age/placement question with 2 kids

[rholliday]

Hi, I just recently discovered HOD thanks to a friend of mine and I instantly fell in love with it. I too have questions about placement if I could get some advice. I have 3 children ages 6, 4, and 2. I am planning on starting HOD in the fall, they will then be 6.5, 5, and 3. My 6 yo can read short easy reader books well and did horizons K math this year, she writes well too. My 4yo is learning to read right now. My plan was to do LHFHG and incorporate both of the older kids in most things with the exception being math, writing and phonics. My question is will my older one be bored since she is doing better with the reading/phonics thing and on the chart falls more into beyond. I know if I go up a level my son will be unable to participate in as much. I have not done any history or science yet with anyone so I am hoping that LHFHG will be a good level and challenge for both of the older kids while not being too easy or too challenging. Any advice or input would be great.
Renee

[Melanie]

Oh my no! The history, science, Bible, storytime and rhymes...oh the rhymes are awesome...are all sooooo perfect for a 6yo! And it is a very rich curriculum. My twins have recently turned 7 and it is still perfect. I'm actually a little sad that we're almost finished. OK...who am I kidding...I'm excited to be starting Beyond soon.

[inHistiming]

I think LHFHG would be fine. Your 6 year old can work at her own pace...if she's reading easy books she could continue with that, while you continue phonics with your younger child. You could do the same with Math; use the first grade level for 6yo and whatever level your 4yo fits into... maybe Early bird Kindergarten? The guide for Little Hearts is written for 5-7 yo's, so there should be plenty for your 6yo; and enough 'space' for your 4yo to grow into it. You may even want to go more slowly and extend to 2 years; some of us are doing that. These are just my thoughts right now..I'm sure more suggestions will come in the next days.

[mom2boys030507]

Welcome Renee,

Little Hearts sounds great for both of your children. We are in the middle right now and it is fun and challenging. I would recommend using different levels of A Reason for Handwriting and the different levels of Thinking Skills. You can continue on with Horizons math or switch to Singapore. As far as writing, I have my son do copy work instead of a writing curriculum - he pretty much cries at seeing a writing book. He copies the bible memory verse every week and sometimes writes in a journal. This gives him wonerful opportunties to write and be creative - he also loves to write. When your daughter finishes phonics I would move her into the emergent reader set. HTH

Welcome to the HOD family.

[jamieswife]

I needed to choose between Little and Beyond Little for my two boys and decided to go with Beyond. The younger one hasn't had any trouble keeping up at all....and both boys have their own individual math and language at their own levels. It has worked really well for us!

[inHistiming]

I also want to add that all my dc LOVE A Reason for Handwriting! In the higher levels (not K) Day 5 consists of writing the verse on a border sheet, decorating it, then giving/mailing it to someone to share. It is a true joy to watch them having a good time with writing, and the bible verse is memorized by Day 5, too!

[Candice]

Hi Renee,

Welcome, so glad to have you here!

Candice

[Carrie]

Renee,

I just wanted to pop in and welcome you! The ladies have done a wonderful job of answering your questions!

I would agree that if you want to keep your kiddos together for most subjects, you'll need to do "Little Hearts...". The target age-range for "Little Hearts..." is ages 5-7.

As the ladies already mentioned, you could just do the higher level of Thinking Skills, handwriting, and math for your older child (or continue on with Horizons math if it's working well for you) and do the younger levels for your younger child.

Once your older child is pretty much done with phonics and emerging as a reader, you'd want the "Beyond..." guide for the Emerging Reader Schedule in the Appendix. One other option would be to use the "Beyond..." guide just for spelling and language arts and math 1A/1B lessons if you desired for your older child and then you could use the rest of "Beyond..." for history, science, Bible, and storytime the following year with both kiddos.

Let us know what you're thinking. You really can't go wrong!

Blessings,
Carrie

[rholliday]

Ok, Carrie responded to my post as well as many others about placing 2 kids. With the idea of using LHFHG for most with each one doing their own math, handwriting and phonics then the option was presented to purchase Beyond to do with the older one for only LA and spelling. I have some questions about what this would look like.
1. I have not been able to see any examples online regarding spelling and LA, I am assuming they are pretty thorough, just based on how the rest of the program is set up, any input or comments on these 2 areas?
2. If I use both books using beyond only for LA and spelling how would that work regarding the copywork and how it overlaps with the poetry/rhyme section of beyond?
3. What does this mean then when I am done with LHFHG and moving into beyond, does it mean that I then have to purchase the next level up again for LA and spelling, therefore always working from 2 manuals and ahead in that area and is that a problem? It seems like it would be an inconvenience, I like just having one book and not ALWAYS working out of 2 different levels, any input or comments on that idea or how it works?
4. If I did this idea, what else would I need to start out besides just the guidebook?
5. Off that topic a little bit, in LHFHG the story time set lists books in the package set, however in the guidebook list of needed resources it has Uncle Wiggily favorite bedtime stories listed as necessary however this book is not listed in any of the package stuff.
6. In LHFHG the daily plans have listed pages and activities for some of the options (ie, science=the world God made, bible=family time bible, thinking skills=R&S do it carefully) What if I choose the other options for these as listed in the package (ie science=our fathers world, bible= 101 favorite stories from the bible, thinking=thinking skills master series) Where are the text references for these books?
Ok, I think that is all my questions for the moment, I truly do love the looks of this program. I just want to make sure I am getting the right levels and working it out right so as not to be wasteful and/or redundant.
Thank you so much for all your input it has been invaluable, I am so excited and feel so blessed to have found this curriculum.
Thanks again,
Renee
rholliday@indy.rr.com

[Kathleen]

Renee,

I just wanted to say hi and welcome to HOD!

I'm really no help in answering any of your questions...sorry.

Kathleen

[shera]

As far as using the 2 manuals is concerned it isn't to hard. In the back of the Beyond manual there are 2 spelling lists per week. You could do list 1 this yr and list 2 next yr when you would be doing Beyond for History. My guess is list 1 is on level with a first grader and list 2 for a second grader. The LA is very gentle. About once a week you will introduce this is what a sentence is, this is a fragment. Then Mom says a sentence or fragment and the child tells you which one it is. I assume in later levels you get more in depth on these topics.
2. As far as copywork and it overlapping with the poetry, you could do the poetry section in Beyond as well or do different copywork for this yr. You could copy the memory verse for example or some sentences out of the storytime.
3. Once you get up to Preparing multiple levels of LA and math are scheduled so you are really only looking at 2 yrs using multiple manuals. The way I am trying to shorten this is by filling in with other books. My ds is using Beyond for LA and Math so I purchased some cheap workbooks from Walmart for math in addition to Singapore. This slows us down in Singapore. I am using only one spelling list.
4. If you are just looking at using Beyond for LA and spelling than all you need is the guidebook
6. The text references are in the appendix in the back of the guidebook.

HTH
Sarah