Maggie2354 Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 (edited) Hi! This is my first time posting. :) We have been homeschooling since the beginning (in our 9th year now). We have mainly used the Heart of Dakota curriculum, with the exception of a couple of years that we did our own thing for each subject. I thought that we were going to be Charlotte Mason homeschoolers all the way, but as my children have gotten older, I see that they do well with a more classical style approach. Especially in writing. We have had a ton of success with IEW and applying that to written narrations, making them more of a classical, summary style, as opposed to the more CM style narrations. We will be beginning high school with my oldest this coming fall. We really do love a ton about Heart of Dakota. We love their book choices, and that the daily reading is all planned out. We are not, however, excited about the way that the narrations are handled in history. And, there are a lot of them. My question is...do you think that it would be possible to use the Heart of Dakota curriculum in a more classical way? I feel like a lot of it is already more classical than CM. I'm mainly asking about all the narrations. Have any of you done this? We would only be using their history, science, and some electives. Everything else we easily sub out. ;-) Any advice that you can give would be so appreciated! On a side note, if we decide to go a different route, I am leaning toward the online Bright Ideas Press classes, specifically, the combination Mystery of History volume 1 and 2 combo class. Thanks! Edited January 23, 2018 by Maggie2354 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momtofive Posted January 24, 2018 Share Posted January 24, 2018 I'm following along with your question, as I'm curious too! :D We've used Heart of Dakota for a long time and love it, but struggle with a few aspects. I keep coming back to the fact that I like it better than anything else out there, and it seems to fit us best, so I'm looking forward to reading your responses! ;) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Another Lynn Posted January 24, 2018 Share Posted January 24, 2018 I haven't used HOD at the highschool level, so grain of salt and all that. But, if I remember correctly, you will be using some kind of writing curriculum as part of the English / LA box, so replacing the narration for history is more a matter of what kind of output do you want for history. First I would take into consideration the other "boxes" that relate to the history credit and see how they satisfy what you want for output. Secondly, I would replace the narration with an efficient assignment that you're comfortable with: outlining the entire reading (or a portion of it), writing a summary of the reading, using an IEW approach to writing about a portion of the reading, or coming up with your own writing prompt or question that you would like for them to write about based on the reading. Personally I would consider outlining because 1) it would give them an opportunity to do a different kind of outlining from IEW, 2) it's a good skill to have, 3) it's more efficient than another writing assignment, 3) it doesn't require you to read ahead and come up with a question or prompt, and 4) it's very much inline with the progression of writing skills in the WTM. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maggie2354 Posted January 25, 2018 Author Share Posted January 25, 2018 (edited) momtofive- Yes! This is the curriculum that always gets done at our house. :) Another Lynn- We are hoping to do an online class for English which uses IEW and covers intro. to literature this next year. So, that part is covered. I am mainly wanting her history assignments to show me that she has learned the information. ;-) Thank you! Edited January 25, 2018 by Maggie2354 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeriJ Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 I spend much time pondering how to streamline HOD for highschool. Haven't figured it out yet, so I will be following this. Another thing that holds me back as I study the guides is the thousands of teeny, tiny details in the directions. Also, jumping around in lots of books for one subject. And....busywork. But I keep looking at it because it's so close to what I want. Lynn, I should pay you to rewrite a guide for me. 😊 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Another Lynn Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 I spend much time pondering how to streamline HOD for highschool. Haven't figured it out yet, so I will be following this. Another thing that holds me back as I study the guides is the thousands of teeny, tiny details in the directions. Also, jumping around in lots of books for one subject. And....busywork. But I keep looking at it because it's so close to what I want. Lynn, I should pay you to rewrite a guide for me. 😊 Aw, shucks! :blushing: I totally agree about too many details, and too much shifting gears. (Truthfully, the recent reference to Bloom's Taxonomy - in a thread about critical thinking on the gen ed board - has me thinking about what we're doing for history output. I thought I would have all this figured out by now....) (P.S. Keri, I got The Reader's Odyssey recently and really liked it. I'm hoping it will be helpful in planning for next year!) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeriJ Posted January 29, 2018 Share Posted January 29, 2018 Maggie2354, if you do a search for HOD threads where JanOH has participated, you might find more information. She is a long time user and has made changes to make it work better for their family. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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