Anyone use HOD for more than 2 kids?

[EmilyJo]

I am currently using MFW ECC and getting frustrated with it. While I love MFW for the early grades, I've not been thrilled with it this year. I'm thinking about starting Preparing for my oldest who will be in 4th grade next year and am getting super excited about it. However, a few posts have mentioned that it takes about 4 hours to complete. I would love to start HOD for three of my other kids as well, who will be 2nd, 1st and pre-k next year and I'm a little concerned that I'm going to go crazy trying to get it all done. Can anyone give me insight if you use it for multiple kids??

[Rice]

We're doing 4 kids in 4 guides (grade 7, 6, 4 and 1, but in the "wrong" guides based on some learning difficulties, lol - see my signature). The KEY is to have them properly placed. We spend 3 months using 3 guides this fall and it was, well, not torture, but close. A switch for 2 kids made all the difference and it's WAY easier now with 4 guides than it was with 3!

My time is still stretched and I don't always get it all done. I've had to extend grace to myself as well as my children (I allow for 5 days of work per unit even for the older kids whose guides are scheduled as 4 days/unit because I can't do everything with them every day). I'm really looking forward to watching #4 (in LHFHG this year) and his next brother (who will start LHTH for K next year) go through HOD from the beginning.

Preparing and down are fairly teacher intensive so even if you start all 3 older ones in HOD next year I would suggest a staggered start (do Preparing 1/2 speed for 2 weeks, then full speed for a week or more before starting 2nd child into HOD; possibly just doing some reading and math each day with the younger ones). Unless you need to do pre-K for reporting reasons I would suggest not doing it with your youngest for your first year with HOD (though don't forget to schedule some 1-on-1 time each day), or at the most to try LHTH 1/2 speed (over 2 years). I didn't try LHTH with my almost 5yo this year; he'll start it full speed next fall. (5 guides. Yikes!)

One thing I did with my older ones the year before we started was trying a unit of DITHOR and I started R&S grammar so we were familiar with it, before jumping into HOD this fall. It worked well and it was nice to have something we were familiar with. For R&S we just did 1 lesson 2x/week - we got done about 1/2 the book so are finishing the 2nd half this year. (1 lesson each time it's scheduled, even though it's not the one that is listed. We'll finish about a month early.)

HTH
Blessings,

[Motherjoy]

We use HOD for 4+ of our kids. The oldest has his own guide, and the 10,9, and 8yo are in Preparing. My 6yo is using the right side of B, meaning we are using the math, storytime, phonics and fine motor suggestions. I don't really open the guide, though, I just do the next page or lesson. Next year, she might do a whole guide, but we'll see. I like combining as much as possible, and use HOD in whatever way is needed to fit my family at the time.

[StephanieU]

I am using HOD with one child fully and partially with others (who will go into HOD completely by K/1st grade). Although Preparing takes 4 hours, not all of that requires your full attention. There are some independent and semi-independent parts of Preparing, so your time is more like 2 1/2 to 3 hours I think from what I have read. Bigger and Preparing are the two that are the most parent intensive. LHFHG only takes 90 minutes a day, and Beyond takes 2 to 2 1/2 hours a day. Then, after Preparing, the time tappers down to about 1 1/2 hours a day for "mom." So, it is definitely do-able, especially since Preparing and up are only 4 days a week.

[Nealewill]

I actually switched from MFW to HOD because of ECC. I found it to not be a good fit at all because it was very difficult to teach to multiple kids. When I first came to HOD, I had my oldest start with Preparing and then my two youngers go into Beyond together. We had already read the book American Patriots and Pioneers the year before but my two younger kids didn't care. They loved hearing it a second time anyway. This year I decided to split everyone up Every child has their own guide and I couldn't be happier about it.

The one major blessing with HOD is that the guide is written to your child as they get older. Starting in Preparing, my dd did about 1/2 of her work by herself. I did have to help her some and that is was okay. I spent about 1.5 hours a day helping her. She did a great job and embraced independence fairly well. With my oldest this year in CTC, she gets her work done mostly independently. I don't spend more than an hour with her per day while she works alone. I love the projects she completes along with all the great books she reads for Literature, History and Science. My son is doing Bigger and he is embracing a little bit of independence as well. My youngest is doing Little Hearts only because she did Beyond last year. I would say if I had to look at the placement chart currently, she would place in Beyond.

The one really cool thing with HOD is that within each guide your child builds specific skills. With MFW, you were expected as the teacher to adjust the volume of work to the child based on their skills. You were expected to use the book basket to build up each child's assignments. MFW did assign some stuff for kids to do independently but I still needed to direct their activities because I had the guide, not them. In addition, I had to decide what to have them do, the writing was less independent, and I found it difficult to constantly juggle their activities along with the guide being less structured. I think for me, after using HOD, I love the flow, I love how it is all laid out and I think I like the CM approach a lot more than I realized. Last year when I started HOD I still used my own math and spelling programs. This year I switched my oldest dd over to everything HOD and my day is so much smoother. My middle child had to have some extra reading help and I still use a different math for my younger two kids. I am really praying about switching them over next year as well. The only thing holding me back with switching them is that they learn different math things at different ages. My son would be ready to make the switch easily at the end of this year but not sure about it scope and sequence wise for my youngest.

