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Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions! That was helpful

My daughter (an avid reader currently zipping through the level 2 books listed for DITHOR in 1st grade) will be in Bigger next year for second grade as a young 7-year-old. I'm debating whether to go ahead and start DITHOR next year or wait so I'm just throwing a few questions out there because I'm j...

I feel like I could have written your post :) HOD works great for us because of the simplicity that also covers every area. I feel so completely prepared to teach without even having to prepare and it is wonderful. I know God will direct you where to go, but it sounds like you need something already...

I've bee using HOD since 2007 with preschool for my youngest, but this is our first full-time year of homeschool as a 1st grader. I love the simplicity, the completeness, the biblical world-view, the creative thinking, and the flexibility offered without extra prepwork. I have 3 girls (6,4, and 2) a...

We're in Beyond doing both handwriting and copywork, but my daughter's handwriting was pretty good to start with. I never have her do handwritting for more than 15 minutes total unless she is just being sloppy because she's being ornary...I'm sure no one ever has that problem, right?

Thanks ladies! That helps me out a lot for planning. I'll be using 3 guides next year with my 3, 5, and 7 year old so I want to make sure I adequately help her through these beginning learning stages. I hadn't thought about the need to teach things like dictionary skills alongside. I'm glad you ment...

I have been reading a lot that Bigger is the most teacher intensive of the guides. I will have already completed the first three (Little Hands, Little Hearts, and Beyond - this year) with my daughter so she has those foundation skills. I don't mind this, but from looking in the guide I'm not exactly...

My young 6 year old (her birthday is August) has excelled in Beyond, but we're not doing DITHR either, just the ER set to start, which she flew through and I let her! Now we're doing what was suggested with the level 2 books and I'm starting to just talk about genre/characters/setting, nothing forma...

You know your kid best With everything else added that probably makes sense. I teach my daughter piano and she has a 2 day a week homeschool class she attend for half a day. I still plan to get school done in 4 days and use Friday for art, language, etc. I hope it goes well for you!

I'll answer as much as I can, but I haven't used the Bigger guide, so I'm mostly going by what it appears to be like. The 1st year spelling words were too easy for my 1st grade daughter in Beyond. So far she has been able to spell everything on the 1st year list and usually half of the 2nd year list...

I'm using Beyond with my 1st grader this year, so she is on the young end of the guide. She is excelling and actually needed a little more challenge when it came to the spelling and language arts. I give her both sets of words for spelling as a pretest and then her spelling list comes from the ones ...