New here, and excited to place order...right choices?

[2girls2boysnme]

Hi, I'm Stephanie and I am new here! I have a 13 year old going into 8th grade, a 7 year old (turns 8 Sept 6) who is a rising 2nd grader, and two boys who are 3 and 14 months. So...after much deliberation (between My Father's World and Heart of Dakota), I have decided to order some HOD curriculum for them this year. We already have LHTH for the littles, and I am excited to order the new MTMM for 8th grade. I think my 2nd grader places in Beyond according to the placement guide. I understand that Beyond has a grade 2 spelling list in the appendix, and we will likely use the emergent readers as she is a little behind in her reading according to the 1st grade public school (she has a reading iep right now).
How hard will it be for me to run 2 guides (2nd and 8th grade). Well, technically 3 with LHTH... Please give me some encouragement.
Next year older daughter will move on to My Father's World high school (unless the new hs guide from HOD looks better... ) and younger DD will move on to Bigger.
I am not sure if I am supposed to order the economy + the basic + the deluxe + the emergent readers for Beyond? And I'm not sure about the reading level 2 in DITHOR...is that a bit above the level of emergent but still considered beginning 2nd level, or is that advanced. I also don't know how the books substitutions would work...are the books scheduled in the teachers guide?
And when it comes to ordering MTMM, I get totally lost with all of the options, and choices.
I suppose I could just call and ask all of these questions.

[netpea]

Hi,
Maybe I can help a little. For Beyond, if you will be using the Emerging Reader series, you will not be doing DITHOR yet. Beyond has the comprehension questions to ask for each day's reading listed in the appendix. Once you complete the Emerging Reader series, then you would move into DITHOR.
You will definitely want to get the Economy and Basic packages. Whether you need to buy the deluxe package would depend on whether you already have these books or can get them from the library. For my children, I already had books from each genre on hand so I didn't buy the deluxe package. (There are more books listed in the appendix for each genre than just the ones listed under boy/girl and classic.)

Many people run 2 or more guides with no trouble. Your older child will be doing some of the work independently while you are able to do Beyond and LHTH with the youngers.
Hope that helps a little.

[2girls2boysnme]

That does help, thank you! I don't have any of those titles, but I assume I could get them from the library, or amazon, or choose another title from the list. I was wondering if there was a way to economize a bit as both guides, especially the older grade one is a bit $$.

[RachelB]

Oh, I dont' think you'll have any problem running those guides. I'm guessing the MTMM will be fairly independent, and Beyond and LHTH don't take a whole lot of time. I'm currently doing CTC, Beyond and LHTH, and don't have any problem getting everything in during the day. I get my dd doing CTC working on her things, and then spend about 30 - 45 minutes with dd doing Beyond, and then maybe 30 min with LHTH. Sometimes Beyond will take a little more depending on the math instruction, but it's really very doable! Have fun!