My experience has been that if kids are properly placed in their guide, running multiple guides is very doable and enjoyable. I spend about 1 hour with my oldest dd, 2 hours with my son and 1 hour with my youngest on her work. The only thing I add into our day is Latin and that is because we (okay I....but they like it too so far) love it. Because my kids are perfectly placed I find my oldest dd is getting done in 4 hours, my middle child gets done in 2.5-3 hours and my youngest gets done easily in 1.5 hours. The wonderful thing with HOD is that I don't have to sit there with them whole time they work. They are taught early on to be independent. For example, my kids have all their music and CD recordings on iPod devices (you could use CDs but my kids will scratch them LOL). Everyone has a pair of headphones. They listen to their music on their own every day. My two younger kids have handwriting practice. My youngest is copying the poems from Beyond in her best handwriting everyday. She does this on her own. She sets a time for 2 minutes and gives me her best. My son and youngest are both learning cursive also. For me, if they are learning a new letter, I make them do cursive with me. If not, then they do cursive alone. I do grammar with kids orally (my youngest does grammar with big bro in Bigger). They write down a small amount of the exercises that they do. By doing a lot of it orally, it makes the day move quickly. They each have their own story time books. With my younger 2, they like to listen in on each others. For Bigger, I purposefully picked books that weren't too long but also not too short. I have read a few books that were rather long last year and because I am running 3 guides, I just don't have 30 minutes to do a read-a-loud per kid. But my kids love the one on one time they get with me. And I love the way that Bible is done for each child. I love how I get to have a heart to heart discussion about so many things with each child. I find I spend less time running 3 guides with HOD than I did with running one level of MFW in the 5 year cycle. One thing that I love about HOD over MFW is that I feel like each day with HOD is balanced. When I did MFW, I felt like we spent a ton of time on projects (and money). With HOD, the projects are more simple, spread over multiple days, and done by the kids. With MFW, the project would take an hour and my kids were just too tuckered out to even finish it by the time we finished working on it. It seemed like other days just were as balanced either. And I need school done in 4 days a week. With Preparing and up, the guides are written to 4 days a week. With MFW, they had one light day a week but I could never condense my week well to make it balanced.

I guess for me, HOD is really more my style and it works for me. The flow is great. The skills my kids learn are great. I love that HOD builds each guide up to teach additional skills and that each guide builds on itself. I love the books! I was never good about the book basket. I love the TM and how much time it saves. I love dictation for spelling!!!! That is included in every guide! I must admit....I just love HOD

[EmilyJo]

Thank you everyone who replied! I am really so excited to start using HOD. I think I will take 2 years to go through little hands with my 4 year old and that will lighten the load a little. And you nailed some of the things that I wasn't loving about MFW. I only wish that it wasn't in the middle of the school year or I would switch right now!

[Nealewill]

I will be praying for the rest of your year EmilyJo I actually was so unhappy I switched 8 weeks in. I couldn't take it any more LOL. Once you do finish your year, I would definitely take your time and review the placement chart. That will give the best placement. I wouldn't try and place them too much yet because so much changes with kids and you still have 6 months left to go in the year.

[MomtoJGJE]

Placement is the key to running more than one guide. Preparing doesn't take my dd nearly 4 hours to complete, but we don't do storytime within the school day (I read at bedtime to everyone) and we don't do DITHOR when we use the guides. So I'm not sure how much time that takes off, but I'd say it takes her about 2 - 2.5 hours when she's actually working and not goofing off. I only am needed for about an hour of it though. And as they get older, you are needed for less and less of it. I seriously doubt I do more than 15-20 minutes with my oldest in Res to Ref unless she is not understanding a math concept, then it might be 30 minutes.

We are doing four guides full speed right now and I think I only do about 2 hours or maybe three worth of my time. But my child in Bigger is very independent for the guide. She reads either her history or science every day and one or two days per week reads both. And since there are some days that don't have reading, I have more work with my Preparing child than with her a lot of times.

But proper placement is what makes it work.

[mothermayi?]

[quote="EmilyJo"]Thank you everyone who replied! I am really so excited to start using HOD. I think I will take 2 years to go through little hands with my 4 year old and that will lighten the load a little. And you nailed some of the things that I wasn't loving about MFW. I only wish that it wasn't in the middle of the school year or I would switch right now![/quote]


A couple of years ago, I switched my older kids from MFW RTR to HOD at the end of October. They have flourished exponentially, and the school day is so much smoother! As long as I sold my MFW package for a great price, my husband didn't care . He just wanted us to have a balanced day without mom being so stressed because it felt like *I* was doing all of the work.

Just a thought ...