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We are on our last leg of Beyond with 8 wks to go, with ds7 and ds10. We started Beyond in fall of 2010, and have taken WAY too long to complete due to a houseflood, unexpected pregnancy, 5 months of strict bedrest, and a newborn with some issues for her first 3 months!

HOD is amazing, and NO SCHOOL would have been accomplished without the incredible ease of the guides! What an answer to prayer!

Hopefully we will be done with Beyond by year's end and ready to move on to more books we will all love! DD 5(6 in February) will be doing Little Hearts, and ds 7(8 in january) will be doing bigger. Beyond was perfect for him this year!

The Q is with DS 10 (11 in january). We had originally thought to keep him combined with ds7 in bigger, but feel uncombining would be better at this point. Combining in Beyond was perfect for their first year BOTH being homeschooled, and fostered the unity in learning that we wanted for them. It was also God'd perfect foresight that put us there, as we had no idea the storms we would walk through during that year!!

Age wise we know he fits in CTC, but are considering that the jump in independence from Beyond may just be too great. He is a fabulous reader, behind in math simply due to time constraints, and is not used to a great deal of handwriting, but seems capable. Have been using R&S Preparing to Build 2 and just flying through it orally with him to be sure he doesn't have any major grammar holes. He is doing great with it, and could probably bump up to R&S 4 easily.

Would you reccomend Preparing or CTC for him?
If Preparing, does he do the Extension pkg in place of or in addition to the Deluxe pkg?

I LOOOVE Hod, and am so very thankful for this curriculum and praise God for it regularly!!!! - oh, and our KIDS LOVE IT, TOO!!!!

brokenopen wrote:We are on our last leg of Beyond with 8 wks to go, with ds7 and ds10. We started Beyond in fall of 2010, and have taken WAY too long to complete due to a houseflood, unexpected pregnancy, 5 months of strict bedrest, and a newborn with some issues for her first 3 months!

HOD is amazing, and NO SCHOOL would have been accomplished without the incredible ease of the guides! What an answer to prayer!

Hopefully we will be done with Beyond by year's end and ready to move on to more books we will all love! DD 5(6 in February) will be doing Little Hearts, and ds 7(8 in january) will be doing bigger. Beyond was perfect for him this year!

The Q is with DS 10 (11 in january). We had originally thought to keep him combined with ds7 in bigger, but feel uncombining would be better at this point. Combining in Beyond was perfect for their first year BOTH being homeschooled, and fostered the unity in learning that we wanted for them. It was also God'd perfect foresight that put us there, as we had no idea the storms we would walk through during that year!!

Age wise we know he fits in CTC, but are considering that the jump in independence from Beyond may just be too great. He is a fabulous reader, behind in math simply due to time constraints, and is not used to a great deal of handwriting, but seems capable. Have been using R&S Preparing to Build 2 and just flying through it orally with him to be sure he doesn't have any major grammar holes. He is doing great with it, and could probably bump up to R&S 4 easily.

Would you reccomend Preparing or CTC for him?
If Preparing, does he do the Extension pkg in place of or in addition to the Deluxe pkg?

I LOOOVE Hod, and am so very thankful for this curriculum and praise God for it regularly!!!! - oh, and our KIDS LOVE IT, TOO!!!!

Hi!

My 10 year old son (4th grade) is doing Bigger right now along with his 7 year old sister. I've just recently decided to move him up to Preparing soon. I'm sure some ladies with more experience will chime in here, but I'll offer my two cents...

I'm guessing that Preparing would be better than CTC, simply because Preparing lays groundwork for him being more independent in CTC. If he really still needs the skills that Bigger teaches, then maybe Bigger would be best for him (with extensions: including the suggested oral narrations, written narrations, and notebooking pages).

I hope you find a good solution, and I hope things have settled down for your family. You've had quite a lot of things going on!

I can't give specific advice about Bigger or Preparing because we jumped in at CTC. But...what you might want to do first off is to go back to the placement chart, the topics covered or which guide you are using now, and see where your child fits based on the chart. Then you can apply that information to your specific family situation.

I think PHFHG sounds like a super placement for your 11 yo! You can use the extensions to challenge his reading, and the amount of writing will be a nice fit. I think it may be too big of a jump to go from Beyond to CTC, and PHFHG is an outstanding program! I'm so glad you are loving HOD, and I pray you have a wonderful year with it!

In Christ,
Julie

My DS will be 11 in February, and he and his 8 year old brother do Bigger, but they do it fairly independently. If you wanted to try, you could have your 10 year old do his science/history independently with extensions to see if that would be good for him. My thoughts are that you could try this route for a while just to see how it goes. I still enjoy doing the read alouds in history with both of my sons, and feel it fosters a good unity between them. They mainly do History, Bible, Poetry, songs, and science the same, but each does everything else on their own. I personally like that set up, and at this point, I don't think my oldest would be interested AT ALL in doing something different than his brother in those areas. It would be too much for me as well. But you know your children best! For my oldest, Bigger with extensions is definitely enough. He isn't the studious type to begin with, so Bigger + extensions + DITHOR fits him just great.

From what you've shared, I'm leaning toward Preparing Hearts too. I think it would be a huge leap to go from Beyond to CTC. I would definitely look at the placement chart though to be sure. Make sure to pay the most attention to the first page of the chart.

Blessings,
Carrie