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You know your kids best. If you feel like your oldest needs more and is ready to move up a level, then do so. That's the beauty of homeschooling. You can move at your child's pace. Sometimes that means slowing down and sometimes that means jumping up a level so they can learn on their level. Feel fr...

I completely understand. Not that I'd want to leave HOD, but I wish my kids knew how good they have it. I've thought about letting them visit school on visitors day, but honestly, they'd probably love it since they do special activities on those days. Maybe I should just re-create real school for a ...

I did see the extension suggestions in the appendix. That is actually what caused me to wonder. In the appendix of res to ref ( it is what I have on hand), it says adding this optional package the economy package extends the area of history to include more advanced , independent reading material. T...

Welcome! I would agree that Preparing makes for a wonderful 4th grade year. Even though your child is gifted, there would be no need to push them into material that is too mature content wise than needed. You can always choose higher level books for them to read independently. But Preparing is reall...

Thanks. Maybe I'll try to find one used that's cheap. Or maybe Grandma can get it as her birthday present!

Many years ago I used LHTH with my older children. Since then, we have moved 3 times and I can't seem to find the Bible we had for LHTH. I'm gearing up to start it with my youngest soon and the older kids are looking forward to helping teach her. Is it possible to use the Bible that comes in the LHF...

I understand not wanting to teach young ones about wars. I also understand wanting to teach them to be peaceful and loving trying to emulate Christ's example. But I also think that we cannot teach history without including the wars. They are usually a very important turning point in that country's (...

Thanks Carrie for taking time to address this question with your well laid out response. I always enjoying seeing where we are going in the next few years. It helps put me (and the rest of my concerned family members) at ease knowing what the plan is to achieve the end goal. Many thanks to you and a...

We are currently using Res to Ref. The science books do seem to just run front to back in the order listed on the website so you could certainly just use the books listed. If you are not planning to get the HOD manual, you will be missing out on some of experiments. Also, HOD does not do tests or su...

I think all moms get burnt out in the mid to late winter months. I have found for our family, it's fun to have a unit study that takes a week or two that we can complete as a family. We put the normal school work aside and work on this interest lead unit study. It seems to give us that energy back s...

I would agree with the previous poster that said you may want to consider at least part of the study at age 10. My daughter did start all those changes at 10 and I wished she had been in the guide with this study then. Now that she's already done something similar last year, she is not interested in...

I would think that if she's done Bigger as written, she should be ok to do Preparing next. My daughter is dyslexic, so reading is very difficult for her. We often do a tag team reading for those things that are tough for her. So for science, she'll read some then I'll finish it for her. This insures...

Rev to Rev has a state study included in the plans if you want it. So if you were planning to use HOD all the way through the guides, you should be able to add a state study that year. If you are talking about specifically for your state, there are lot of resources online that you could do a short u...

My daughter has been typing most of her work for awhile now. She is dyslexic, so the process of correctly writing each word is tough for her. She still does some copy work for the handwriting practice. So for anything that requires her to think while she is writing, I let her type. Then she saves it...

Daneale - Glad you got some schooling done despite the circumstances. We had a good week. DD in Res. to Ref. did all of her schoolwork Friday without any help. Which is actually a big deal since she is dyslexic. Normally I help out by reading history and possibly science to her. But I had other thin...