Considering PH Next Year...

[dizneegirl76]

Hello! I will be brand new to home schooling next year. We are an evangelical Christian family. My children have been in public school and will be in 3rd grade (8 years, 8 mo. old) and 5th grades (11 yr. 1 mo. old) next year. I hope to start Aug. 5th. They didn't have any learning or behavioral problems. I just want to give them a Christian, home based education before they get too old!
Here are my questions.

1. I am wondering if I can use Preparing Hearts for both of them and just beef it up for my 5th grader? I realize I will need to do separate math and LA for them, but was hoping to combine science and history.
2. What is Drawn into the Heart of Reading? I worry because although my 3rd grade daughter is an excellent reader, she hates to read, no matter what it is. I know if she is assigned a large number of pages each day it will be a constant struggle.

3. I am with a Charter school, and they will reimburse me for any material that is not "religious." So I am wondering if I can ge an itemized receipt for the books that are just general reading and not Christian books?

4. How much time, realistically do you think we will be spending each day on school work (not counting breaks and lunch)? My goal is 3 hours. Is that too little?

5. How do you figure out how much time you can take off for holidays/vacations and still get everything done by early June so you can take the summer off?

Thanks in advance for any and all help. God bless!
~Shannon

[Motherjoy]

Welcome, and congratulations on homeschooling! It's such a great way to live and parent, and you will see awesome fruit it's not always easy, but that's okay. It's worth it.

I used Preparing for my son when he was 10 and 11 without any extensions. Preparing is probably a good fit for the science and the history for all the kids. PH is my favorite guide, and it's a great one to get you started in homeschooling.

I don't know anything about charter schools or book reimbursement, but I imagine a list of the non-religious books would suffice. However, I would not choose a secular curriculum just to have a larger reimbursement. The way that HOD weaves the Bible into every subject is amazing, and will help you and your children grow spiritually. I learned so much with Preparing, and it really gave my oldest a firm foundation in his faith!!

As for DITHOR, you could skip it for your young ones right now, using this year to deschool, build character and relationship, and just enjoy learning together.

As for scheduling, get out a yearly calendar. Decide when you want to be finished. Look at times that you will want to break, like spring, christmas, fall etc. think about your husbands work schedule and try to make your school breaks coincide with when he is home. Mark those days off on your calendar, and starting with your ending date, count backwards. HOD has 34 weeks planned. Each week is 4 days. That's a total of 140 days. The other day each wee can be used for field trips, unit studies, community service, etc. Check state requirements. Typical schoolyears are 180 days. So,count back 180 days or 34-36 weeks. That should determine your start date.

I would encourage you not to tie yourself to the public school schedule. Ho,e schooling is about freedom!!! You want to take your school breaks when your local school is not, it's just easier that way. Then all the cool places you want to go aren't crowded with school kids who are forced to vacation on someone else's schedule.

Time per day is about four hours with PH, less if you aren't doing DITHOR.

[dizneegirl76]

Thanks so much for the tips! As far as book reimbursement, I meant that I wanted to know if I could get an itemized receipt from HOD of the books THEY recommend for the program, not buy secular books myself. For instance, they won't reimburse me for Biblical study books, but any books like biographies, science, history books, etc. can possibly be reimbursed. They just said I have to send them an itemized receipt for everything I purchase and they will take off what they can pay me back for.

So explain to me exactly what DITHOR is?

[Motherjoy]

Hm..I wonder if you could just highlight the non-religious books on you invoice??

DITHOR is a literature/reading curriculum. It teaches each genre, combined with a character quality. It talks about plot and character and all the basics. If you are worried that your daughter's love of reading might be thwarted by something formal like DITHOR than I think it would ok to just wait until she's ready. It's not just assigned reading, there are worksheets, guided discussions, and you will also listen out loud to her read (just so you can catch any mistakes or help with her fluency.)

[snadig]

Welcome to HOD. This was our first year with HOD and we have loved it. We have been homeschooling for 5 years now, and this was our best year yet! Thanks to HOD.

We are finishing Preparing, Beyond, and RevtoRev or we will finish in the fall, I have decided to go year round, but do light school work during the summer. We are doing math, some spelling with my younger one, and bible/ character study. They also get to cook for church and have music practice/lessons, and a lady from church is giving them sewing lessons while my son and I do fun gooey science. We will take some weeks off, then start back first part of August. We will finish out our guides( just 3weeks left) and take a break and order the next. My goal is to do 6 weeks on and 1 or 2 off year round. We will see how that works out.

See how your kids fit on the placement chart. My 8 year would have a hard time with all the writing in Preparing, but maybe your dd is good with writing. Once you get started in your guide or guides then maybe you could look into Drawn into the heart of reading more. My kids love it, but my youngest just tagged along and wasn't ready for that kind of study.

Keep asking questions the ladies love to help.