We love HOD but it's not a perfect curriculum. ;) Does such a thing exist? :001_huh: I own and have used some MFW guides and never, ever felt it was dry as a whole. The Book Basket selections added huge depth to MFW. The HOD history texts alone would also be dry without the additional Drawing through History, Projects, Read Alouds, etc. In other words, if I were to use HOD for the history reading alone, it would not be an exciting year. The Notebooking Pages are a beautiful keepsake of narrations, dictations, and drawings from CtC on up but that alone would not lead me to choose HOD over something like MFW. I find it easier to use HOD because it adds in projects that my children enjoy (drawing) and schedules the books that MFW would utilize Book Basket time for. Our library in our county is terrible and I'd have to purchase the Book Basket books adding a large sum to my homeschool budget. MFW Book Basket does include more picture rich books that younger children prefer and allows for a more interest-led education, as opposed to HOD's guided & scheduled reading choices. I'm looking to combine for next year and feel very torn with what to do as well. The gap is too big for HOD and maybe even too big for MFW. So, as of now, I'll "combine" HOD RtR with SOTW Vol 2. The combining part will be the history projects alone, I believe.

Yes! Keep on trucking... Bigger was a very hard year for us but Preparing was sooooo much better. What is dragging you down so much? Dithor is not necessary. Don't get hung up on that.:grouphug:

Manic? Lol :lol: No, I wouldn't call it that but I would say that you never get bored. :001_smile: My dd loves all of the projects, History Listening CD's, Bible verse CD's... but, it took us quite some time to get well enough organized with our day to do it all. Now that we have a rhythm, she enjoys it and has even asked for more historical fiction to read. It really depends on the child I guess.

JoyofSix, I see that you have a 10 year old in Bigger w/ Ext. That is definitely at the upper age range of the guide so I see no reason for your concern and I think your child is fortunate to be able to enjoy school at a more relaxed pace than mine is this year!;) My 10 year old is doing CtC...so, understand that my perspective is with a younger child, who does place skill wise btw, doing a very challenging core. It's not that the upper cores are too challenging, they just ARE challenging. I think that's a good thing, but they are absolutely not anything like the younger guides in terms of level of challenge for the prescribed age range. Imagine your LHTH through Beyond child being a pot of water on the stove top. The water is lukewarm and the setting is LOW. When they reach Bigger through Preparing, the stove turns up to Medium and you see those little bubbles at the bottom. By CtC, the water is boiling on High. :lol: That was our experience with having a child on the younger age range. If you are more mid-placed or upper end placed, I think the water doesn't "boil" so suddenly and maybe just stays on Medium. (Maybe that's a terrible analogy but at the beginning of the year, it was a big jump and we were boiling on High ;)). I am so thankful for HOD. I'm not sure that I would have the confidence in moving into middle school and high school levels of homeschooling without them! But, understand, they are rigorous and more time consuming. That said, they are a fantastic education and I feel very confident that my child is getting an amazing academic and Biblical education.

In response to another poster about LHFHG being not very challenging...I've done LHTH, LHFHG, and Beyond with another child and they are beautifully designed and fantastic but LHTH works best as PreK, LHFHG as K, and Beyond as 1st. We have used these guides as spines and added in Science Encyclopedias, Read Alouds, Field Trips, and have thoroughly enjoyed them. Bigger is a very rigorous program for either 2nd or 3rd grade and probably perfect for 4th. So BIG jump from Beyond to Bigger. I'd love for HOD to produce an in-between guide! :) ...but most just go half-pace, I think, with Bigger in order to transition the child from Beyond. I would actually disagree and say that Beyond does have skill integration to begin the preparation for Bigger (but I don't think it's enough to be a must-do guide prior to Bigger). I actually LOVE Beyond. I love the book selections, the poetry, the math activities and so on. So, I'd encourage you to do this guide. :)

Sort of...but not really. :D I think all guides starting with Bigger have a thorough and rigorous workload for the younger child (and possibly middle area of the age frame). If you do the guides at the upper end of the age range, I think the workload is rigorous but not anything more than a child can/should be able to handle. If you start a typical 5th grader in Preparing, coming from a different curriculum, they should be able to do the work easily. If you start a 4th grader in Preparing, without Bigger, it will be a big stretch. I say the same goes with each one after. CtC has been a very challenging year for us. We have done HOD since Bigger with this particular child but always at the early age of the range. I am slowing down to be mid to upper age level now even though we've been with HOD for almost 3 years. My child just needs to mature a bit to tackle the comprehension and the fullness of RtR. It's so much more about literary comprehension than writing or anything else. Also, each guide adds "boxes" for more subject matter. We are all ready schooling so long, I can't imagine adding any more content at this age. So, with CtC...I definitely wouldn't jump into it as a first time HOD experience unless your child is at least 6th grade (at least 10-11) and has been doing a lot of independent reading and narrations. I thought because my dd was a strong student (and was placed correctly in the guide), she would be fine at the early range of the guide. But, many days have been a struggle for her to grasp the content and not become fatigued with all the work. I suppose we are training her to have good work-ethic though. :001_smile: It all depends on what guide you are asking about, really.

