My kids may be strange, but they really loved ES. I actually packed up my Earth/Space books today because someone bought them, and I looked over and saw my little guy tear up over us sending those books away. He really loved learning about the planets especially. We almost always did the ongoing projects, and those added to the fun factor for them. I loved that you can add more to ES if you want. It's a good thing there are a variety of programs out there for all different kinds of people to like :) I think my science loving kids would be happy with anything that had to do with science though.

I did see that you meant Beyond :) It's a very sweet guide. I wish I had had the courage to go ahead and separate my kids this year. I didn't think I could manage 2 guides. Next year we are doing Beyond for 2nd, and Creation to Christ for 5th instead of keeping them combined. I will be adding Elemental Science, and IEW Bible Heroes to Beyond to make it more on his level after doing Bigger.

I did a very WTM first year for K. While it was a successful year, I wouldn't say that it was necessarily fun. This is no bash on anything WTM. I'm still a big SWB fan :) My youngest was reading early, so I didn't really know where to begin with him. I found HOD last year, and I did Bigger with my 1st grader and 4th grader with extensions. It was an awesome year! I am, however, backing my youngest into Beyond for 2nd. I agree with JanOh. It is really nice to hit Preparing at around 4th. It is much easier to add to a guide than to take away from it, and I knew I would have to subtract from Preparing if I moved forward. We really have found a home with HOD, and are having the fun I wish we would have had when my little guy was in K :) Beyond is a really great guide for 2nd.

I think Simply Charlotte Mason does this well with their Early Modern Times, and Modern Times guides :) http://simplycharlottemason.com/store/early-modern/ http://simplycharlottemason.com/store/modern-times-epistles-revelation/

We love the HOD emerging reader set. You can find most of them easily at the library :) http://www.heartofdakota.com/emerging-reader.php

Our week 32 in HOD BHFHG :)

We used the classic series. This year I used ES Earth/Space for my 1st grader, and ES Physics for my 4th grader. I also think the readings for ES E&S would be too simple for a 4th grader. We used the 2 day schedule, and it was easy to do both levels. There is usually only 1 experiment per week, but you can always add more. The guide gives additional options if you want to add more in. My blog (in my signature) has a lot of posts with what our activities were like in ES.

MFW 1st grade MFW Adventures 2nd grade HOD bigger 3rd grade HOD preparing 4th grade Of your 3 plans, this would be my vote. MFW 1st grade MFW adventures 2nd grade MFW ECC 3rd grade HOD Preparing 4th grade If it were me I wouldn't skip Bigger. Bigger covers way more American history than Beyond or Adventures. MFW 1st grade MFW Adventures 2nd grade HOD Bigger 3rd grade MFW ECC 4th grade HOD Preparing 5th grade I wouldn't do this one unless you plan to jump to MFW after Preparing. Ideally you get to CtC in 5th in HOD, so that you hit the high school guide on time. This is my weird plan: 1st - Bigger - I combined my kids in Bigger, so I had a 1st and 4th grader here this year 2nd - Beyond - Realized my youngest wasn't ready for Preparing, so I am backing him into Beyond. I had considered Adventures, but decided on Beyond. 3rd - ECC 4th - Preparing 5th - CtC I wouldn't have done the above if I knew then what I know now. I thought Beyond didn't look challenging enough, but I've changed my views on how to approach these early years :) The only reason I'm backing into Beyond is that I really don't want to get to Preparing before 4th grade. If I knew then, I would have started HOD in 2nd with Beyond, and then progressed up through the guides from there. Is there a reason you don't want to stick with one or the other?

Say whaaaattt? I would literally die of impatience if my kid took that long to do math. We used to do math first thing in the morning, and my oldest (10 y/o) used to majorly dawdle. It drove me kind of nuts. He never took hours to complete his math, but he took longer than I wanted him to take. When I moved it to the end of the day he magically started getting it done in a reasonable amount of time. He didn't want to waste his free time on math :)

Our HOD Unit 31 Week in Review :)

We just picked up I Can Do All Things art by Barry Stebbing. My kids are really enjoying it. I saw that it was scheduled in MFW Adventures, and thought I'd give it a try. It may be an easy thing to add :)

This is interesting :) I'll be doing Beyond next year, and think this is a great idea. I may have to take your suggestion. It was kind of irritating to me that I had to read the science book all out of order. We'll be adding Elemental Science to the HOD science as well, but the out of order thing wasn't making much sense to me.

