Bigger Hearts

[amarie]

We're in our third week of Bigger, and I love it. My son is really enjoying it, too, and I sincerely mean enjoying. We took the first two weeks half-speed to ease into it, but I'm thinking he is ready/able to do it full speed now, or at least on most days. He is not ready for cursive instruction yet, and I cut down what he actually has to write b/c his hand still gets tired/hurts at times with a lot of writing. His coloring and drawing are still similar to that of my four year old's, but I was very impressed/encouraged at the history notebooking activity we did last week in unit 1. I was worried it would be stressful, and it was a bit at the beginning, but when he was done, he felt so proud of himself, and it is neat enough that I can make it out and read it, so I'm ok with that. Also, instead of doing 3 vocabulary words, he does one, and we do all of grammar orally. His fine motor skills seem to be the only area where we struggle a bit, but I expect that this will improve and progress nicely as the year goes on, just without the cursive instruction. Anyhow, my question is, will this hinder him in any way for when we do the next guide? Would it be to our advantage to stay half-speed until his fine motor skills catch up? Also, my husband is a pastor and takes Mondays off, so we have only been doing school 4 days a week. I hesitate to do half-speed four days a week. I've tried doing school on Saturdays before, maybe we will again, but it was really like pulling teeth. Plus I like to have room for swim lessons, library time, and errands without our days feeling like they are spinning out of control. If anybody has any thoughts on this, or wants to share what works for them, I'd really enjoy reading.

Also, is it ok to diction on a dry erase board?

Thanks,
Amy

[pjdobro]

Hmmm, that is somewhat of a dilemma. You will have that extra 9 weeks of time by doing Bigger 4 times a week instead of 5. That will give extra time for your ds to grow in his fine motor skills. I've heard Julie and Carrie both say how it is important that by the time you get to the end of one guide that your dc be doing everything in the guide as written to be able to successfully proceed to the next guide. If you feel he is ready to go full-speed in Bigger, then I would go ahead, but I would continue to work towards having him do a little more writing as time goes on so that by the time you get to the end of Bigger, he is doing all of the writing normally done. We just started Preparing today so we're really not far enough into for me to say how much more writing there is in Preparing, but I know it is going to be more. We're going from 1 to 3 vocabulary words to 3-5 vocabulary words, doing a written narration, answering science questions, etc. If you want to look ahead to what lies ahead in Preparing, here is a link that compares the writing in Bigger vs. Preparing: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3602 My dc, especially my ds, have been slower in their fine motor development and it took a bit of time for them to grow into the writing in Bigger, but we continued to add more as the year progressed and ended the year doing everything required. I think they are ready for Preparing. I guess we'll see here pretty soon. The wonderful thing is that if they do struggle a bit, we can always slow down to half-pace for a while and you can too. So I think go at the pace that you feel is right, continue to work on those fine motor skills, and enjoy your year.

[Daph]

My daughter is really loving it too! She's on the high range for the book, and I'm having her do some things on her own, but the content and instruction, on the left side especially, have been wonderful! She's retaining information now, and it's very exciting to see! Right now, she's singing, 'Holy, Holy, Holy' for the second time today. She gets excited about poetry and music. I'm excited that it's good, solid instruction without being complicated. And if I want to add something, I have room to do it.

[amarie]

Thanks for your help. You know, I realized today that he may be more capable of doing more writing and things than I expected. He happily wrote/copied several sentences from the grammar book in a notebook, which I really thought would be a struggle for him. Going "full-speed," yesterday went very well, but today by the science notebooking activity he was tired and had that glossed-over look. He worked hard and got it done, but it was definitely the low part of our school time. It is hard to figure out how much to push and how much to ease up, and how much to help/do for him (as in writing the Bible verse at the top of the notebook page so he can focus on the drawings and labeling without getting stressed out). I'll keep researching older threads on similar topics, and when his mom-this-is-too-much-for-me signs start popping up more and more (they're easy to spot), I'll know we need to ease up a bit.

Daph, I'm glad your daughter likes it! My son has been feeling embarrassed to practice the hymn with me, so I let him go in his room to learn it. His little brother (4) tags along, so I'm looking forward to the day when I catch them singing it around the house...or at least seeing their eyes light up when we sing it at church.
Amy