I am planning for a 2nd and K'er. Trying to decide if we will go back to HOD. I would do Bigger and Little Hearts. I did Little Hearts with my oldest but Beyond was a flop at the time. Now two years later I am thinking we might be ready to go back. I am getting tired of writing my own Science and Social Studies all of the time. I know we will continue with Singapore Math, DITHOR along just reading good books, R&S Grammar and Greek. My biggest question is History and Science. I have tried reading SOTW myself and have not been that impressed but I know that doesn't mean my children wouldn't be so I am torn between piecing it together myself and purchasing a complete package. Oh! and remembering they are young and acording to my dh they really just need to learn how to learn. We shall see what I end up doing!

Great Thread - It is fun to look back at what we have done:001_smile: ds (6.5) completed: Singapore 2A Hey Andrew Teach Me Some Greek Level 2 12 week study of Africa - animals and people unit 1 in R&S 2 grammar 3 week unit on dinosaurs did a report on the UAE for his geography fair Read many books including Who was Thomas Alva Edison?, Who was William Shakespeare?, Encyclopedia Brown, Owls in the Family .... ds (4.5) completed: HOP books 1, 2, and 3 ECT A, B, C R&S Do it Carefully 3 week unit on dinosaurs Singapore Earlybird A ds (2.5) working on potty training puzzles while big brothers do school coloring destroying the house

I am going to have my son start with chess kids. It is free:)

My 6 year old ds loves to read but when it comes to what I would like to teach, well he is not always so interested. I have just started asking him what he would like to learn about. I explained to him that for a time we will take turns picking our next topic. He chose Electricity. Ds told me that the Magic School Bus book he has just doesn't give him enough information and he wants more. BTW Magic School Bus picture books were what hooked him into reading and he is also a lover of Nate the Grate.

My son is 6.5 and had a provisional diagnosis of Aspergers and we as well never followed up on it. Things that have worked for us. A Schedule. My son loves it when I write out what he will be expected to do before Daddy comes home from work. He understands that not everything has to be done in one sitting and each new item is introduced before it is added to his list. My son is reading so that is helpful for the list. Before he was reading my biggest help was doing school at the same time in the same order - or giving him a choice about what todo first - only two choices at a time. As far as narrating, my son also struggled with this until I figured out that he didn't like telling me the story because he knew I knew it - I had just read it. So now we pretend that he is telling Daddy or practice what he will tell Daddy afterwork. This little trick turned my son in to a kid who could narrate decently. I think your schedule looks good and with your focus on your sons needs he will thrive.

I also have my son do grammar and Greek but he wouldn't do either of those if he was not reading well. My philosophy is each kid needs to be reading well, writing decently - able to copy short sentences, and understanding math concepts, then and only then do I start adding other things in. I believe once a child is reading well, the doors of learning are open to them, without the ablity to read well how far can a child go in his education. Your son will learn how to read, keep working with him you are doing a good job. Once he is reading then start thinking about the other things.

I am not conserned with grade level per say, yet I do want to make sure if something happened they will be able to adjust easily to ps. One of the things I do is about once a year I print of the expected outcomes for our district. It helps me to see what the boys peers are suppose to be learning and if there are any topics we may not have covered. For example, I recently did this and I saw that in the next year or two my son would be learning about magnets and the solar system in ps. Well I think those would be fun science topics for him so I will look into adding those into our school day. I typically look a grade below, current grade and 2 grades ahead. I don't follow a set curriculum at this point. My main goal is to give my boys a firm foundation in reading and math. My oldest is now learning how to read for knowledge. He is reading very independently and we will most like start the history cycle next year. My middle will join him when he is reading very independently. Currently my oldest is able to pick many of the topics we learn about and I just check out tons of books and then we make lapbooks or just talk about the books.

Remeber the placement tests are post tests. So if she passed the 1A test you can start in 1B. However, I am in agreement that starting in 1A would be good for your dd. Singapore does teach math in a different way and I also think that starting at an easier level will give her confidence and help to regrow a love of learning. I would let her go through 1A as fast as she wants as long as she is understanding the concepts, there will come a time where she will slow down.

I second HomeschoolShare We just finished a two week unit on Knights. My boys had lots of fun and it was free. Best part for mom. I am also currently planning on using ther Christmas around the World study for the month of Dec.

I use worksheets from http://www.worksheetworks.com/ My ds is also 6 working in 2A. I am finding that if I add in a worksheet every 4 or 5 days that really seems to help him cement his skills.

I am using Early Bird with my second and when he finishes we will start 1A. One of the things that they have to do is write thier own answers. They can tell me the answer and I will let them copy after I show them how to write the number but if my boys were not ready to write I would put off the book. My oldest was more than ready for 1A after Early Bird. For us Early Bird was a great intro to math and a fun way to learn to write our numbers.

My boys are 6, 4, and 2 - 15 min before school they are eating. If I let them leave the kitchen table after eating - getting school done is really hard. Then again getting the 2 year old to leave is sometimes the challenge:lol:

I like this site for the variety http://www.worksheetworks.com/

Thank you so much I am planning to start using some of these books for our next unit this will help so much with my planning.

