Placement help CTC or other

[klynn]

Hi all,
We spent the 2013/14 school year using HOD and loved it. A little background, I chose to use Bigger for my then 10 year old 4th grader because I felt God nudging me to go a bit easier/slower with her. My then 1st grader used LHFHG. Well, shortly after starting our school year I was diagnosed with breast cancer. So schooling took a back seat to treatment for me. It quickly became obvious why I had felt lead to pick a curriculum that wasn't too challenging for my 10 year old I was so grateful to have found HOD because while I was in treatment other homeschooling mom friends took over a portion of my kids' schooling. It was so wonderful to just be able to hand the guides to a friend and they were able to pick up where I had left off.

Fast forward to this school year and for some reason I lost my head and decided not to use HOD! I thought I'd do fine just piecing things together myself, big mistake! So I'm wanting to start HOD again, ASAP! I'm trying to decide where to place my kids.

For the 11 year old (5th grade), she could go into either CTC or Res to Ref. Looking at the placement chart she fits into some of both. Currently she's about halfway through R&S 5. She's also in her 3rd year of doing IEW for writing and is using DITHOR 4/5 for reading. My concern with placing her in RTR is that she's never done any written narrations and her cursive writing is still slow and laborious.

My just turned 8 year old is in 2nd grade. He's an emerging reader, can read level 1 & 2 readers but it's still a hard process for him. I'm not sure what to say about his handwriting He can copy short sentences and write very short dictations. But he still has trouble with backwards/incorrectly written letters. I would just put in Beyond but I'm a bit concerned that he may find some of it boring or too young. We skipped over some things in LHFHG because they were too young for him, like the hand rhymes. But I don't think he's really ready for Bigger yet, although I thought about putting him in that half speed.

Thank you to anyone who wades through this and has any advice!!
Kendra

[MelInKansas]

It sounds like maybe you've already looked at the placement chart with these two kiddos in mind. It sounds like your instinct is for CTC and Beyond and from what I read I think that's a good idea. I think you'll find skipping from Bigger to CTC to be plenty challenging enough for that child, and as you know, reading, grammar, and math are all done at the child's level. The work in the other areas will be challenging and the amount of work required will definitely keep that one busy.

I think Beyond really fits a wider range of ages than LHFHG. It's poetry study instead of rhymes, and you're really starting to do good hands-on projects and things that challenge the child and reinforce the learning. You could increase the challenge by having your child try to follow the directions on their own instead of it all being teacher directed. The only thing I would say you might be "missing" is not doing daily science and the level of activities in Bigger Hearts. You've already done Bigger, so you know the level of writing/drawing required there and it sounds like your child isn't there yet. My oldest ended up in Bigger and was not ready for the writing workload and it was a struggle, and it doesn't get easier in the levels above so you really want to make sure the child is ready. Bigger 1/2 speed might also be an option, but I don't think you'll find Beyond to be too childish for your 8YO.

[Nealewill]

I agree with MelInKansas. I would place your oldest in CTC. In CTC, it still has instructional help for the written narrations and R2R doesn't (I don't think). Plus in R2R, you are doing a couple of written narrations per week (I think - one for history and one for science).

As for Beyond, we loved it! I do agree that the science may not seem very vigorous for this child's grade level but I do think the activities in Bigger may be too challenging and create frustration. There is a lot more writing and drawing in Bigger than there was in Beyond. And I don't think your younger child will find Beyond to babyish. My kids loved it and my oldest (who was 9 at the time and doing Preparing that year) would always come find me when I read history. She LOVED listening to me read those stories. The activities in Beyond are also just a lot of fun. Plus, doing the poetry copy work will really help strengthen your son's hands and get him ready for the volume of writing in Bigger. I personally think doing Bigger half speed would still seem kind of overwhelming if your child is ready for a lot of writing. There are writing activities on 4 out of the 5 days of plans (day 2 - science notebooking page, day 3 - vocabulary and science experiment, day 4 - copy the Bible passage, day 5 - history notebooking page). Where as with Beyond, your child copies the poem for the week. You should start out having that child copy the poem in his best hand writing for a minute or two a day. If you don't finish the poem, that is okay. You want his best. And each week you start with a new poem. Then you work it up as the year goes along to where that child is copying things for 5 minutes or even 10 minutes at a time by the end of the year. This helps kids tremendously with building up muscles and writing letters correctly. And Little Hearts does have some younger activities. I can see where your son would have felt like some of the things were babyish. I didn't feel like that about Beyond at all. I think it would have been totally appropriate for an 8 year old child.

