Need help in placing children in the right groups

[pruettpack]

I recently posted "Questions about group study" and some one suggested I complete the Program Placement Chart. Mission completed, finally.

4yo listening in6yo--Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory
9yo--Bigger Hearts for His Glory
12?13yo--falling between 2 groups pretty much equally: Resurrection to Reformation and Revival to Revolution
14yo--leans more toward Missions to Modern Marvels

Any help in placing together would be greatly appreciated
Thanks a lot

[Motherjoy]

I think you have a few options here. You could combine the two oldest into Rev to Rev, including some extensions for the oldest in science and language arts. That would free you up to have the 9yo and 6yo in separate guides. I have no experience teaching two of the younger guides at once (unless you count the preschool guide LTHT), so I do not know how hard that is. We just finished up Beyond and will be doing Bigger next week. There is a definate skill jump between the two guides, and an average 6yo wouldn't be ready for it. And Beyond is probably too light for a 9yo, so this plan gives you time to teach the little ones separate and hit their basic skills.

Option two is to combine the two little ones and separate the big ones, since they can be independent. With this option, you'll be doing a lot of tweaking for one of the little ones, probably the 6yo. The 6yo will be doing her own math, phonics/reading anyway. She (is this a boy or girl?) can listen in on science and history, making notebook pages and doing the art activity. You could do the English orally, and not do any spelling until the student is into the Emergent readers. Storytime is easy to combine, they can both listen and answer questions. Bible shouldn't be hard, either. It would just be requiring less writing, and focusing on reading.

The third option is to combine both groups and only run two guides. One for the olders, one for the youngers.

[MelInKansas]

I can answer to "doing two younger guides at once." It is more time-consuming but easier in some ways. You will teach both of them reading, writing, and math on their own level and while the 9YO can probably complete assignments on their own (math pages, writing, copywork) most of it is done with the teacher. These three subjects are separate no matter whether you combine them or do separate guides. I like having my girls separate because then the guides really become open-and-go. This cuts down on the planning and prep time I need to spend. I also like that only one person is answering discussion questions. When I was doing reading and having to ask two children either to narrate back to me, or answer comprehension questions, of course if one gives a good answer first then the other just takes what their sib has done. I made the older one answer first, but sometimes you need to stretch that younger one too. Now that my 2nd born is doing her own guide (she is almost finished with LHFHG and going to start Beyond) she is learning and growing a lot more.

But on the other hand we do really like the times we read together and study together. Things like art and science experiments I often end up with several together anyway. So those seem like areas in which combining would be easier. But the way the guides are written, a lot of things go together. The art projects, along with teaching art concepts and following directions, also reinforce ideas from the History readings and help the child remember them. Science is more separate and it might be easier to combine that. You could do Bigger Science, just having the younger one not have to narrate readings, the younger one could do the experiments with the 9YO and talk about those with you, those are just once a week (and another activity one other time per week).

I hope this is making sense.