HOD & WP users can you give me your opinion?

[3boysmama]

We are currently using SOTW 1 for history, and we really LOVE it, the only thing is, our library is 65 miles away so it becomes difficult getting the books to supplement it, plus they don't even have most of the books. And I'm having a hard time getting readers for my older two to coincide with what we're reading for history. I'm not doing a read-aloud time right now either, just history reading, and we're not doing bible, which I want to include.

 

I'm looking into getting HOD-Creation to Christ or WP-Quest for the Ancient World to go along with SOTW, so that I can have the books here on my shelf and not have to worry about trecking back and forth to the library.

 

My kids are 1st, 4th, & 6th and the first grader would just stick to the SOTW stuff, and the 4th & 6th grader would be doing the WP or HOD stuff to add to SOTW. They both have science included which we won't need as we've already got a science we really like.

 

Both programs look wonderful and I've heard good things about both of them. So WP & HOD users can you tell me why you chose your program and why you recommend it? Also, what don't you like about the program?

 

I appreciate the help!! Thank you!!

[hmschooling]

I chose HOD (I've used LHTH, Beyond and now using LHTH, LHFHG, and Bigger).

 

 

• It's price is right
  
• The book choices are excellent (and no need to pre-read for content)
  
• It reaches my dc's hearts
  
• It teaches character
  
• Points to God in history and creation
  
• Excellent pacing
  
• Manageable activities that are easy to do as well as fun and effective (tie in perfectly to the history lesson!)
  
• Balanced workload and teaching time
  
• Get to many subjects very easily that normally wouldn't get to
  
• I love the layout of the guide, very easy to follow
  
• My kids adore it!
  
• I adore it!
  
• I can do more than one guide to meet my children where they are and enjoy our one on one together without losing my whole day to teaching school.
  
• I'm learning along with the kids
  
• It's fun, rigorous, and Christ-centered
  
• and the list goes on....I love it all. Seriously, I really love it!
  

 

What I don't like about it?? Hmmm....I can't think of anything other than there may not be guides for high school!!! Well, there is at least 1.

 

Also, you might consider some of the books for your younger child from Little Hearts. It covers history from creation on and you might see several books that would work well with what you are doing with the olders. There's also a big list of books by unit in the appendix of LHFHG, so those would be listed by history topic for that unit to make it easy to match up.

[3boysmama]

I chose HOD (I've used LHTH, Beyond and now using LHTH, LHFHG, and Bigger).

 

 

• It's price is right

• The book choices are excellent (and no need to pre-read for content)

• It reaches my dc's hearts

• It teaches character

• Points to God in history and creation

• Excellent pacing

• Manageable activities that are easy to do as well as fun and effective (tie in perfectly to the history lesson!)

• Balanced workload and teaching time

• Get to many subjects very easily that normally wouldn't get to

• I love the layout of the guide, very easy to follow

• My kids adore it!

• I adore it!

• I can do more than one guide to meet my children where they are and enjoy our one on one together without losing my whole day to teaching school.

• I'm learning along with the kids

• It's fun, rigorous, and Christ-centered

• and the list goes on....I love it all. Seriously, I really love it!

What I don't like about it?? Hmmm....I can't think of anything other than there may not be guides for high school!!! Well, there is at least 1.

 

Also, you might consider some of the books for your younger child from Little Hearts. It covers history from creation on and you might see several books that would work well with what you are doing with the olders. There's also a big list of books by unit in the appendix of LHFHG, so those would be listed by history topic for that unit to make it easy to match up.

 

 

WOW!! That's awesome! Thank you! So you're really able to do multiple levels and it not take you all.day.long? I like that alot!! Do you also do DITHOR? I will def look into LHFHG to go along with CTC for my youngest. Thanks for that idea, I like that.

[jewel7123]

I will def look into LHFHG to go along with CTC for my youngest. Thanks for that idea, I like that.

 

Your youngest is 7, right? I would really look hard at LHFHG before considering it for a child that age, as it's really geared more towards K than 1st grade. You might be unhappy and think the activities, etc. too young.

[Tidbits of Learning]

Your youngest is 7, right? I would really look hard at LHFHG before considering it for a child that age, as it's really geared more towards K than 1st grade. You might be unhappy and think the activities, etc. too young.

 

I totally agree. I had a ds6 doing the 1st grade level of LHFHG and found it to be very young.

[Tidbits of Learning]

WOW!! That's awesome! Thank you! So you're really able to do multiple levels and it not take you all.day.long? I like that alot!! Do you also do DITHOR? I will def look into LHFHG to go along with CTC for my youngest. Thanks for that idea, I like that.

