LHFHG-1.5 years...Do It Carefully

[georgiamomof3]

Due to laziness on my part, my ds (6) will just finish with half of LHFHG by the end of this school year (kindergarten). I do not think he will be ready to move to the next guide by 1st grade, so I've decided to finish LHFHG next year. My question is this: When do I start using the first grade Thinking Skills? Should I finish the Do it Carefully then move straight into the Thinking Skills and plow through it until we are 'caught' up to where it's scheduled in the guide? So far, Do it Carefully is a bit too easy for him, so I have no problems continuing with it and moving on to Thinking Skills. I was just wondering how I complete one book and start the other while keeping up with the plans in the guide.

Was that clear as mud??

Thanks in advance for all your help!

JoAnna
DD,9-Preparing, DITHOR
DS, 6-LHFHG
DS, 4-LHTH

[inHistiming]

We just started LHFHG...today, actually...and I wondered the same thing. My ds is still working in Finding the Answers. We are only doing the manual at half-speed, so I intend to have him work in FTA on the days we do left-side plans, and Thinking Skills as scheduled on the days we do right-side plans. This will allow us to finish both by the time we finish the manual...and FTA probably well before because he always does at least two pages when he works in that one. I think you could probably have him do a page in each one each day without it being too much.... HTH

[Kathleen]

I don't think I'd worry about adding the Thinking Skills book if the others will take you until you finish the guide. I know that the point is that your child is working on fine motor skills at this age...and I don't think there's a huge difference in the 2. At least not enough to feel like you need to order it if you still have work in the others to do.

I was slowing LHFHG way down with my 5 yo this year and letting her little brother tag along. I wanted her to still move forward in phonics & math & fine motor skills though, so we have 2 little tabs to mark where we are in the guide. One for where we are for the history & fun stuff...and one for the 3 basics I mentioned. It works fine for me to just move ahead my tab in more than one place in the guide, and you could do that if you desired to.

But, if it were me...I wouldn't mess with it and just finish what you already have to work through. As long as you move ahead you will be just fine!

Kathleen

[moedertje]

We did LHFHG for Pre-K and used the Do it carefully and Finding the Answers (R&S), so when we got to Beyond we found that ds could still benefit from the fine motor activities. So we did the Thinking skills book. I just looked at the guide to see how often it was scheduled and wrote it in the front of the book. I think if I remember correctly is was scheduled 3 times a week. He actually really enjoyed it and it covered some other great skills.

On another note, I was wondering if you have considered started your dc at 1/2 speed in the next guide so you do not need to have a great big gap between guides. Reason being I did not know about the 1/2 speed thing when we started LHFHG so I did my own thing for 2 months till my son had reached the age to get into the guide. He misses the official school cut off by 2 months. I am working on getting him in the middle age range of the guides before we get to CTC. We are doing Bigger at 1/2 speed for now doing 1 unit in 2 weeks. We are in unit 6 and I think we might do this for 2-3 more units than switch to doing a 4 day week with Friday as a catch up day!
Success with your decision!