Doubling up with a 4 and 6 yo?

[joyouslymom]

So, Hi!
I am Marci (former kinder teacher and now homeschooling my own children.) We have a 5.5 yo daughter, a 3.5 yo son and an almost 2 yo daughter... and aren't finished yet.
We're currently doing Slow and Steady Get Me Ready with the 2 little ones and Phonics Museum and other random curriculums with my older dd. But, am wanting to switch to HOD next fall or once we finish the "core" material we have.

But, the planner in me has a few questions...

Has any one ever doubled up with this curr. with a 4 and 6 yo?
How did that work for you?
Was it too hard for the 4 yo or too easy for the 6 yo?

Next fall I am thinking of using it when I have my four year old son (who is all boy and lower acheiving, at 3 he is now just starting to talk well in sentences and is learning color names and shapes) and with my daughter who will be 6 and is all girl and already reading at 5. How do you think they'd do doing it together?

Honestly I have several concerns... and am not sure what to do...
1. My dd would probably be better place in Beyond as this year we are doing a year of cementing in phonics and math skill with independent programs... so I don't want to bore her with more of that.

2. If my little boy isn't near reading next year (which I don't think he will be) would Little Hearts just be pushing him too much?

3. I guess my third option would be to do Beyond with my then 6 yo, and group my 4 yo ds and 3 yo dd together and do Little Hands... even though I'd normally not worry about teaching a 3 yo... Or I could wait a whole other year before introducing anything???

What would you do?

Thanks for any advice or perspective on this...

[Samuel'sMommy]

I only have one so I don't have any experience in combining. But, I am currently using LHFHG with my 5 year old. He was 4 when we started and has done great with it. One good thing about the way the guide is set up is that you could do the left side of the guide and storytime together and then do the right side on their own level. They would be doing the same topics for history, science, bible, and storytime, but would be working at their own level for math, handwriting/fine motor skills, and phonics. There are schedules in the appendix for the 1st or 2nd grade science book, Singapore 1A & 1 B or 2A & 2B. There are also Kindergarten or 1st grade options for handwriting/fine motor skills. So those could be easily tailored to what they need individually. Phonics isn't actually scheduled other than a reminder to do a phonics lesson so you would be able to go at whatever pace worked for them. If your daughter was already reading well, you could get the Beyond guide and have her do the emerging readers that are scheduled in the appendix while still doing LHFHG for everything else. I'm going to be doing that with my son in a couple of months when we finish our current phonics program. There are also several supplemental books listed for each unit in the appendix that go along with the history so you could add those in for your daughter if you felt she needed more. So, I definitely think you could combine them if you needed to.

[joyouslymom]

That's a good idea! Thanks!

[amethyst rain]

I have a 4 and 6 year old. There is no way my 4 yo would get out of this curriculum what he should. He is doing LHTH right now along with practicing writing his name, address and phone number.

[Carrie]

joyouslymom,

We're glad to have you here! I'll move your post over to the Main Board where more moms will see it, as all new posts begin on the Main Board.

Blessings,
Carrie

[mom24boys]

I am combining my ds5 and ds6.5 in LHFHG just as the previous poster suggested. ds6.5 is doing the LA, Reading, and Math from Beyond (the right hand side). So they are doing their own level of reading/phonics/LA and math and then sharing on the history/science/art/music/rhymes/storytime. IMO, I think 4 would be too young, especially for a boy that might need a gentle intro into academia and might have a hard time sitting still. My ds5 is doing well (we're on day 3), but he does not listen as well and can not answer the storytime questions without a lot of leading. I think it's okay, I just think he is going to need to grow into it.

Combining your two closer kids sounds like a great idea to me. He sounds like a perfect fit for LHFH. Check out the placement chart, but a lot of mommy's think it's actually easier to NOT combine because the books are at the right level for each kid (no real tweaking to be done).

HTH!

[MamaPajama]

I'm curious how your daughter does with listening to readings. Can she sit and listen to chapter books without pictures and narrate back to you? I totally thought my son (6.5) was ready for Beyond this year and bought the whole curriculum. After the first two days I realized it was going to be too much for him. The subject matter itself wasn't over his head, but sitting for the readings took too long for his attention span. I believe it was Julie (my3sons) who said that these guides are deceptively difficult. When you glance at the lesson plans they appear to be much easier than they actually are. We have now switched DS to Little Hearts and it's a much better fit! Since he is first grade, though, I have been supplementing the spelling list from the Beyond manual, and next year when he actually does Beyond we'll use the 2nd grade list. This seems to be working quite well.

Also, I definitely would not put your DS in Little Hearts yet. I tried for a day or two to do Little Hearts with my DD (4.5) who is quite bright, thinking that if I could combine them that would be best, but it did not work for her in the least. Like DS, she's just not ready to tackle that amount of reading yet. I'm okay with that because she LOVES Little Hands, and so does our DD2. I am doing phonics instruction (The Reading Lesson), handwriting (A Reason for Handwriting K) and math (Math-U-See Primer) with her as well, but very slowly. She completely dictates how much of those extras we do.

Anyway, just thought I'd share my experience. One thing a good friend and seasoned homeschooler told me not too long ago also was that many kids don't even touch history, science, geography, etc. until 2nd or 3rd grade, so consider those things a fun extra at this age. No need to push it too early. The main thing is to focus on the 3Rs. Good luck!

[mrsrandolph]

I would not put a 4 year old in Little Hearts. That would be too young. I will tell you that running 2 guides when one of them is Little Hands To Heaven is NOT hard at all. So I would encourage you to look at doing LHTH with your 4 year old and LHFHG with your 6 year old. You might be able to combine them easily in later guides.

[MomtoJGJE]

What will their ages be in the fall? Will your dd be closer to 7? How is she with writing? I know a lot can change in just a few months with these little ones.... but there is a LOT of listening (compared to LHFHG) and a HUGE amount of writing compared to LHFHG.

I would suggest to do whichever program your dd fits into best at the time, and then do LHTH with your son.... and since your #3 is a girl, she might do great with you combining her into LHTH.

I'm planning at the moment to start LHFHG in January with my then 6 and 4 year old.... but we've been doing LHTH and working hard at fine motor skills to get DD3 ready for it. And it helps that my 6yo is very content to hang back and go slowly with school stuff even though she doesn't need to... I have less fights from her that way. So we'll be going half speed (left side one day, right side the next) for a while. I'm planning on LHFHG taking a full 18 months. But if my #3 wasn't completely ready to start real school I definitely wouldn't combine them. But she's already writing a lot, figuring out phonics on her own and absolutely begging every day to do school, and then constantly wanting more. She can sit and listen just as well as my older two (in fact my oldest is my worst listener)