Does HOD sound like it might work for us?

[razorbackmama]

We are currently using MFW. It's going "OK". It's getting done, but that's about it. I'm looking at switching (to something - doesn't have to be HOD...but HOD is sticking out to me right now, along with TOG), and here are some reasons why:

My senior is finishing up WHL - should be done in Dec. He has done AHL and now WHL. From the very beginning (and I'm still there), I have felt absolutely lost when it comes to the parent conferences. I think this is a "user" issue because other parents don't seem to have this issue. I have no idea what to discuss or how because I don't have time to read through all of his materials or search all over the internet for discussion guides, and there is no parent guide in the program. So I'd have to rely on him to tell me what he's learning. His comprehension isn't the greatest (a problem he is well aware of - it's part of a now minor learning disability he has), so I can't necessarily rely on the information he provides in order to have meaningful discussions.

 

My sophomore is finishing up AHL - he should be done in Dec./Jan. Same deal as my senior. I feel like they are missing out on a pretty key piece of the program by not having the discussions with me.

 

I'm doing CTG with my 9th, 6th, 5th, and 2nd graders. We'll be done at the end of Jan. or so. (The reason my 9th grader is sitting in with us is because we started it when she was in the middle of 8th grade, and I'm having her finish out the year with us.) I feel like they aren't really getting much out of it. I read aloud, they do what few notebook pages are assigned (not many), we talk a little bit about what has happened in what we've read, but that's it. There's not a lot of "output" for my older 3.

 

My 6th grader is the one I'm most concerned about switching for. He's a visual-spatial learner, dyslexic, dysgraphic, and has CAPD. He does much better and retains more with some sort of hands-on activity. And he retains very little when it comes to reading aloud. He also is quite lazy (this manifests itself in all areas of life, not just school, so I know it's not just his learning disabilities), and his 5th grade sister is pretty much the polar opposite school-wise. So he sits back and just lets her do all the talking/doing when we're doing school. I'd like to get him to be more responsible for his own work and to actually produce something rather than just sitting back and letting info. halfway flow into his brain and right back out. I feel like he needs something that will cause him to have to engage more, if that makes sense.

 

At this point my plan for when we end everything in Dec./Jan. is as follows:
senior - do BJU DVDs - U.S. History double-time and American Government so he can be done at the end of May (ships off to Marine Corps boot camp June 15th)

sophomore - BJU DVDs - World History

freshman - BJU DVDs - Cultural Geography

6th, 5th, 2nd - ?????????? I had considered BJU DVDs for them too, but I'm not sure.

 

I'd been considering TOG, but I really like things already laid out for me on a daily basis. I've used TOG twice in the past, and that was one of the biggest problems I had. I also am not sure that I'll be able to commit to the discussions, even if the parent guides ARE provided for me. I have a home-based business and will have a newborn come Feb. (along with kid who turns 5 in Jan. and a 3yo). So as much as I love the idea of TOG and probably could make it work better than I feel I'm making MFW work, I don't know that I'll be able to do it justice.

So I dug out my Cathy Duffy book to see what she suggests for Wiggly Willys (or whatever they are called) since my other kids are easier to plan for. It's my 6th grader that's the tricky one. I saw that she recommended HOD. I've always, ALWAYS looked the other way because it's harder to combine and I couldn't do all those levels - only so many hours in the day. Plus they didn't have high school. I read her review...turns out I've been misunderstanding. Once they are my 5th & 6th graders age, they do very little with me. (Right???? Someone please correct me if I'm wrong!!!) And now they are coming out with high school levels! (And truth be told, I think my 9th grader would LOVE their World Geography. But I've already got the BJU stuff purchased. :-( )

So what I was thinking is this:
CTG ends with Alexander the Great, whereas HOD CTC ends with Christ. So I was thinking about getting CTC for my 5th and 6th graders and starting with Unit 23. We wouldn't be doing the full-blown program since that would be hard. But just focusing on the time period and getting used to the program. Then doing RTR (or whatever the acronym is ROFLOL) next year for them. I was planning to just concentrate on the 3Rs for my 2nd grader once we're done with MFW CTG - she's a bit behind on those. Then next year I'd most likely use Bigger for her. I'll have a Ker also - not sure what to do with him. I've used Little Hands in the past and wasn't thrilled with it, so I don't know that I'd go that route again. But K is the least of my worries right now LOL!

Does this sounds like a feasible plan? I still have to do spelling (AAS), writing (WWE), and grammar (Winston) with my 6th grader. And I still do writing (WWE) and grammar (FLL) with my 5th grader. I like that with HOD they'd be responsible for the majority of their own work and would be less likely to just "skate" by (in the case of my 6th grader).