 

LHFHG is not ancient history it is Bible history. I had tried LHFHG, BHFHG, and LHTH last year and it was very hard to juggle. Also, if you add in a different math or english than what HOD recommends that can add in considerable time to the day.

I was unable to combine my 1st, 3rd, and 4th grade in HOD b/c the guides are written for such a little window of age combinations and the kids were at different skill levels writing and reading.

[Wildwood]

LHFHG is not ancient history it is Bible history. I had tried LHFHG, BHFHG, and LHTH last year and it was very hard to juggle. Also, if you add in a different math or english than what HOD recommends that can add in considerable time to the day.

I was unable to combine my 1st, 3rd, and 4th grade in HOD b/c the guides are written for such a little window of age combinations and the kids were at different skill levels writing and reading.

 

Actually, LHFHG is this...

 

The "Learning Through History" part of the program gives an overview of history from creation through present day. Bible stories are integrated with history stories. This allows students to see how the Bible fits into history and how we got to where we are today. (Taken from the HOD website)

Edited March 3, 2010 by Wildwood

[crl]

Actually, LHFHG is this...

 

The "Learning Through History" part of the program gives an overview of history from creation through present day. Bible stories are integrated with history stories. This allows students to see how the Bible fits into history and how we got to where we are today. (Taken from the HOD website)

 

 

While this is certainly true, the first 20 weeks are mostly Bible stories. After that, it seems to hit some of the major people/events that kids may come across at that young age.

[Donna T.]

Your youngest is 7, right? I would really look hard at LHFHG before considering it for a child that age, as it's really geared more towards K than 1st grade. You might be unhappy and think the activities, etc. too young.

 

My 7 year old has used Little Hearts this year for 2nd grade. He didn't need the Language Arts or the Math though we did go back and use some of The Reading Lesson because I thought the phonics review would be fun for him. He has loved Little Hearts. He has grown so much spiritually. He adores the dramatic play and thinking games activities. He is not immature at all. He has done so well with this program.

[3boysmama]

Thank you all for your responses. I appreciate them very much!! :001_smile: I think hmschooling was just suggesting the list of books in the appendix of LHFHG for my younger one. I'm really trying to decide between Creation to Christ by HOD and Quest for the Ancient World by WP for my older two kiddos.

[angela&4boys]

I chose HOD (I've used LHTH, Beyond and now using LHTH, LHFHG, and Bigger).

 

 

• It's price is right

• The book choices are excellent (and no need to pre-read for content)

• It reaches my dc's hearts

• It teaches character

• Points to God in history and creation

• Excellent pacing

• Manageable activities that are easy to do as well as fun and effective (tie in perfectly to the history lesson!)

• Balanced workload and teaching time

• Get to many subjects very easily that normally wouldn't get to

• I love the layout of the guide, very easy to follow

• My kids adore it!

• I adore it!

• I can do more than one guide to meet my children where they are and enjoy our one on one together without losing my whole day to teaching school.

• I'm learning along with the kids

• It's fun, rigorous, and Christ-centered

• and the list goes on....I love it all. Seriously, I really love it!

 

What I don't like about it?? Hmmm....I can't think of anything other than there may not be guides for high school!!! Well, there is at least 1.

 

 

Ditto. I can't say it any better. We are currently using BHFHG and loving it. And fwiw, I've researched WP and have heard from more than one user that there is a lack of flow or continuity, if you will, in terms one book to the next and the activities as they pertain to history.

[Donna T.]

I have used a little bit of WinterPromise. Not alot. We used Animals Worlds and part of The World Around Me. I have looked at all of WP's programs and decided against continuing with it for several reasons. I think WP is a great curriculum but it's not what I was looking for.

 

This is our first year with HOD. I could not be any more pleased. I'm using Preparing Hearts (with my 10 year old) and Little Hearts (with my 7 year old). I'm also using portions of Beyond (the Language Arts and poetry) with my 7 year old and Drawn Into the Heart of Reading.

 

 

The Guides - I really like the way the manuals are set up. I am a very visual person and seeing each day laid out so simply really helps me to feel like I have it all pulled together. I like having a daily plan rather than a weekly grid like WinterPromise offers. I like being able to see everything on one page for that day. I feel more organized. Our days flow smoothly and we are getting a lot accomplished.

The Balance - I love the way that all the academic subjects are balanced together. I don't feel like any one subject trumps the others. For us, it's just the right amount of everything.

The Language Arts - HOD's LA is just what I wanted and had been pulling together myself. Now, it's all pulled together for me. The instruction is very efficient. We tried WP's LA one year and it just didn't match up with our style of doing school. There were too many workbooks and sheets to fill out. I didn't feel like it was all coming together like I wanted it to. I felt like I was spinning my wheels and couldn't get a big picture of where it was going. HOD's LA has just the right amount of the things I wanted: copywork, dictation, studied spelling, grammar, descriptive writing, Poetry, memorization. I know it does and will cover all the things that need to be covered. It doesn't feel choppy or scattered. It just flows together. I know that's a weird way to explain it, but that's how it feels for me.

