HOD with a younger K?

[Heidi in AK]

My DD will have just turned 5 when she is eligible to start K, and I've been reading posts about doing LHFHG at half speed. Since she's young and we haven't done LHTH yet, I'm thinking I'll start her in K with LHTH, and then do LHFHG later when she will technically be in 1st. The thing is, she'll be 6 her entire first grade year, and so she'll be in the middle of each of the guides rather than at the older side of them. Developmentally, she is a bit behind socially but not academically, so this is a bit of a concern for me because I don't want to run into a logjam academically once she starts to level out.

Is this the right way to think about progressing through the guides, and what suggestions would you make? I've listed her ages at each appropriate "grade" to help you out with where she'd be...

Thinking backward...
(what is the geography guide everyone keeps discussing?)
Rev to Rev - 7th grade (age 12)
RTR - 6th grade (age 11)
CTC - 5th grade (age 10)
Preparing - 4th grade (age 9)
Bigger - 3rd grade (age
Beyond - 2nd grade (age 7)
LHFHG - 1st grade (age 6)
and I think we're going to do LHTH as well as some other stuff for K, since it is our first year homeschooling. I have plenty of workbooks, but we're just going to have fun with it and move through LHTH. DD will be a young Ker, and always young for her grade. So, as recommended, I'd like to allow her to be at the upper edge of the guide, though I'm not sure how to do that. I've listed her ages above. Is there a way to extend things so that she will be at the upper end of the guide, rather than at the middle?

Compounding this is that I have a DS who is almost 3 years younger than her. Would it be advisable to think of combining guides? I see that we can do that later, although he'll be at the younger age of the guides and I don't want him to skip any of the guides...

[arstephia]

Hi Heidi,
My dd is currently the same age your yours will be in terms of age/grade, so I have walked this road. I am cutting/pasting what I recently posted to someone else. While I had to go back and finish Little Hearts, it has been fine. Look at the placement chart. If she already knows her letters, Little Hands would be too easy.

What I ran into was this - I started LHFHG a little late in Kindergarten. I then bought Beyond to use in First Grade. Well, when first grade came we started into Beyond and it was too much for my dd. Rather than plod through it, I shelved the box and returned to finish LHFHG. Now if I pulled out Beyond today, she'd be ready but I am glad I went back to where I left off in LHFHG. She will enjoy Beyond all the more next year. So I have ended up doing a slower pace through LHFHG and just working on our reading and math skills, and enjoying great books. I did go buy the 1st grade options since we were doing first grade even though we didn't finish the K workbooks and it was fine - like for science and math, the thinking skills book and the handwriting. For the handwriting and thinking skills we started at the beginning of the first grade book and just systematically worked through it, sometimes more than one page a day. It didn't match up to the unit/day's box, but it wasn't a big deal. We just did whatever pages we needed when those books were assigned. For Science, whatever we don't cover in this book we will just read on our own this summer for our own enjoyment. We will do Beyond for 2nd grade.

BTW, my other hesitation was that doing Beyond in 1st grade would put her in Preparing as a 3rd grader. My current 5th grader is doing Preparing and she is learning so much more than she would have had we been doing it in 3rd grade. Her comprehension and understanding of the big picture is better. So by holding off and doing Bigger in 2nd grade, my younger dd will hit Preparing at 4th grade, which will make a big difference. So you have to look at the long term placements too.

[Heidi in AK]

Thanks, Stephanie! I did see your post in the other thread and I appreciate your weighing in. DD does know her letters, so I struggle with redoing them through LHTH, but Carrie did suggest we start there. I'm leaning toward doing the fingerplays two or three times together as we do the Bible stories, plus all the Earlybird material for K as well as some Burgess bird books, so that when we get through LHTH (more for the fun rather than for the learning), also because DD likes the art, science, and devotions.

I am just wanting to make sure I can plan what we are going to do for her K year. I know people stress the skills needed for upper guides, and I want to set DD up for success.

Since I agree with you about DD's skill set, is it reasonable to expect we can stall with LHTH during K to wait till she's 6 to start LHFHG? Or should I do LHFHG at 1/2 speed?

[Samuel'sMommy]

Heidi,
I think your plan looks great. You asked about the geography guide -- after Rev to Rev, Carrie will be doing one more guide for 8th grade which will be about modern times. We don't know the title yet. Then, she has said that she will be doing a geography guide that will be worthy of high school credit. So, the pacing you have will work out great for getting your DD to the guides at the right times.

My son started LHFHG when he was 4 1/2 so we did it at half speed for about a year and are now going full speed so he will be finishing it up at the end of K. I was going to just do one guide per year from here on out, but after getting the Beyond guide and looking through it and looking at samples of the older guides, I think I'm going to stretch Beyond and Bigger out to take 3 years instead of 2. I'm not sure right now if I'm going to make Beyond take 2 years or take 1 1/2 years for each guide, but I'll get that worked out. Anyway, I wanted him to be on a similar schedule to what you have planned and this is the easiest way for me to do it.

One more thing you may not have thought of...since you said your daughter already knows her letter sounds and you are planning on supplementing anyway, you could do LHTH with the right side (learning the basics) of LHFHG. I would leave the storytime box for the following year, but you could do the K options for handwriting, fine motor skills, phonics, and math. Then the following year when you do LHFHG for 1st grade you could just use the 1st grade options for those subjects and it wouldn't cause any problems with your scheduling.

Hope that helps!

[Mommamo]

I started LHFHG when dd was 4.5 and it was a perfect fit. We went through it at normal pace, and then started Beyond at 5.5. She did fine but life happened and it put her not starting Bigger until nearly 7. Now it looks like we may finish up Bigger at 8 because of having a new baby and again, life. All this is to say not to worry too much. Just do the placement chart and see where it puts her. You can always slow down later if you need to.