I'm also looking at the new World History program for my current 9th grader for next year when she's in 10th. If it's anything like the World Geography program, I think she'll be in heaven.

How easy is it to sub out/totally eliminate some of the LA things, since we've already got things that work? I don't want to switch to HOD's recommendations.

I can see where it would be difficult to do 3-4 of the HOD programs that are heavily dependent on the parent, but if you're only doing 1-2 of those and then some of the older programs, am I correct in assuming that it just might be doable in my situation, with 9 kids, 6-7 of whom are in school at any given time?

 

I really like the idea of doing a hands-on project each week - how have your kids liked those?

Is DITHOR pretty much essential for the older kids? That's a program I've been sort of leery of because I haven't been able to figure out how it would "look" with severall levels. Can anyone give me any guidance there?

 

Help???

[Tenaj]

I think it sounds like a plan that would work and you've thought it out really well.  The independence that is built into HOD is what makes running multiple guides possible.  I particularly like your idea of doing the end of CTC in a more casual way as an adjustment to HOD style.  That will help build that independence level for your kids moving forward but will give them a bit more hand-holding at the beginning.

 

There are no problems with substituting out the language arts with your own choices.  I've done that many times over our years of using HOD. 

 

I am running four guides this year and the only reason it works is because of the independence factor in the older guides.  I do adjust things to make HOD work in our large family.  For instance, from Preparing up, I usually don't do the story time box as read alouds because I usually don't have time in my day to do it.  I have one child who particularly loves to be read to so I try to do his out loud but most of the time, story time is converted into an independent reading time.  (I usually ignore the activities that go along with those books also).  

 

 

My best advice is to not be afraid to change things up to make them work for your family - those "T" boxes (together boxes) don't always have to be done with Mom.  

 

We don't use DITHOR so I'm no help on that.  My ds who is doing Revival to Revolution right now is doing parts of Lightning Lit 7th grade as a substitute for DITHOR and it's working out very well.  I dont' substitute anything for the youngers at this time.  In the past, we've used CLE reading but I haven't started that up this year.

 

The hands-on projects are usually the first thing to go when we get busy.  I try to pick out what I deem to be the most important ones and schedule those in each guide but if we're busy, they go by the wayside.  Since you'll have two kids working in the same guide the hands-on projects will probably be more fun for them than they are for my kids who are working on the guides by themselves.

 

I've never done Little Hands to Heaven with my K'ers either.  We usually start Little Hearts For His Glory toward the end of Kindergarten and just concentrate on reading and math for the first 3/4 of the Kindergarten year.  For my current K'er I've been working (on and off) through Memoria Press Kindergarten Enrichment books and she's been enjoying that.   The previous time through K my ds did some of FIAR.

 

Best Wishes as you plan these changes.

 

[Another Lynn]

I'm not a current HOD user, but I want to echo JanOH's advice about tweaking it, especially regarding DITHOR.  Imho, you will have enough to adjust to without adding DITHOR in.  There's plenty of reading and writing to do without DITHOR.  If I had children who were doing all the other "boxes" and subbing in my Language Arts choices, I would not feel bad at all about going without an additional reading/literature program the first year.  Another option would be to select books for literature and let them free-read them as they adjust to the rest of the program.  Or, if you feel they're ready to do a bit more, you could add a brief writing assignment (i.e.  re-write the title of each chapter as a summary of what the chapter is about, or copy 1 favorite quote from each chapter, or at the end of the book write a short summary including what he/she liked about the book).  But I wouldn't add the burden of DITHOR at the same time you're adjusting to HOD - either for you or for them. 

[razorbackmama]

Thank you so much ladies! Good to know about DITHOR - just what does it cover anyway, that the regular HOD guides and the books they read wouldn't? Should I plan on having my middle schoolers use it, to ramp up for more formal literature study in high school? Is that its intention?

 

Will the hands-on things for the older kids require my help?

 

Do y'all have any idea how frequently they are coming out with the high school programs? Has it been one a year? Or one every 2 years? Or is it just sort of random? I'm REALLY excited about the World History for my 3rd child to be able to use. I would totally go that route with my 2nd child, but he'll have already completed world history - he's needing American history and government, which isn't out yet. I'll be eagerly awaiting it! I'm especially excited to see how any work with the parent needs to be done in the high school levels - it tells the student exactly what to show/say to the parent and what the parent should be doing. Such a relief.