I LOVE SL K (Core A) and HOD LHFHG so I'm no help. I've done each for K. I think the ideal would be to do both! :D BUT, for ease of use, I would probably choose LhFHG as my spine and add in many of the have-to-reads from Core A like My Father's Dragon and Ergemeier's Bible. I would also buy the Harrow CD. Oh dear! It's too hard to choose between the two! SL is probably best for multi-genre new literary works and HOD is probably best for the mom who prefers older CM lit (like Reddy Fox) and someone who wants to read at a more relaxed pace. Both are excellent but fairly different. Just to keep in mind, some SL A books are used in future HOD guides.

I guess I might as well jump in. :) We've used HOD LHTH, LHFHG, Bigger, Preparing, CtC We've used MFW Adv and started ECC. I can tell you that the best years I've ever had homeschooling was MFW Adv and HOD Preparing for two different reasons. HOD Preparing because I loved the books, the drawing, the autopilot I could set my homeschool on. I think that's the benefit and disadvantage of HOD. It's totally open and go...I mean, completely. During that year, I needed to set homeschool on autopilot and deal with moving and family challenges. The year prior with MFW Adv, the guide allowed me to dig in, interact more (yes, it really did encourage that) with history. Maybe it was because book basket selections gave more ownership in the history, maybe it was because of the style of the guide, I'm not sure what...but, I dressed up like a pioneer, we pretended to be Pocahontas, we sent and received postcards from others, etc. Learning seemed more real and interactive...less forced. Now, I LOVE HOD. It's been a top-notch education and we really don't have plans to leave it. But, I yearn for those MFW days when I was more goofy with my kids, weighed pumpkins in a bath and baked the pioneer meals as MFW guided. I'm pretty sure retention was better with history and the kids were more joyful YET my desire to have everything carefully organized (ie. books on the shelf (rather than library book basket), and a carefully guided writing program scheduled... keeps me going back to HOD. uuufff! My transparency with this is helping me to understand why I have chosen one over the other.:001_huh: ...not always for what my kids would best learn from but from the needs of me and our family.

We loved the devotional! ;) For me, I just wanted a lot more read-alouds and so we added in a lot more reading. I loved it! It was a great spine for us. We used it for Kindergarten so that might give you my frame of reference for age-appropriateness of the activities for math, phonics, etc.. The science was not super exciting and so we also added a lot of books to supplement in that area.

I have it in front of me trying to remember the reasons I set it aside a few years ago. For a gentle intro to french or a supplement for young elementary aged kids it's fine. There's not a lot to it and if it's less than $15 or $20 I'd probably buy it again. I think Book 1 would take my (at that time 2nd-3rd grader) a couple of months to get through and that is probably the ideal age. I do not own the sequel books so I have no idea how those are. I've lost the CD -- I don't remember the accent being too strong. The CD simply goes through the pages as if you were reading them. Example of a page midway through the book: "Bonjour. Je m'appelle Monique. Je suis la fille de Madame et Monsieur Blanchard. J'ai un frere. Il s'appelle Jean. J'aime Jean." There is a cartoon picture of a boy on the page. Sorry to be of little help.

:iagree: Is IEW scheduled in RtR difficult to implement or is it that you haven't enjoyed it? I'm wondering why so many have dropped it.

:iagree: YES! We just moved to Ancient Greece and it is soooo much better!!! The history spine has easier language and draws dd into it much more! I've been reading it as well and really have enjoyed it. Dd told me yesterday that she wanted to vacation in Greece because it sounded so beautiful! I can't think of a better compliment for a history book then one that draws in a child so much that they want to be at the location. :001_smile:

I think this is a wonderful point...that is, do not give up on a curriculum just because it doesn't work at one age level. One guide to the next is not the same for HOD (I also found this true for MFW:001_huh:). I'm so glad to hear that you have enjoyed it. It gives me great encouragement to move forward with HOD for next year. Thank you!!!

Sue, What is the most challenging "box" of the RtR year (if you take out IEW ;))? Have you enjoyed the History spines? Read Alouds? Bible Study? Thanks!:bigear:

:lurk5: Me too...Me too... I am hoping for some feedback as well! We are finishing up HOD's Creation to Christ and looking ahead to next year. :001_smile:

We used the early guides at the lowest end of the range (LHTH - Pre-K, LHfHG - K, Beyond - 1). Starting Bigger is when you need to use the mid to upper end of the age range in my humble opinion. :001_smile:

Bethany, I believe you will find that most mothers of 5th graders on up who have college in sight for their children are trying to find the balance of rigorous homeschool learning (and the heavier workload that must be accomplished with that) with a love for learning. My yearly academic goals for my children take on a very different flavor around 4th grade. Something like FIAR or SL is, in my opinion, fantastic for the young elementary grades. Of course, families who are more classically bent would use those younger years for strong memory work while it's easier for kids to memorize. Personally, I use that time to get them excited about books. Then, when they are 4th on up, my goal is to start having them read well chosen books specifically to make strong connections. You will find as many opinions about the elementary years as there are homeschoolers! :) BUT, from 5th on up...most moms get pretty serious and are more similar in the way they implement school. Blood, sweat, and tears. :) No matter what curriculum, kids must learn and that takes time and effort. School at home means to me that there is a grammar book, math book, science text, history text, etc. That is not HOD. HOD does have some texts for math and grammar but other subjects like history have "living books" that should be more interesting than a text written by multiple authors. There are history projects, history read alouds, Bible reading - singing - studying. That doesn't feel school-y to me. However, if you envision your day to be full of reading historical fiction books and Usborne encyclopedias on the couch feeling that connectivity with your child... HOD is more schoolish than that (which is how I felt SL was...and I really enjoyed it!). We tweak HOD's suggestion from Independent work to Together work oftentimes when I feel like I'm not as involved as I want to be. Then again, on days when I need my student to be more independent, we use the guide as written. My goal is for my children to be very much independent by 7-8th grade, so this is fulfilling one of my goals. That said, I feel VERY much involved and in control of my involvement. Kudos to you for researching in advance. I can assure you that you will find your fit over time (and, sometimes, it just takes time to figure out what exactly you are looking for! :)

We've been giving this new writing program a try this year and have really enjoyed it. It is written by journalists who write for the popular children's magazine God's World News. My dd10 says it's her favorite part of the day!:001_smile: I'm wondering if others are using this pilot program and enjoying it.

They are intended to be interwoven. In the seam of the book on each page gives a bit of a guide (for example: on page 12 of the theory book might have written "Lesson Book pg. 14"). This gives me a good idea of where I ought to be to have all the skills lined up. When the child is playing fourths in the base clef, for example (in book 2B), the Theory book is teaching what a 4th or 5th is. I assign at least one new page of each book during our weekly lesson (while continuing to review/memorize previous songs and thus making a sort of repetoire). I hope I am making sense.

We love Faber Piano series here. I have used/am using the series with 2 children. When starting a young elementary child (or Ker), we use the Primer set to introduce the piano and after a year, we are working out of the entire Level 1 Faber set (Theory, Technique, Lesson, Performance). We add the associated Christmas book in October to prepare for "performances" for family/nursing homes, etc. By late book 1 or early book 2, we add classical pieces from the Master's Program (I believe that's also Faber). I feel like it is a very easy curriculum to teach from assigning 1-2 new pieces out of each book per week.

I switched to Standards in book 3 without any difficulty. The biggest "trouble" was the extra pages. It took us about one extra month per book to complete (so add an extra month to your semester or double up on lessons as able). There is a Scope and Sequence comparison here: http://www.singaporemath.com/v/vspfiles/assets/images/SSUSandSTD2009.pdf

We had an opportunity to go the Amsterdam last March (and couldn't pass up seeing the Anne Frank House). DD was 9 at the time and we made her diary a required prereq. before seeing the house. She read it without any nightmares but didn't necessarily understand all elements. There are some fantastic children's biographies out there. Have you considered starting with one of those as a lead up to the Diary?

Our definition of half-pace is "checking" 5 boxes a day (from either side of the page) + foreign language everyday + at least 1 math lesson a day + piano practice each day + read at least one chapter of your Dithor book (we occasionally do a lesson in Dithor) + read the non-scheduled girl Read Aloud chapter each day (we read the scheduled history read aloud as one of the boxes to check). Sounds a little complicated but it worked very well for us. Typically we do left side one day, right side the next but we ended up doing 5 and 5 and that worked out just as well (and gave dd some choice in the matter). In terms of Dithor: I've never gotten into a good rhythm with the teacher's guide so aren't consistent with it. That's something on my to-do.

Kwikimom, I wouldn't push too hard this year with Preparing. I'd just take CtC nice and slow when you get there. Let your child enjoy Preparing and then help her get going with CtC at a slower pace. There are many days I still read the History aloud with DD or the Bible Reading when she's feeling overwhelmed. I always read the Read-Aloud --Aloud. We started CtC in June and are just now on week 12, we started half-pace and life was good when that was our routine. I'm thinking about going back to that to slow down and smell the roses. :) I think I started DD too quickly into full pace. We only HS 4 days a week even when we did a half-pace (we just keep up with Math and Readers). I often forget that I'm homeschooling my child and not just checking boxes! :D Reading your post reminded me to take a bit of my own advice and slow down and enjoy. What's the rush?! :grouphug:

Kathy, We did MFW Adv. in 2nd, started then sold ECC in 3rd within the first month, jumped into Bigger -- sped through it because I didn't enjoy the history (completed it in less than 6 months by skipping much), and started Preparing at a very slow pace for a very young 4th grader. No problems here! We loved it! Make sure your child has cursive down as that is a requirement and is ready to start written narrations. We spread Preparing out over 12 months to get some of those skills down better.