Do you follow a "school Year" or your own?

[rose411]

I'm just wondering if more people follow a typical "school year" (new grade in September that lasts until the next summer) or start the next level of curriculum when they want to. My son would not start public school kindergarten until next year, so I still torn between doing the entire LHFHG pages each day, or just doing the handwriting/math/phonics for now, and then add the left side (history/science/bible devotions&memory verse) next fall along with the first grade math/
emerging readers (if ready)/handwriting and story time.

I highly doubt he would be ready for all the work in Beyond at the age of 5.5 next fall. It seems much more advanced than LHFHG.

Any recommendations would help!

[kiloyd]

I follow a "typical" school year, late Aug to June as you described. My dd turned 5 last week and we are using LHTH. She might have been ready for some of LHFHG but I figured she was young I'd keep it slow. I also sometimes buy her cheap workbooks to do, she likes to do them because her big brother is in 3rd grade and she sees him do work.

My ds did Beyond last year for 2nd grade. I think it is a bit much for first grade. But I do have a friend that did Beyond for her dd in 1st grade. She skipped things that her dd wasn't quite ready for and is doing it again this year for 2nd and her dd is doing much better.

It's tough for these children with fall birthdays. I don't want to get my dd too far ahead.

I dont' know if what I posted was much help to you, I feel like I'm rambling. Keep doing what you're doing if it works for you.

Katherine

[Shimmer]

Our school year will probably follow the norm of ps unless it doesn't seem to be working well for my kids. I wouldn't care if they changed grades or guides in the middle of the year if needed. Only after hanging out on this board and talking to other homeschoolers am I able to get my mind around being this flexible. lol.. It's hard to go against the grain of public school at first!

I think your plan of sounds good and similar to what I'm doing. My oldest will be 5 next month so she would be ps K next year too. I think she was ready for LHFHG this year, but she is doing LHTH with her 3 year old sister. We do her "Kindergarten" in the afternoons so she gets K math, blue Learning Language Arts through Literature (which is supposed to be 1st grade), and phonics - 100 Easy Lesson, plus some additional handwriting. It takes about 1 hour or a little longer and it seems to be a good fit. If I didn't have a sibling close in age, I would have started her on LHFHG and just gone slow if she had trouble. I think she would be able to do LHFHG and Beyond being at the young age of the guides, but I've heard there is a jump between Beyond and Bigger so maybe being in the middle of the guides for ages will make an easier transition.

I anticipate doing the history side of LHFHG next year with the Math and Emerging Readers from Beyond. She'll always be a guide off in LA and math with this path, but that is fine with me. I'm not sure what to think about her her maybe being ahead of her ps peers as we're open to her going to public school in later years, but it seems common for homeschool kids to be ahead. I try to remember to just get the right fit for right now and everything else will work out in time. Hope that helps!

[krismoose]

We started LHFHG when ds was 4.5. in May. We did it half-speed at first, taking 2 days to cover one of the guide days. Then we started doing math & phonics daily, doing the left side of the day & storytime every other day. We're now doing a full day every time we do school, and ds has been fine with it. He just turned 5 this past week, and we're on unit 13, so we'll just have to see how he's doing when we get to Beyond. He'll be young, so maybe we'll go half-speed for awhile again. School only takes 60-90 minutes at the most right now, so we generally do it 4-5 days a week, and just take breaks as needed (special day with dad, family trips, etc.) We live in Southern Arizona, where it's too hot to play outside past 8 in the morning, so we discovered this past summer that school helped us to keep busy inside. We have lots more outside playtime now, and I know we'll still make fine progress taking days off for the park etc. this fall & winter. Your plan sounds good, to do the basics now and the history side next year with whatever his level for math, reading & writing. I might have done that, but my son loves to be read to and was ready to start listening to more stories with fewer pictures, so it was a good fit. HTH

[creekmama]

My husband is a college professor, so we sort of follow his schedule. We started a few weeks earlier than he did because August was so hot. School was a good indoor activity for us. We've slowed down a bit during the last few weeks for fall break, beautiful weather, and other distractions. We'll be hitting school hard again later this week. We're on week 9 of LHFHG.

[SoaringEagle]

No, we just do our own thing. 4-5 weeks of school, then 1 week off, with some variation. I know we'll take the month of June off and maybe start math up in July and the rest of the program in the beginning August. Won't start school with my son till after Labor Day though.

[my3sons]

I'm just wondering if more people follow a typical "school year" (new grade in September that lasts until the next summer) or start the next level of curriculum when they want to.