I dropped Beyond after four weeks last year with my son who was 5.5 at the time. He was capable of the work but not mature enough. I did continue with the emergent reader set, spelling, Singapore math, copywork - which ended up being many different things throughout the year, read alouds, and animal studies. I have been very happy with my decision. This year my son would be ready for the bigger manual but we are doing our own thing - taking a trek around the world. My son now is a first grader and doing wonderfully. I think you drop Beyond and still have a great year of learning without spending more money. Continue with reading, math, copywork, read alouds and add in other studies as you see fit. Row some books with FAIR. Have fun. If you feel you need more structure in a few months try Beyond again then. Your daughter is young learning should be fun and not a chore. I think you need to focus on reading, writing, and math everything else is extra she will get it all again later in her learning career.

When my son was learning to read we used HOP. But there did come a point where he was getting frustrated even though he was reading. It was like he just needed to work on what he knew and not add anything new. (Think we were through book 2 of 5 at this point) So I asked him how many books he thought he could read? His answer was 100. So we created a 100 chart and he got a sticker for every book he read. I got out all of the HOP books and BOB books that he had already read. He zipped through most of them then started slowing down. He thought it was cool to see how many books he really could read on his own. This was enough of a break, review, and encouragement to him. He then really took off with his reading. So my vote would be to take a break and just review the books she has already read.

I like to start by looking at http://www.homeschoolshare.com/ it is Free:lol:

Last winter we read Stone Fox and other books about the Iditorod. My son had lots of fun.

You could look into Drawn Into the Heart of Reading from Heart of Dakota. I love the fact that you get to pick your own books for each genre and really learn about that genre. My son is picking up so much about different types of books and as we move through the year it will push him to read different types of books then he would normally.

Thanks for posting this. I am hoping that my son will respond well to it. He asks me daily when we are going to work on his reading yet he is really stuggling, as I would expect he is only 4. I am hoping this will be enough to help him get the extra practice he needs.

I am writing my own curriculum based on my research of Galloping the Globe. I ended up not purchasing the guide due to the various levels I am working with. My oldest is gifted and I knew I would have to tweek for him, my middle well he is just tagging along now but will slowly be expected to join in more. I have ended up creating a 2 year program, visiting one country per week or so. I use Children Just Like Me and Disney's Our World as our spines. I use our library system for all of our other books. I have become much better at being able to pick books of great quality and appropriate length and content. I also do have a membership at Enchanted Learning, I find this to be one of the wisest investments I have made. I am able to find information and activities for both of my boys. As I continue to work on our plans for the coming 2 years I am leaning towards having a different focus for each continent. For example, currently we are in Africa and the focus is animals. Next we will be in Europe and I am thinking the focus will be artists, musicians and archtecture. I am breaking Asia up into at least 3 regions the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Asia mainland - not sure what to call it. HTH

From the letters you typed out I would guess that the curriculum is going to move into blending quickly. Not a bad thing for some kids. I am guessing but just from what you typed, I would expect the program to continue teaching sounds while adding in simple CVC words like, bat, mat, ect... Karen

Take a look at Drawn Into the Heart of Reading from Heart of Dakota. This program will help your child learn to love to read and think critically about what he is reading. Karen

I really like the Get ready set for learning to write their letters. It also really helped my boys learn to hear beginning sounds of words. I am guessing your son would work through the Get Ready books very quickly. Karen

I am a mom to 3 wonderful active boys who need their minds chanllenged daily. Currently they are 6,4, and 2. I started "Officially Homeschooling" when my oldest was 4.5 years old. That year he worked through HOP and Little Hearts for His Glory. It was a wonderful year. The following year we start Beyond Little Hearts and it was disasterous. I believe the problem was maturity not the level of work involved. So I dropped Beyond and made up my own curriculum. I continued to have him work through the emergent reader set, the spelling lists, and daily copywork, math and greek. We didn't seem to do more than the basics. This year I am in the middle of writing a program for him based off of Galloping the Globe. I really loved using HOD and do want to return to it but also do not want to repeat our experience with Beyond. Okay, now that I am done with the background. Here is my current planning thoughts. It will take us about 1.5 years to make our trip around the world visiting a different country every we or so, a few countries will take a few weeks. Right now we are in Africa focusing on animals. When we get to Europe I plan to focus on artists, musicians and building structures. After that we will work our way through Asia, Australia, Antartica, South America and end in North America. I am looking at going through Pioneers and Patriots to finish off the year. So 2 years from now I am looking at putting my then 8 year old into Preparing Hearts for His Glory and continuing on with the HOD histrory cycle. By this point I fully expect my then 6 year old to be reading, so he will start in Beyond with the option of doing Little Hearts the year before or joining us as he is ready in our current trek around the world. He is currently working through the ETC Primer series and wants to learn to read. My question is how important is it that my oldest get some American History in before doing an over view of world history. For those who have used or are currently using Preparing what skills do you think I need to make sure I cover in the next two years. I know that the HOD programs build on each other and I would really like to just flow into the programs but we are really enjoying our trip around the world at this point, so I am not looking at jumping back into the HOD programs right now. Although I have thought about adding in the poetry box and possibly the Read Aloud Story time but we are doing other read alouds. Thanks for your imput. I am a long range planner and sometimes I think I get to far ahead of myself. Karen mom to Bryce 2/03 - currently using Singapore 2A, Hey Andrew Teach me some Greek Level 2, DITHOR, and mom made Trek Around the World Micah 3/05 - currenlty using Singapore Kindergarten A, ETC Primer B, will be adding in HOP soon Matthew 5/07 - coloring, playing, exploring the world