated, I think that Beyond would be a fine fit. She (6 y/o) would be able to begin the emerging readers at any point during the year that you felt she was ready. There is copywork in Beyond 4 days/wk, but you can adjust the amount to your daughters abilities. My daughter began the year doing only 1 line per day, but now is able to do more (though she still prefers to do as little as possible ) Your 8 y/o could do the cursive like you mentioned & maybe some copywork also. Your 6 y/o sounds like she would be ready for Singapore 1A as written in the guide while your 8 y/o could do math at her own level. The 'gentle introduction to grammar' should be no problem...it is just 1day/wk & covers stuff like capitalization, punctuation, nouns, etc. Again your oldest could do her own level of grammar (R&S or whatever) daily. As far as the spelling goes, my dd had not done any spelling either before Beyond so we started her out with list 1 & she has done great! Again your oldest could maybe do dictation (or whatever level she is at) during that time.

LHTH should be great for your 4 y/o. My 4 y/o son has enjoyed it this year & I'm amazed how much he's learned.

Don't second guess yourself! You know your children best & it seems you have a good plan!

Good luck...my dd has really gotten into the history of Beyond & grown a lot academically...I'm sure your girls will love it too!

Pam

[8arrows]

I think Beyond sounds like a good fit! I am using Beyond next year too, so we will be able to compare notes.

[Heidi in AK]

No worries, Stephanie! I just wanted to make sure you knew it was better to focus on placing your younger DD if you were going to combine them. It sounds like that agreed with the other advice you got, and I'm glad you settled on Beyond! Now the only question is making sure you tailor the 3R's for both your DD's.

[farmfamily]

I too think Beyond sounds like a perfect fit for you. I have two daughters who will be 6 and 8 this summer. We will be starting Beyond in the fall. For your older daughter, you may want to buy just the guide for Bigger Hearts, even if you are combining in Beyond. In Beyond, there are two spelling lists, but if your daughter is beyond these, you should move on to the dictation which is in the Appendix of the Bigger guide. I am currently using this with my older daughter who is currently combined with her sister in Little Hearts. You may also want to add Grammar from the Bigger guide (Rod and Staff English 2). Has your daughter had any grammar instruction? If so, R&S English 3 may be a possibility too. You may want to hold off on cursive until your older daughter is fast, neat, and confident of her printing (this was suggested to me for my older daughter). I asked a question on this board about whether to beef up Science in Beyond, but was advised against it, based on the age of my kids. Since your daughter is a little older, you may want to check out this link:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11416

I hope that worked, but if not, the title is "Science for older student in LHFHG/Beyond" - Julie, who is the author's sister gave advice towards the end of the thread.

You will also want to do math on your older daughter's level. For the older one, you should also consider DITHOR. My older daughter sounds very similar to yours in that she is an excellent reader, but doesn't enjoy writing. We tried Bigger this year, but it was too hard for her because of all the writing involved. She is now doing DITHOR level 2/3, and while she doesn't love the writing (I often write down what she dictates and then she copies it in her student book), she adores the books. The written part of DITHOR is not every day, but it is providing her with an extra chance to practice her writing skills, and she is learning about literature and godly character traits.

We are finding HOD to be wonderful for our family. My girls love to do the activities in Little Hearts together, and we can't wait to get to Beyond! By the way, my son is in LHTH and my girls already completed that program (each of them did it when they were three) and I can't say enough good things about it! My girls still beg to do it each day with my little guy!

[Tracee]

Beyond sounds like a good fit. They are both wonderful guides. We've done LHTH, LHFHG and we are now in Beyond. The amount of copywork is very appropriate for that age, and my ds has writing issues. Beyond is really a lot of fun, and a great place to start to acquire the skills needed for the upper guides. If you run into any snags, you can always slow down a bit, but honestly I don't for see that happening.


HTH,
Tracy

[Mom2Monkeys]

I agree! I think beyond will fit your younger with no need to tweak or tailor anything really. Then just up the math and LA for your 8yo.

I didn't get to read alley replies but in an early one, someone mentioned the 2nd grade extensions or Supplemt in LHFHG, but there isn't 2nd grade in LHFHG. That would be in BLHFHG. The appendix in LHFHG fixes the plans for math 1a and 1b since the math plans in the guide are for kindy.
So Beyond will have the 1st grade options planned in the guide for you and you'll find the 2a and 2b math schedule in the appendix, as well as the emerging readers. You may wish to get the bigger guide if your 8yo is ready for dictation though. Beyond has 2 spelling lists. 1st and 2nd grade. Then Bigger has 2nd grade spelling list and dictation 2 (the first level of dictation planned). You'd also see the grammar plans for R&S 2 in the bigger guide but you can do that at a lesson a day.

I've used HOD from LHTH up to half way through PHFHG so far and it's really wonderful! My 10yo is doing PHFHG with extensions for 5th grade this year.

Enjoy your learning with HOD!!

[mamafox]

I am so grateful to all of your responses!
After taking a good look at all 3 guide samples and the placement chart I feel certain Beyond is the best fit for combination.
Now I just have to decide about my DD8's needs when it comes to the three Rs.

I think I should order the beyond guide and look at it to see if I would need the bigger guide to supplement. I think I remember that they will credit you the purchase of the guide to get the discount for the whole set when you purchase it later...Is that right?

If I supplement with the bigger guide, then next year for Bigger will I need to supplement with Preparing? Or are there 2 levels within the guide?

I was planning to do DITHOR with her because she is already into those length of books but I may have to tweak a bit since writing is not her favorite thing...

Thanks again ladies! Each of you has given me some great points to ponder and made me feel very welcome to the boards!