For your independent kids, do you make copies of the lesson plans to give to them? I'm thinking about doing that and then highlighting on there the things they need to turn in to/do with me so that it doesn't get missed. Or are there other ways that y'all have found work better?

 

Oh, Jan, you mentioned that you like LIttle Hearts for K, which makes sense. Do you stretch something over 2 years then, since there are only 9 guides available before high school, including Little Hands? How is that supposed to work out - there is a year missing, it seems.

[twoxcell]

I will try to answer a few of your questions.

 

Thank you so much ladies! Good to know about DITHOR - just what does it cover anyway, that the regular HOD guides and the books they read wouldn't? Should I plan on having my middle schoolers use it, to ramp up for more formal literature study in high school? Is that its intention? DITHOR covers your basic literature study using 9 genres. My oldest uses it basically independently. I assign a book and then he does the student workbook pages if there is one assigned for the day. I rarely use the main TM. We sometimes use the suggested DITHOR books but also choose our own. Right now he is reading Tom Sawyer.

 

Will the hands-on things for the older kids require my help? It depends on how crafty your child is. I usually have to help a bit. The crafts/projects are fairly simple and use common items for the most part. We substitute with what ever we have on hand as needed. My oldest is not really into crafts so he doesn't always do the weekly history project. My daughter who is in Preparing right now loves the crafts so she pretty much always does them.

 

Do y'all have any idea how frequently they are coming out with the high school programs? Has it been one a year? Or one every 2 years? Or is it just sort of random? I'm REALLY excited about the World History for my 3rd child to be able to use. I would totally go that route with my 2nd child, but he'll have already completed world history - he's needing American history and government, which isn't out yet. I'll be eagerly awaiting it! I'm especially excited to see how any work with the parent needs to be done in the high school levels - it tells the student exactly what to show/say to the parent and what the parent should be doing. Such a relief. They are meant to be released one per year until finished. I do not have experience with the highschool guides. My oldest is in 6th grade.

For your independent kids, do you make copies of the lesson plans to give to them? I'm thinking about doing that and then highlighting on there the things they need to turn in to/do with me so that it doesn't get missed. Or are there other ways that y'all have found work better? My kids use the guides for all of their independent work. My oldest has his guide much more than I do.

 

Oh, Jan, you mentioned that you like LIttle Hearts for K, which makes sense. Do you stretch something over 2 years then, since there are only 9 guides available before high school, including Little Hands? How is that supposed to work out - there is a year missing, it seems. We start Little Hearts for K, but we do HOD 4 days a week since the older guides are 4 days. This ends up stretching Little Hearts, Beyond, and Bigger out a bit. I do make sure to complete a years worth of math etc. during those years though, so we go a bit off schedule with those in the younger guides. My oldest started with Beyond in 2nd grade and has done 1 guide per year.

I own and have used all of the HOD guides from Little Hands- Res to Ref(My oldest is on unit 7 or 8 right now.). A few of them more than once. I'm happy to answer any questions about those guides. :) My oldest is very independent with HOD. I only do a couple of boxes with him per day. If your kids are not use to the level of independence you will need to train them into it. In other words don't just plop a guide down in front of them and expect them to be fully independent. HOD does a nice job of gradually building independence starting with Preparing Hearts. If you are jumping into a higher guide, it is ok to take a few weeks and teach them how to use the boxes. Does that make sense?

 

[razorbackmama]

<<if you are jumping into a higher guide it is ok to take a few weeks and teach them how to use the boxes. Does that make sense?>>

 

Makes TOTAL sense - thanks so much! I think my 5th grader will be fine. My 6th grader, who is used to skating, may have more difficulty. But this will be good for him. ;-)

 

I'm expecting a baby in mid-Feb., and we're finishing MFW CTG at the end of Jan., so I'm planning to start our HOD journey at the beginning of March. Low-key, of course, to help them get used to the new format, and because we'll have a newborn in the house. ;-)

[Tenaj]

Thank you so much ladies! Good to know about DITHOR - just what does it cover anyway, that the regular HOD guides and the books they read wouldn't? Should I plan on having my middle schoolers use it, to ramp up for more formal literature study in high school? Is that its intention?

 

Will the hands-on things for the older kids require my help?

 

Do y'all have any idea how frequently they are coming out with the high school programs? Has it been one a year? Or one every 2 years? Or is it just sort of random? I'm REALLY excited about the World History for my 3rd child to be able to use. I would totally go that route with my 2nd child, but he'll have already completed world history - he's needing American history and government, which isn't out yet. I'll be eagerly awaiting it! I'm especially excited to see how any work with the parent needs to be done in the high school levels - it tells the student exactly what to show/say to the parent and what the parent should be doing. Such a relief.

