Post
by Nealewill » Wed Apr 29, 2015 4:46 am
I also came from MFW and switched to HOD. HOD is a wonderful fit and I am running 3 guides. So the answer to your question, can you really run 3 guides? Yes you can! Some people even run more than 3 guides. I spend about 4 hours per day teaching school and that is all. With HOD, once they get to the level Preparing, they start taking on quite a bit of self learning. As LovingJesus mentioned, give your child/children some time to get used to it. It is very different and there is a bit of hand holding in the beginning. I give my children the guide and let them have at it. Even my son in Bigger, while there aren't boxes labed "I" for independent, I give him the guide for anything I expect him to complete alone. This here is the reason that people can do so many guides with their kids at one time, the kids take on some of the responsibility of learning alone.
And like LovingJesus mention, be patient with your kids when they start. With my oldest last year, she completed Preparing and it was also our first year with HOD. It was a bit rocky in the beginning of the year because she had a hard time following directions. But it got a lot better. This year, she is doing CTC and have not had to spend nearly as much time hand holding as I had in the past. It actually was a bit shocking how well her day has gone. She has usually completed most stuff she can do alone in the AM and then her and I meet after lunch to complete the rest of the boxes that she couldn't do.
As for math - you can use your math program. I am not sure what you were using before or if it was just the series of books recommended by MFW, but jumping around is not a good idea. If your child is thriving with that math series, then sticking with them might be wise. I know both MFW and HOD use Singapore in the lower level. But I guess what I am saying is that if you have used Saxon for Algebra and they recommend Jacobs, if you want to use Jacobs, just go ahead and use it.
As I looked at your kids - I agree with Beyond for the youngest. I also think that Preparing for the 10 year old would be a great year. In Preparing, they beginning learning written narrations and if she can read well, she will be fine. She should just use R&S level 3. My oldest dd didn't have any formal grammar prior to coming to HOD. She finished the PPL books as well. On a side note - that was the one book I was sad to not use with the younger two. It really opened my dd up to the idea of writing. I digress.......she completed level 3 and understood grammar very well. There were days I had to go slowly. And there were days of hand holding. But honestly, it was a great year. She learned a lot. As for your oldest, R2R sounds like a great fit. Even though she hasn't had any formal experience with doing written narrations, she will get there. And I would just be patient about it. It will be a bit of trial and error when you first start out. She will have a weekly written narration for history and then one for science. I think that her completing the guide as is without extensions for this upcoming year would be fine. I do know that she is 13 and in the extensions age range, but if you think it will be overwhelming for her to navigate her day, then I wouldn't add in the extensions. I still think she will have a fantastic year. As for grammar, I would have her complete R&S 4. R2R schedules grammar 2 days per week because it spread that book over 2 years. But with her age and grade, I would do all of R&S 4 that year. You would complete 1 lesson per day. In addition, HOD recommends completing 2/3 orally with only 1/3 written. This makes your grammar time move along quickly. I do this with my kids also. We do 2/3 oral and 1/3 written. As for your oldest moving into high school for in a year, you will then be able to modify the next two guides to make the high school worthy. Finally, she would skip the last 2 guides and that is okay. As LovingJesus also mentioned, HOD is very academically rigorous. That was one of my main reasons for choosing it. I wanted my kids to be challenged but also to enjoy learning. HOD has done both in this family. So, even if she doesn't finish every guide, she still will grow in skills, learn a ton and receive an excellent education overall.
