HOD Preparing vs. MOH and God's Design Science

[lotsofpumpkins]

Planning ahead here (so I know what I'm wanting to use so I can watch for good deals on used books!) ----

 

What do you think is better for 4th, 3rd, and 1st graders? Keep in mind that I enjoy combining for content subjects, but I also want to make sure that the oldest is challenged enough but it's not all over the youngest's head either.

 

Option 1: HOD Preparing for 4th and 3rd graders. (1st grader can either tag along, or if I feel like I can handle running two programs, he can do HOD Beyond.)

 

Option 2: Mystery of History and God's Design Science. (Plus something for Bible that will work for their ages).

 

We are using HOD for 2010-11 school year, so I'm sure how much we end up liking it will have some bearing on what I end up doing. Right now we are doing Little Hearts with my 5 year old, but my oldest 2 are joining in too. I'm really enjoying that time spent with all of them together, BUT, by the time we do that and our academics, I find that the history and science that I have planned for my oldest two doesn't always get done. The history and science in Little Hearts is fun, but not meaty enough for my oldest two. Once I finish up what we are doing now, we are planning on starting Bigger Hearts (in May), but I'm wondering how I'm going to fit it all in. That's why I'm considering switching to programs that are multi-age in 2011.

 

Thanks for opinions! (BTW, I realize Preparing is a one-year history overview, and MOH will be ancients. I really don't have a preference on that; I want to go with what will work best).

[Tidbits of Learning]

I don't know anything about MOH or God's Design Science, but we tried HOD LHTH, LHFHG, and BHFHG this last summer. We wound up using 3 programs even though my kids are close in age b/c I found it hard to combine.

I would find it very hard to tag along a 1st grader in BHFHG. It was a very busy day to do 2 HOD programs. All of the younger guides require a lot of reading time from Mom. I would think if you tag along the 1st grader with PHFHG that you would do less of the independent study parts and be reading most passages to them again as well.

I definitely would wait until you try BHFHG in May with them and see how it goes.

[lotsofpumpkins]

Yeah, I know I need to wait and see how it goes. Of course I'm not making any definite decisions right this minute; just trying to get a general idea of what is probably going to work best for us!

[Donna T.]

There are a couple of recent threads on the HOD board about beefing up Beyond for a 3rd or 4th grader. You may want to look for those or even mail Carrie directly. She will make suggestions on how to adapt a guide. There are many ways to do that.

 

If you are most comfortable teaching from one guide you can do that with HOD; but do so knowing that you will have to do some adapting, especially for your oldest child. If you like Little Hearts and just want to continue a natural progession, you could move up into Beyond. You could teach Beyond as it is to your 1st grader, very close to "as is" with your 3rd grader, and with a few extensions for your oldest child. Foryour 3rd grader, you would want to use LA materials that were at a slightly higher level than what is scheduled in Beyond. You may want to add some content to the science. You could do that quite easily by having that child check out science books from the library and just read them. Nothing elaborate. For the 4th grader, you would, of course, use LA at his or her level and require that child to do some of the copywork (that you could pull from Beyond, you wouldn't need an additional resource to do it) in cursive and assign that child slightly longer passages of the poetry. You could either have that child also use library books to add science content or you could do what alot of HOD moms do and add a text (Carrie generally recommends one of the Apologia texts) and spread it out over the year. If you did that, your 3rd grader would probably enjoy using that also.

 

I will (probably) be using Beyond next year with a 3rd grader. I haven't completely ruled out using Bigger Hearts. If we do Beyond, he will be doing atleast the following:

 

History: pretty much as is in Beyond but I intend to make frequent use of the library to add some picture books and read alouds on the units that are covered. We will also add the D'Aulaire books (George Washington, Ben Franklin, Buffalo Bill and a couple others). I am planning to add Celebrate America (a music CD) alongside to teach him patriotic songs.

Rod & Staff English 2

Rod & Staff Spelling 3

Science: he will use the science in Beyond plus he will be reading the Christian Liberty Press Nature Readers for himself, reading lots of library books, and going on nature walks. We have videos and science kits at home and he uses those whenever he wants to.

Bible, poetry and storytime will be from Beyond's guide. The Beyond guide has a wonderful list of read-alouds in the back of the book. I'm not going to buy a book set as I already have alot of these and my local library has many of them.

 

There are a few other things he will be doing but these are the ways I'll adapt Beyond for a 3rd grader. Just sharing to give you an idea of how you could use Beyond with your olders. I guess that's what I would suggest.

 

MOH is very good but we didn't like it when we tried it. I thought the writing style was very simple, too simple for the age it's supposed to be written for and the activities were not really appropriate for our family. When we got to the suggestion to build Stonehenge, my little son cried (even he knew it was pagan and he had never even been told that). I do think MOH is a good curriculum and you very well may love it but it just didn't work for our family primarily because of those things: I didn't like the writing style and the activities were strange to us. HOD does use a MOH text later on but they elected not to use Vol. 1.

 

If you like Little Hearts and decide you want to continue with HOD, you can do that with one guide. It really is not hard to do. The main thing you want to keep in mind as far as progressing with HOD is that you want your a child to be in Preparing around 4th or 5th grade because that is the year that the child is taught how to become independent in some areas, when their written narrations are well-developed (which they will need for future HOD guides) and a foundation is laid in many areas for their future work. So, after Beyond, you would want to either bump your oldest one, or possibly your oldest two, up to Preparing and just keep your youngest going through the guides without skipping any. You could go ahead and do that rather than putting them all in Beyond, but putting them all in Beyond may give you one more year of teaching from one guide, thus adding to your confidence and I think you'll find, after some time with HOD, that the idea of teaching two guides doesn't have to be overwhelming.

 

I am teaching two guides plus we do extra things and our day is around four or five hours. I am working with my oldest to get him ready for Creation to Christ as it will have more independent work thus freeing me up a little to give a little more one on one to my youngest. It's working great. You may find that half way through Beyond you start to feel quite comfortable and then you could go ahead and bump your two oldest up to Bigger Hearts, thus having them all studying the same time period. That would be fun and not hard to do. I'd definately keep your youngest just going up through the next guide without skipping but you could certainly skip some things with your two oldest.

 

Best wishes!

Edited March 25, 2010 by Donna T.

[lotsofpumpkins]

Donna-

Thanks for your ideas. I'm not sure doing Beyond with all of them would work though, because we started Beyond in 2009 and dropped the guide for several reasons. We have continued reading the history books though. We had already read Stories of the Pilgrims previously, so if my older two go through Beyond, that will be the 3rd time reading that book, and the 2nd time on the others. I have everything for Bigger here and I'm planning on starting it in May. It seems like it's the perfect level for dd. I have considered taking 2 years to go through Bigger and adding extensions for my oldest once she gets to 4th grade, so that's another option. But in case we end up getting through Bigger in just one year, I was trying to figure out what path we should take.

 

Thanks again; I'm going to go read your suggestions again!

[Donna T.]

Oh, well, that sounds great! I love Bigger Hearts. We haven't used it yet but I have all the books and have been pre-reading them just for myself. It's a great program.

 

As for Preparing, well, we have enjoyed every bit of it. We love all the books and everything else.

 

Blessings!