Hit a wall with combining?

[queenireneof3]

Thank you! After praying and waiting on God about uncombining, He seems to have directed us to keep combined for now. I've decided to take Stephanie's advice and start doing separate storytimes. With some new strategies for keeping the kids' attentions focused, they are able to work hard together instead of distracting each other. I love their friendship and and how keeping them combined fosters that. Thank you!

[queenireneof3]

Hello again...

Digging up this old post since I am still thinking this through. I reread everyone's responses and have a few more questions.

Both of my kids (ds 8yo, 9 in June and dd 6, 7 in May) are still combined in Beyond. We are in unit 23. My ds will definitely be ready to move up to Bigger. He is enjoying Beyond now but could be doing Bigger if I had placed him there.

My ds is the one I am concerned about. She places in Beyond now, but is at the young end. Her writing has not developed to the point where I feel she would be ready to place in Bigger just yet. She is looking forward to starting cursive, but reading the placement guide, I'm not sure she will be able to copy passages or compose her own sentences. She is writing two lines of poetry for her copywork right now. I've read in other posts that the writing only increases in difficulty with each guide, so if she is struggling now, I would hate to be dragging her along in writing with all the higher guides.

I am also concerned with her understanding/interest of the history and devotional readings. Today she said, while we were reading a story from Boys and Girls of Colonial Days, " I don't understand what this is about." She is on schedule with Singapore Math (1B). Sometimes she memorizes the Bible verse fine, other times, she just never gets it.

I recently divided the kids up for storytime, which has been the best decision! This has solved the problem of her older brother narrating too much and her narrating too little. I can read a higher level book for him and a book right at her interest level and it gives us extra snuggle time without anybody fighting over where they get to sit. Ha ha!

I am concerned about keeping them combined in Bigger next year for these reasons:
1) her writing level might not be as advanced as Bigger requires
2) her capacity to comprehend history/science/the devotional/ seems to be less than I would hope.
3)I don't want school to become drudgery for her if the work gets too hard too fast.

I am concerned about uncombining them because:
1) she might grow into Bigger better than I anticipate and I don't want to unnecessarily slow down her learning process
2) I would most likely be running Bigger/Preparing at the same time which I have heard many times is not a good idea.
3) I am due in August with a new baby and would like to keep our school days manageable.
4) I will be starting my 4 year old on LHTH very soon which will add more time to our day.

If I uncombine, here's what my idea is for how I would do that:

-ds would move on to Bigger full-speed as soon as we are done with Beyond.

-dd would continue with Singapore math, emerging readers list, spelling lists, Explode the Code, her own storytime (following the Beyond guide again). I would add cursive, and grammar. We would study Mother Goose poetry, a different simple living science curriculum, and learn different home ec type skills (such as knitting, simple sewing, needlepoint, cooking, etc). BTW, she LOVES doing the home ec stuff with me. I feel like this lighter load would allow her to really enjoy her school work and not feel too pushed.

Then the next year she could start Bigger. She will most likely be ready for DITHOR, dictation, and will have to copy poetry for copywork since she will be done with cheerful cursive.

However, this puts me with one in Preparing, one in Bigger, a 5 year old ready for more school, and a one year old toddling around the following year, which sounds extremely difficult.

I hope this is clear. I realize keeping them together is an easy solution for my daily schedule, but I read in another post that having each child well-placed in different guides is easier than having them misplaced in the same guide.

Anyways. any thoughts?
Thank you