I didn't really like the readers that my son had when he was using WP. On the other hand, we love our HOD books. All of the books we have used with HOD are interesting to my children.

The Bible and Discipleship - this is a huge component of HOD. I didn't feel like it was with WP. The Bible is integrated throughout HOD's guides. It comes up as an authoritative text in all areas of the curriculum.

Activities and Active Learning - we are not a crafty family. We aren't big on activities. WP's active learning is just too much for us. Too involved and complex. This is just my impression, someone else may have a very different one. We are really enjoying the activities with HOD but they are not complex, drawn out affairs. They extend the learning and I find them valuable but they aren't really the focus of the program.

 

There are alot of things that I love about HOD but in relation to WP, these are the things that would sway me.

[Donna T.]

• It's price is right

• The book choices are excellent (and no need to pre-read for content)

• It reaches my dc's hearts

• It teaches character

• Points to God in history and creation

• Excellent pacing

• Manageable activities that are easy to do as well as fun and effective (tie in perfectly to the history lesson!)

• Balanced workload and teaching time

• Get to many subjects very easily that normally wouldn't get to

• I love the layout of the guide, very easy to follow

• My kids adore it!

• I adore it!

• I can do more than one guide to meet my children where they are and enjoy our one on one together without losing my whole day to teaching school.

• I'm learning along with the kids

• It's fun, rigorous, and Christ-centered

• and the list goes on....I love it all. Seriously, I really love it!

 

 

 

:iagree: Yes, all that for me, too.

[sandra in va]

We used WP QAW last year with a 3rd, 5th and 7th grader. I liked it a lot. We didn't use many of the activities, but I liked the read alouds and the notebooking pages. Only thing is QAW uses Mystery of History as a spine - you may not need to use SOTW. I think MOH is probably better suited for the ages of your older kids. For each lesson, I read MOH aloud and then they read from the other reference books themselves and filled in the notebooking page. Great blend of together learning and independent work.

 

I didn't really like the readers too much. I much prefer Sonlight. Perhaps you could add some in from Sonlight 6? There weren't many readers with the WP program and you have to purchase them separately.

 

Actually - that leads me to another suggestion - if you want book go-alongs with SOTW, have you considered Sonlight cores 6 and 7? They go through all 4 volumes of SOTW - you could slow it down if you want to and take 3 years. They also schedule other reference books to supplement SOTW, read alouds, and readers. I think their Bible is much more developed than WP. They also include discussion questions for all of the books. The only thing I would add are some historical maps - perhaps from Knowledge Quest. (Just fyi, WP does contain mapping - comes in MOH.) It might be a little advanced for your 4th grader...you'd have to make that judgment call after you look at the books. Just another idea for you to consider!

 

Wish I could comment on HOD. I have no experience with it - I can only say the sample pages on their website look really great.

 

hth!

Edited March 4, 2010 by sandra in va

[water2wine]

I chose HOD (I've used LHTH, Beyond and now using LHTH, LHFHG, and Bigger).

 

 

• It's price is right

• The book choices are excellent (and no need to pre-read for content)

• It reaches my dc's hearts

• It teaches character

• Points to God in history and creation

• Excellent pacing

• Manageable activities that are easy to do as well as fun and effective (tie in perfectly to the history lesson!)

• Balanced workload and teaching time

• Get to many subjects very easily that normally wouldn't get to

• I love the layout of the guide, very easy to follow

• My kids adore it!

• I adore it!

• I can do more than one guide to meet my children where they are and enjoy our one on one together without losing my whole day to teaching school.

• I'm learning along with the kids

• It's fun, rigorous, and Christ-centered

• and the list goes on....I love it all. Seriously, I really love it!

 

What I don't like about it?? Hmmm....I can't think of anything other than there may not be guides for high school!!! Well, there is at least 1.

 

Also, you might consider some of the books for your younger child from Little Hearts. It covers history from creation on and you might see several books that would work well with what you are doing with the olders. There's also a big list of books by unit in the appendix of LHFHG, so those would be listed by history topic for that unit to make it easy to match up.

Agreeing with all this! We have used Bigger, LHFHG and are now using CTC, Preparing and Beyond. We have loved them all and will continue to use HOD. I guess I would add to the above description that it is open and go with literally no planning. It deepens my children's relationship with Christ through teaching them to see God's hand in everything. I have watched them grow and apply the Word to real life situations in ways they never did before HOD. My children actually love school and are dissapointed if we do not do it. And I have comfort and peace knowing that I never have to worry about anything we use because it has been carefully chosen and the content is all God honoring. Plus I know it is all covered yet it is flexible enough to add to it anything I feel the Lord has led me to add for my family specifically.

