What to do between Little Hands and Little Hearts

[jnjlangston]

I started doing Little Hands with my 3 year old son this year and we both love it! This is my first child homeschooling so it is nice to have all the information I need right there. My son asks about doing preschool every day. He loves it so much and wants more and more! We will be finishing up with Little Hands in about 6 weeks and I am wondering what we are to do next. He turns four in May, so I really don't think that we should be starting Little Hearts until he is 5. But I'm not so sure about repeating Little Hands. I'm fearful that it may get boring. I am wondering what other families have done. My son does recognize his letters fairly well, but we have focused a lot on Uppercase letters. He could use work on lowercase letters. He knows his colors and shapes. He is good at counting up to 12 but he doesn't recognize most of the numbers. I am thinking that maybe we could use Little Hands and then just use the older kids resources for the Bible and devotional. But I feel like there needs to be more or something different. Any suggestions would help. Thanks!

[twolittlebears]

I actually ran into the same problem! I am just finishing up Little Hearts and my son is 7, so we took a long break doing other things. Here's what we did as it may be helpful: we read lots of books! We began slowly working through Rod and Staff workbooks when he turned 4-5. Then we tried out Five In A Row and did that off and on. We also did My Father's World K, tried some books from the Ambleside Online site, pulled books off Sunlight's booklist for K/1st, and then I felt he was ready for Little Hearts! Now we are about to move into Beyond and it's been perfect for us!
For me, I knew God wanted me on the HOD path, but we needed some fillers, and the things we tried we excellent too! There's some amazing curriculum out there. I'm so glad God has provided so much for us at this time. If I could do over, I wouldn't change a thing, because I think I needed to try out things to get my feet wet and to be ready to jump in full force with him now. My oldest was on the same path, we've tried other things until he was ready to dive into Bigger, and it's been great prep work for us all.
Five in a Row is super sweet and great for your sons age..you could do Before Five in a Row.
Blessings!!

[StephanieU]

I would definitely try repeating LHTH again, adding in some early PreK workbooks. We have used ones from big box stores as well as Rod and Staff. Both are good options.
My youngest has done parts of LHTH three or four times now and still enjoys it. This time we will likely actually complete it, as the first few times we natally gave up after 3 to 5 units because combining the younger two just didn't work well. But we have read the Bible through multiple times, and she still enjoys it! Same for the devotional. We modify some activities, but the meat of LHTH is easy to repeat!

[jnjlangston]

Thanks so much for your suggestions and encouragement! I appreciate it! I have actually heard of Before Five in a Row and we have done those already, but could definitely review them as they are all wonderful books! I have looked into the Rod and Staff books and am excited to maybe use them along with doing LHTH again next year. I also have the list of Sonlight books so I will probably start to incorporate reading some of those. It helps to have a list of quality books to read rather than just picking any book at the library! Thanks again!

[jmh]

I have had this same question. I wish Carrie could write one more book in btween these 2.