I know this thread is a few months old but wanted to chime in and say that I LOVE the Thinking Tree journals. I like that they work with just about any books. Even Notgrass: From Adam to Us. You can read some reviews I wrote. I was given some journals to review and I've bought many as well. I've also made some YouTube videos as well. And here is a list of almost all of them :001_tt1: We have been using them for almost a year now. They are pretty flexible. Sometimes we use them with only library books and math and other times with our current curriculum program. They are also great for rainy day schooling, fun Friday schooling, and/or through the summer. :001_wub:

You can read my review here, I used it with older kiddos though. We all enjoyed it. It was a nice break from our usual school stuff.

Thank you ladies :001_smile: Not all my kiddos are using the recommendations for LA and Math. I have some kids using TT, Math Essentials, MUS, and Bridgeway. For LA some are using R&S but others are using English Lessons Through Literature. Everything else is HOD though. Res. to Ref. is a great one. My dd used it her 7th grade year and really enjoyed it. When I packed all her books away that year I was just amazed at the program and sad to see them go. Thankfully Ethan and Lance will use it. :hurray: I'm off to get our books ready for this week. Right now with my struggling readers we are only completing 3 days of HOD over the week. Hopefully by Jan/Feb the boys will do 4 days as scheduled but we'll see. It depends how their reading improves.

This was my 2nd week with using 6 HOD Guides although I only blogged about 5. I thought those of you interested in HOD might like to take a peek. http://training6hearts4him.blogspot.com/2014/09/heart-of-dakota-homeschool-2nd-week.html

I love the daily spread. I have used other programs that have the whole week lay out but try as I might it was too much on a page and didn't work for me.

My two high school kids do most of their independently. We meet for narrations and discussion of literature and such. The four younger ones are a bit tougher because they all struggle with reading. For the last 8 months we've scaled back a lot to concentrate on their reading. They are improving but I still read a lot to the, which makes for a long day for mama :o The reason I didn't combine is I have a hard time catching them altogether. I know it sounds strange but now that they are older it's not as easy as when they were younger. Some sleep later than others, their interest, one may be doing TT math on the computer and another busy with something. Another reason I wanted to separate is I love, love, love each and every HOD Guide. I don't want my kiddos missing out. Carrie is just amazingly talented in my book :thumbup: . I am using the guides as is because it's one of the reasons why I love using HOD, everything is there. The only thing I am not using in some of the guides is the writing. I am using Writing & Rhetoric and/or Essentials in Writing. Ethan is using English Lessons Through Literature. I know it sounds super crazy and I'm only a week into using 6 guides but as tiring it may seem (and some days I'm doing night school with Lance :ack2: I have enjoyed reading all the books. I see even more now how Carrie has tied everything together. Do I want to be so involved every year, not really. I admit it's a lot of work but it's worth it this year. Next year when all the kids move up a guide I'll be more familiar with all the books. I was only able to blog about two guides Rev2Rev and CtC. Couldn't get to the rest :huh:

We just started our 3rd year with HOD. I'm glad to see others using it. Before the 3 years we were off and on with it. This year my 11th grade ds will use WH, 9th grade dd WG, 8th ds MtMM, 7th ds Rev2Rev, 6th ds CtC, and 4th ds Preparing. Our official school year doesn't start until Jan. so we are taking it slow right now at least with the 4 younger ones. The two high schoolers are going at normal speed. Hopefully by Jan. the others will be too. I'm going to try using DITHOR with my 6th grade son but we'll see. I've tried using it in the past but we only get through a few days. My dd has used one before. Sorry to jump in late. I haven't been around the WTM boards for a while.

Too many to count. We are boxing many of them up and putting them away for a while.

We start in Sept. too but do some summer school as well. We mainly stick with math, reading, phonics, etc. type stuff.

I'm going to have to take a peek :drool:

I go by the public school grades. Just makes things sooooo much easier.

I used it last year with my 7yr. old. and really liked it. I would have continued but I have so many math books that I decided to use what we have already. The second and third books look so good too. The price is a bit steep but I have paid more for math in the past :blushing: . You can also order it at Rainbow Resource as well. The shipping might be cheaper. I'm sorry I'm not help but I wanted to give you a bump ;)

Not exactly a week in review but our Friday, I blogged our week daily :o .