 

For your independent kids, do you make copies of the lesson plans to give to them? I'm thinking about doing that and then highlighting on there the things they need to turn in to/do with me so that it doesn't get missed. Or are there other ways that y'all have found work better?

 

Oh, Jan, you mentioned that you like LIttle Hearts for K, which makes sense. Do you stretch something over 2 years then, since there are only 9 guides available before high school, including Little Hands? How is that supposed to work out - there is a year missing, it seems. 

 

Like Twoxcell, we only do complete school days four-days a week.  Theoretically if you do the younger five days guides, starting in kindergarten only four days a week you end up with enough weeks that Preparing would start right at the beginning of fourth grade.  My only child who has followed this pattern got a bit behind but not too much - he will be finishing Bigger in about two weeks and he started "fourth grade" in August - this sounds like I worry about grade levels a lot but I really don't - LOL - at least not until high school - it's just a general goal.  He started Little Hearts about 10 weeks from the end of his Kindergarten year but I think we ended up skipping the end of Beyond with him.  

 

 

They have been publishing one year of high school a year but this year they are a bit behind because Carrie is experiencing some health problems.  I know that the World History is a bit behind - they are sending it out as the year goes on.  I'm wondering if they will make the deadline for the next year.  I know that many will be disappointed if they don't manage it because so many are using it as it is published.  I'm fortunate in that I have a few years before my next guy hits high school.  I did buy the World Geography guide this year mainly just for fun and it looks fantastic.  Really, I'm using it to take the Sonlight 300 Core for my current oldest at home treat it a bit more like a HOD guide for him so I'm following along it's history activities and some of the literature activities . . . it's working out better than I expected so now I'm really excited about my next-in-line to be able to actually do the guides as written in high school .

 

I have taken all my guides and had Office Max slice the spines off.  We then put each page in a page protector and into a large heavy-duty three ring binder.  Right now I'm using HS Tracker Online.  Because we don't use HOD language arts and math as written, I put all the assignments into daily lists for each of the older kids so they can check mark them off.  Before we used HSTracker, I would have the kids put a sticker over the assignments they had completed on the page protector.  My theory was that the stickers would easily peel off for the next kid . . . which they did with most stickers . . unfortunately Grandma gave them some that didn't peel and we ended up having to replace page protectors :)  Still worked o.k. but then I started using HSTracker and we stopped that method.  We've also checked things off with dry erase markers on the page protectors if they want just a visual.  That's really easy to wipe clean.

[razorbackmama]

Thank you, Jan!!!!!

 

We use HST also. (Except Plus, not Online...haven't made the switch yet) Do you enter in ALL the assignments from HOD into HST? Including instructions and whatnot? :svengo:

[Tenaj]

Thank you, Jan!!!!!

 

We use HST also. (Except Plus, not Online...haven't made the switch yet) Do you enter in ALL the assignments from HOD into HST? Including instructions and whatnot? :svengo:

 

LOL - not all the detail but I do enter all the assignments and yes, it takes quite a lot of work on some of the subjects but since I have many users over the years it's becoming more and more time efficient as I go.  I generally just enter the resource, the pages to be read and in general the activity then a note to see their guide book for details.  It also depends on my mood.  Sometimes my instructions are very detailed and other times, not so much. All of my kids seem to appreciate my checksheets - even my K'er and first grader love to check off their lists every day.  Another thing is that when I'm marking the assignments complete - it forces me to stay on top of them as to whether they are actually doing what they are supposed to do.  Somehow it's easier to use that list than to go pick up each of the guides and notebooks.  

[razorbackmama]

LOL - not all the detail but I do enter all the assignments and yes, it takes quite a lot of work on some of the subjects but since I have many users over the years it's becoming more and more time efficient as I go.  I generally just enter the resource, the pages to be read and in general the activity then a note to see their guide book for details.  It also depends on my mood.  Sometimes my instructions are very detailed and other times, not so much. All of my kids seem to appreciate my checksheets - even my K'er and first grader love to check off their lists every day.  Another thing is that when I'm marking the assignments complete - it forces me to stay on top of them as to whether they are actually doing what they are supposed to do.  Somehow it's easier to use that list than to go pick up each of the guides and notebooks.  

 

That makes sense but OY. LOL! That's what I'm doing right now with my high schoolers' MFW stuff. I haven't figured out if I like it better or just the MFW grids. But like you said, with math, English, etc. you might as well have it all in one place. I'll have to ponder what I want to do....

 

Thanks for sharing!