We've done both. We do school from Sept. to May usually, though we don't follow the school schedule for start dates, vacation dates, or end dates. My oldest is on a Sept. to May schedule for starting and finishing an HOD guide. My middle ds has done a lot of different schedules. He did LHTH in a year from Sept. to May, but we took a year and a half to do LHFHG. We'll take about 12 months to finish Beyond (since we did it half-speed for awhile at first), and we'll take probably around 12 months to finish Bigger Hearts too (since we'll start it half-speed when we finish Beyond this year, probably in Jan. With our third ds, we're doing LHTH half-speed, and will probably take 2 years to go through it. This is working great for him. Anyway, my point is, all of this has worked just fine! So, there is a lot of flexibility there.

As far as a recommendation for you, I'd say if your ds is ready to do LHFHG full-speed, I'd do it with him. If it's too difficult for him to do it full-speed, I'd slow it down to half-speed doing left side of plans one day and right side the next day, but still do phonics and possibly math daily. If he is able to do it full-speed now, I wouldn't worry about him starting Beyond early. If he did well with LHFHG, he'll be prepared to do well with Beyond, and you can always do Beyond half-speed otherwise. That is what we did, and it has been working so well. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

[Saved-Eagle]

I start school in the mid to end of July and go thru 1st week of June. My son has alot of appointments and I figure those days as off days, so it takes us alittle longer to complete our "school year". I have thought about starting a new year in January instead of July..but I just haven't done it yet..lol Don't know if I ever will.

[sarathan]

We follow a typical school year with starting a new grade in September and finishing in June. I do this *only* because my dh is a public school teacher and it works for us to do school around his work schedule. In a perfect world, I would actually prefer to school year-round with frequent breaks. Sometimes I feel a little stressed trying to fit everything in in 9 months, but it's not too bad.

[mariaw]

I follow year-round school "loosely"--meaning, we just keep continuing to do school, but allow time off for sickness, "life", good weather (which does NOT happen in the summer on the Gulf Coast!), or whatever. We end up finishing about 1 book a year, but I don't stress about it anymore. The only subject I'm somewhat militant on is math--I don't want to inadvertently fall behind on that.

[Kathleen]

We take the summers off, so our "school year" is pretty close to what the schools around here do. I'm not however worried about finishing a guide per "year" though. My oldest will finish his because he's right in the middle of the age range and it's working great, but with my younger 2, I'm wanting to stretch things out so that they're 8 and 10 when we get to Preparing. HOD is VERY flexible and our plan is working great! (Even though we're only 3 months into it. )

We're spreading LHFHG out by doing the Reading About History box and the rotating one right under it one day and then the Bible Study and Storytime the next day. We all do the Rhymes and Music every day. Allison (my 5 yo) does phonics, math and fine motor skills every day, too. Garret just hangs out and colors and cuts and does the math activities with us. He'll do that part of the plans when he's older.

Kathleen

[MomtoJGJE]

We start with the school year kinda... sometime late July / early August... we take breaks off when we want to and work on Saturday's when we want to. After we get finished and until the next school year starts we do unit studies. Last summer we did geography, summer before we did lighthouses, who knows where life will take us this next year!

OK, hit submit too soon

I'm the friend who did Beyond last year and again this year. My DD is 6.5 now, and we are re-doing first grade math because it got a little sketchy at the end for her and I wanted it to be more solid before moving on. She's doing great with it for first grade with emerging readers, the second spelling list, and the 2nd grade science. Basically we are doing it as written.

My almost 5yo is doing fantastic with LHFHG on the K level and we'll do it again with 1st grade stuff next year... and because of that I'm not stressing if we miss a lesson on the left side.

My 3yo is doing LHTH with the 'youngers' parts whenever she wants to. Typically about 3 times a week she'll want to do school too. We are planning on it taking 2 years to go through it twice once now with it just being whenever and not doing all the activities or stories and then going through it again daily doing all of it with the 'olders' parts. She already knows her letters and sounds, numbers and counting, and colors, but it's great for basic Bible stories and getting her started with school.

[creativemommy]

My son is doing LHFHG at age 6 this year. We follow a typical school year (last week of August - first week of June) taking off days for various holidays, family vacations & activities, etc. It's our first year and it seems to be working well so far. For reporting purposes in our school district, it works well to have him on a regular school year calendar when I have to send in the paperwork.

We're doing both sides of the guide with all the first grade options even though this is his "Kindergarten" school year in regards to his placement. I didn't feel he was ready for everything in Beyond when I looked at the placement guide but I knew in math & phonics he was past the kindergarten materials listed so we're using our own. It's working out really well and he enjoys doing everything.

Last year he could have done LHFHG with the kindergarten resources, but I opted to just use 100 Easy Lessons and MUS Primer "just for fun." It was relaxed and a nice way to "ease" into doing school full-time at home this year.

I'm sure whatever you decide will be fine. You know your child best!