On a side note, we came to HOD last year. I started out schooling tradition and then quickly switched to eclectic. But it got to the point that I wanted a boxed curriculum and I wanted my kids to have fun learning. So many people I knew used MFW. My first year with them, my kids were K, 1st, and Adventures so no one learned together at this point. Then I went to the cycle. Disasterous! We do not learn well together LOL. One person didn't understand anything while everything was way to easy for the oldest child. I also did not like those Usborne books either. I know many people do like them but they just weren't my style. I also never mastered the book basket. I think with MFW you have a lot more freedom to change things up if you want and modify stuff as you want. I picked a boxed curriculum so that I didn't have to do that LOL! I found HOD because I was looking for books and ideas to modify in MFW. After seeing all the resources in HOD, I completely fell in love! I was actually 7 weeks into ECC when I had decided that it wasn't working at all and I needed to do something different. Sticker shock...yes! I had already paid money for everything else I was using that year and then I had to buy all new stuff again. Agh...... My husband was saving money up to build a shed in our backyard. When I talked about wanting to switch and how much I hated my year, he gave me all of that money to buy HOD. He knew that what we were doing wasn't working at all. Unfortunately at that time, I had been curriculum jumping a lot because I still hadn't found my perfect fit. So while he told me I could buy HOD with his shed money, he still didn't think I would use them for more than a year. That first year I completed Beyond with my two youngers and then Preparing with my oldest. I did everything as is except for spelling and math (I had previous had my own programs and wanted to stay with them). It was serious the best year ever! So.....to my husbands dismay.....I stayed with HOD again! This year I split up my youngest and middle children and they completed Bigger and Little Hearts. My oldest moved up to CTC. I also have switched every subject to be completed using the HOD products. Completing 3 guides has gone very well! It is definitely my preference that everyone works alone. I have bought my material for next year and I will officially be using HOD again! To be honest, I have finally found my perfect fit. I plan to use HOD to the end. Because this is the HOD forum, you will find that most people here are their cheerleaders. We reply to people's questions because we just absolutely love their curriculum. We are probably all biased to that extend. But I can honestly say that I do feel like God led me here and I am very grateful. When I first even considered HOD, I only decided to try it because the author has 4 boys who like their school work. My oldest is easily distracted and always wants to run around. I figure if this was written with 4 boys in mind, it should work for my highly active girl, right? I also know that Julie has 3 boys and her boys have done well with it too. Two of my kids actually struggled a ton with reading as well. But the books here are extremely engaging. That was not my experience with some of the texts with MFW. I was reading quickly just trying to survive! With HOD, they are reading it themselves and they really seem to like what the read. So, having excellent and interesting books on hand does make for a desire to read. A desire to read definitely increasing reading abilities because they want to figure those hard words out since they want to read these books. I am just so thankful that Carrie wrote this curriculum. It has blessed me and my family immensely. I can't even imagine my school day without it. So I guess I just wanted to share my story as an encouragement to you and to share why I picked HOD. There are many users who have used them from the beginning and there are many more who have jumped in a bit later. Every one has a story and everyone has a reason they have chosen HOD. For us, I have 3 very different kids who learn very differently and HOD has honestly fit each one well. I just love it. As for sticker price, yes, it is expensive. My first year I bought 2 levels and then my second year I bought 3. This upcoming year was cheap, I only bought 1! I don't know if you have ever considered selling some of your old curriculum but I have done that in the past to help offset the cost of starting over. As for selling my HOD levels once I am finished......I am pretty sure I can't do that. They are like my BFFs! For me, it was worth money to buy the multiple levels at one time. As I look at the price of some of the higher guides, it does get expensive. But I do feel like it is well worth the money. Curriculum is expensive in general, especially the higher grade products. And I do feel like I have always gotten what I paid for. Luckily you will be able to reuse most of the stuff you buy. So when you buy Preparing and R2R, those levels will definitely be reused. And most stuff with HOD is not consumable, especially in the lower levels. You will have to buy student sheets and some of the workbook items again but I feel like it is minimal in comparison with some programs. That is a blessing when you consider how much each level costs and how much you have to replace with each child.
Daneale
DD 13 WG
DS 12 R2R
DD 10 R2R
Enjoyed DITHOR, Little Hearts, Beyond, Bigger, Preparing, CTC, R2R, RevtoRev, MtMM
I also have three very different dc, and this program works for each of them beautifully.
) I am going to go back and reread your responses and think about them and pray about this.