[kidsforHim]

We are using Beyond with our 8yr DD and it feels just right, for both of us. She would like a bit more for science, she loves the activities/experiments and wishes for more. Although she actually placed in Bigger as well as Beyond, we went with Beyond as I felt the writing/drawing in science might be a bit much and could've potentially caused some headache and frustration for both of us. Also, I don't think she'd been ready for the history books used in Bigger. I need her to be able to totally do this. She is enjoying the history very much, the stories, activities, etc. She LOVES it. The books used for history, I believe, are actually 3rd-4th grade level anyways. My DD likes to write and I thought maybe the poetry copy work wouldn't be enough but it too, has been just right. There really is quite a bit that she has to watch for like commas, quotation marks, etc. things she wouldn't use in her own writing or at least properly and just the effort she puts into forming her letters nice and neat. It's just the right amount. In case it DID get tedious and become a problem I tucked away the advise I've read on the board to back off & not expect her to 'finish' the poem but rather focus on perfect copy work for x amount of minutes. Good advise! I think Nealewill mentioned that in her reply. She turned 8 when we started this school year and we were finishing up LHFHG and it WAS feeling too youngish for her but have not found that with Beyond. I think you'd be happy using Beyond.
Becky

[klynn]

Hi Melissa, You're correct that my instinct is CTC and Beyond. I'm glad to hear that CTC should keep my oldest busy, after having such a minimalist school year last year we need to push academics a bit more this year. I couldn't get a feel for Beyond just looking at the sample week on the website, so it helps to know that it shouldn't be too young for my 8 year old.

Thanks!

Kendra

[klynn]

Becky, thanks for reminding me about the history books in Bigger! I'd forgotten that my oldest had struggled a bit with those when she did Bigger. So I know my 8 year old couldn't handle them. It also helps to hear from someone whose child felt some of LHFHG was too young for them but Beyond fits well!
Thank you!

Kendra

[klynn]

Nealewill, it's good to know that CTC has instructional help for the written narrations. After reading more, I think CTC is the best fit for my oldest.

I was concerned about overwhelming my 8 year old with the writing required in Bigger. It's helpful to know your kids enjoyed Beyond. I will also remember the advise on copying poems, I can see where slowly working up to a longer time/more work will be beneficial.

Thank you!

Kendra

[my3sons]

You already received such sage advice here, and I think you have decided upon excellent placement for each of your dc by using CTC and Beyond! I am praising God that you are feeling better, and I am praying for a wonderful, rejuvenating, praise-filled homeschooling year for you and your dc! We have now used all of HOD's guides to date. HOD does an incredibly thorough job of preparing students for upper middle school and high school level work. I find the balance in the guides to be essential. There are no gaps with HOD when dc move sequentially from guide to guide, doing each skill as planned. That is why it is important your fifth grader does CTC instead of RTR. In helping others that used other curriculums and came to HOD later, I see that other curriculums often have gaps that widen as dc enter 7th and 8th grades or high school. More often than not, the gaps are a result of students having had no formal reading, writing, and/or grammar instruction. Often times, students have been read to in all subject areas and been able to do a huge portion of their work orally rather than written. It is difficult for them to take over reading history, science, higher level literature, etc. books at that point, as well as difficult for them to begin writing multiple times daily for many subject areas. With HOD in CTC, your fifth grader will be taught all of these skills, with specific guidelines and helps in the daily plans and Appendix to help move him along skill wise in these areas.

Another thing that proves difficult for students who come to HOD much later is often following written directions independently. It seems many students are used to mom giving all the directions personally and orally to them, one at a time. Often times, the students have never even held the actual guide/book with directions in it in their own hands! But rather the parent has read aloud the directions, holding the guide in her hands, with the student just listening, doing each step as he/she was told to do them. Learning to follow multiple step directions in a guide independently for at least some of the subject areas is essential for middle school students to do in order to be prepared for high school. Your 5th grade student will be learning all of these skills this year, and these skills will be stepping stones to the more difficult skills in the guides to follow. This is how the transition to high school can be made quite seamlessly and with great success. I cannot thank Carrie enough for her writing these important skills incrementally into her guides! I think you will find the guides to be such a help in these areas that are sometimes overlooked, and when your dc reach high school, like my ds has, you will be especially glad you taught these skills earlier on! I'm excited for you to return to HOD - and I hope you have a terrific year!

In Christ,
Julie

[klynn]

Thanks Julie, it's good to know that CTC is an important stepping stone to the higher guides and one we wouldn't do well in skipping over.

My 5th grader loves doing things independently and enjoyed using the Bigger guide last year to know what she needed to accomplish each day. She did most things in that guide independently (except storytime and something else I can't remember for sure) with just minimal oversight from me. She's missed being able to tackle schoolwork by herself this year, because without using HOD I'm back to directing everything and she has to wait for me to outline what she needs to do for each subject. So I'm sure she'll be excited when the CTC guide arrives in the mail!

Kendra