 

We love HOD. There is nothing like it out there. I look at extras but I never am tempted by other unit studies. We have peace with HOD and know each year it is what we will use.

 

I have never tried Winter Promise. It looks good but I was led away from it because it was just not God honoring the way HOD is. It may be very good. We have never tried it. Praying you find the best fit for your family.:)

[Tidbits of Learning]

While this is certainly true, the first 20 weeks are mostly Bible stories. After that, it seems to hit some of the major people/events that kids may come across at that young age.

 

It does use CLP's History for Little Pilgrims for a few units then there is about 20 units from the Family Time Bible then it goes back to CLP's History for Little Pilgrims. It doesn't seem to be a history that would flow well with an ancients program.

 

I didn't use the appendix books though so I don't know much about them.

 

I did seriously look at WP's QAW this year and am still thinking about doing it with my 4th and 5th grader next year.

Edited March 4, 2010 by OpenMinded

[hmschooling]

WOW!! That's awesome! Thank you! So you're really able to do multiple levels and it not take you all.day.long? I like that alot!! Do you also do DITHOR? I will def look into LHFHG to go along with CTC for my youngest. Thanks for that idea, I like that.

 

I've not added in DITHOR again yet...but it takes us about 10-20 minutes when we do it. LHTH takes about 20-30 minutes w/my 3yo, LHFHG is a max of 1.5 hours-- some of that time overlaps with my teaching time with DD8 doing Bigger, which takes 2-3 hours. We started it at 9 the other day and did all but DITHOR by 10:50! We are done by lunch with everyone, everyday. And nothing is lacking! Considering I have a wild and crazy, unusually rambunctious 3yo boy and a nursing infant along with my K'er and 3rd grader...I'd say 3 programs and done by lunch is pretty good! I feel so much completeness and peace now with HOD. And I've done SO SO many programs out there! The only rec I don't use is the Singapore Math...we did use it and I adore the HOD activities, but DD8 just wasn't ready for 3A and I wasn't ready to teach without the HOD activities, so we use Math Mammoth now. Everything else we do is right from HOD.

 

And I second that it is totally open and go!

Edited March 4, 2010 by hmschooling

[hmschooling]

And for the record, I don't find LHFHG to be too babyish for a 7yo! I think kids need to be having fun and learning, and that goes hand in hand. The activities aren't random...they all serve a purpose. A kid that seems to find them babyish may really just be embarrassed, but as soon as mom gets up and does it with them, just watch what happens! ;):001_smile:

 

I'll be using LHFHG over K and part of 1st for my ds. I'm in no rush to get him to the upper guides. The first few are gentle, sweet, and teach them so many great basic skills to be successful in the future, much more rigorous guides. It's a great path with a solid foundation.

[MrsMe]

I've used both. I love WP's book choices. We did enjoy AS1, although didn't complete it, mainly because I didn't want another year (AS2) of American History). The typos get a little annoying after a while.

 

We did part of Beyond and have since switched to HOD's Bigger. I just think the biblical integration in HOD is so unsurpassed. We always get great discussions in HOD as opposed to other programs. I agree w/the poster's about why they liked HOD. WP is good but in a different way.

 

But we got tired of WP's projects. They're all sort of book-related. HOD's are just more homey. I also find I can finish HOD and we don't always finish WP. And the price difference is not comparable.

 

It's really a preference; I don't think one is better than the other, but there's a price difference, a customer service difference and a biblical integration difference.

[Tidbits of Learning]

And for the record, I don't find LHFHG to be too babyish for a 7yo! I think kids need to be having fun and learning, and that goes hand in hand. The activities aren't random...they all serve a purpose. A kid that seems to find them babyish may really just be embarrassed, but as soon as mom gets up and does it with them, just watch what happens! ;):001_smile:

 

I'll be using LHFHG over K and part of 1st for my ds. I'm in no rush to get him to the upper guides. The first few are gentle, sweet, and teach them so many great basic skills to be successful in the future, much more rigorous guides. It's a great path with a solid foundation.

 

I think it depends on your children. Mine did not like the rhymes in motion in the LHFHG and I did get up and do them and act all silly. The kids love recess and outside time, but they just didn't get into the rhymes in motions and for the bigger guides the jumping jacks and such while you are trying to memorize verses were not a good fit either. So I think it depends on your child and what they need. Some wiggly kids may need that movement while memorizing and such, but mine would much prefer 15 to 20 minutes of outside play was much preferred here.