The early guides of HOD don't give a good picture of what the program is like as a whole. As I look at CtC it is very different. The upper guides are far more challenging. I started out with using the classical model for my little guy. We had a great first year, but we didn't have nearly as much fun as we are with a CM approach. I love both methods, and think there is merit in both. I wish I had been easier on my little guy in K and 1st. We will get to the more challenging material by 3rd. Most of my friends who were public school teachers first have a difficult time embracing the gentleness of a CM approach for the early years. I get it. I had a difficult time with it at first too. For me being easy on them in K, 1st and 2nd gives me a chance to really focus on the 3 Rs which gives me the time to have fun with all the other stuff. I'm going to be easier on my 2nd grader next year. He's only a little guy once :) You have to pick something that you really believe in though, and it sounds like you are being pulled in another direction.

I added Elemental Science to HOD. We did Bigger Hearts this year. We still did HOD science because in Bigger it is tied in with the history. I don't think it is as integrated in LHFHG and BLHFHG. I will add science to Preparing as well, but I'm going to try to see how CtC goes before adding anything else to it. A lot of people think science is light in HOD in those early guides. I have to agree which is why we added it, but doing the extra has been easy. My boys love science so they'll take as much as I will throw at them :)

Heart of Dakota :)

I'm sure there are other blogs, but this one looks like it gives you a pretty good idea what a year in ECC would be like :) http://discovertheirgifts.blogspot.com/search/label/MFW%20ECC

We have used ES Earth/Space this year. We have about 3 weeks left, and have loved it. It's been really easy get done, and my son has learned a lot. The readings are short, but he has retained so much. We'll be doing ES again next year as well :)

Thank you SilverMoon :) I always pay attention to your R&S posts. I will go ahead and do level 5. I believe my rising 5th grader is capable of making the leap. Thank you all for giving me the confidence to do so!

It's nice to hear from someone who has worked through both levels. Thank you for sharing your experience :) Thank you that helps too! I have both levels, and it's hard for me to see the major differences. It just seems like 5 is a more in depth version of the previous levels. I'm glad to know you've had success with just jumping into level 5 with your child without their having previous grammar experience. Thank you!

I have a 4th grader this year doing R&S 3. I started him there because it was our first year home from PS, and I wasn't sure what had been covered up until 3rd grade. He has really improved with basic grammar by using R&S 3 this year, but I am wondering if I should just skip him ahead to level 5 next year for 5th. He has handled level 3 with ease. We use HOD, and R&S 5 and 6 are scheduled over 4 years rather than using one level per year. Would it be inadvisable to skip R&S 4 and go into level 5? Would I be missing something really important in level 4? Thank you for your help :)

The only problem I foresee with this plan is that you would be missing a guide in high school somewhere. If you do Rev to Rev and MtMM for 5th, 6th and seventh then you hit the high school guide one year early. There will be 4 guides total written after MtMM, and if you start HS early you have one year to fill. I am looking forward to those high school guides and having some of the credits already figured out for me. We'll be doing CtC for 5th next year, but my son hasn't covered ancients recently. I see your dilemma as I wouldn't want to repeat history cycles unnecessarily either.

What do you mean by this? Do you mean you will stretch out Rev to Rev for 5th, 6th and 7th? Edit : Oh I get it! You meant Rev to Rev and MtMM over 3 years :)

Our week 30 in HOD's BHFHG :) I truly can't believe we made it almost through a whole year already!

Kingdom Tales is one of the reasons I am excited to use ECC! I love how they repackaged it, and hear it is incredible. I'm looking forward to reading that for 3rd grade. I had considered doing ECC this year, but decided against it. It seemed like the general consensus from the MFW folks at conference was that Kingdom Tales is better read to a slightly older child for them to get the most of it.

My plan is a little weird, but I'm doing Bigger now, then Beyond, ECC, and then Preparing. I have a friend who is doing Beyond with me next year (yay!), then ECC, and Preparing. I hear Hero Tales is an awesome book. I'm sure we will enjoy reading it again :) I think that's the only duplicate between ECC and Preparing. They are very different programs other than that.