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Am I understanding correctly that there will be 4 more guides after the one that was just released? So for those of us that have our children in Beyond for 1st grade, then the guides would take us up only through 11th grade. What then?

I am in the same boat as you and have used Beyond for 1st. It's been a great fit and I feel my daughter is perfectly ready for Bigger Hearts.

There are varying thoughts on this. Many feel Little Hearts for His Glory is better suited for 1st grade. I think it really depends on your kid. If you follow that route, then you won't have a missing year at the end. Another thought is "life happens". You never know when you're going to have to take a break and this way you won't be behind if and when that happens. It also gives you a chance to "ease into" some of the upper guides as they may provide a challenge as the student begins. Although my daughter is perfectly prepared for Bigger hearts, the workload is definitely greater, so we'll be going half speed starting this summer so get her used to it. I'll decide along the way if and when she's ready to move full speed.The last thought is if you do finish with the guides in 11th grade then they'll be a year ahead. They can study something really interesting to them, take courses at a community college, or even work for a year before college.

Our plan is to continue through at the pace that is best for my daughters and hopefully finish them all. I hope this helps you!

I agree with the pp. Hopefully this thread can help you also. I am in a similar place w/ my DD in Beyond for 1st grade. We are just going on & see what happens.
Oh, the thread is: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11451&p=83271&hilit=gap+year#p83271

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it. It's possible at some point you'll need to slow down OR your senior may do other things. My now graduated son was solely focused on college by his senior year. He was dual enrolled to get high school and college credits, taking the pre-req classes for his major, even his math and science were college focused. His senior year was completely different than 9-11th. So, again, I wouldn't worry about it, take each year as they come.

I agree my dd's senior year is looking completely different from 9th-11th. She is also taking dual enrollment classes to get a head start on college credits.

I am worrying the other direction. My oldest (11th this year) has not really done HOD (found it too late for him), but this year he took 2 classes at our local high school (English and Spanish) which were classes I found difficult to teach. Next year he is doing dual-enrollment (called PSEO here in MN) full-time so he will be taking all his classes at the community college near here.

I am assuming that all my kids (except my special needs son) will do this for their senior year. How can we pass on a whole year of college for free? This leaves me trying to figure out how to get in everything I want to teach by 11th grade! They do get high school credit for their college classes (actually they get two semesters of high school credit for each semester of college classes), but it is hard to decide which class I am willing to let a secular college teach instead of HOD. My oldest has done a very eclectic collection of homeschool classes including some on-line classes through a charter school. History and Geography are very different when taught from a secular standpoint. I couldn't believe how a geography class could be totally turned into a post-modern worldview class with a little map-work thrown in! Ugh. One of their assignments was actually to write a letter to a business explaining to them that corporations are bad for the environment!

My next oldest is going to be doing Rev2Rev w/extensions for 9th. I figure M2M with extensions and some additions will give us the rest of American History, some government and some economics. Then in 11th I have to decide whether to do the geography guide or the world history guide? They both sound wonderful!! How will I choose? And then that's all the time we have.

You never know, you might change your mind by the time they become seniors. Also, to ponder, free doesnt necessarily mean it's a good thing,

Michele,

Hi, I am in the same situation as you and go back and forth about even letting my children dual enroll, which they can do free as soon as they are freshmen in high school. I have always felt like I want to give them as much education as I can with a Biblical world view so they can be sure of the truth when and if they do go to college. So many friends of ours are just "skipping" high school and having their kids take most of their required classes at our local state college. So far I have been able to stand strong for what I believe, but it has been hard watching all these kids do great and get their AA degrees as they graduate high school. I am fortunate that my children love learning at home and aren't putting any pressure on us to let them go to college.

I am looking forward to using HOD for my daughters' high school education and maybe as they approach their junior and senior years having them take math or Spanish at our local college.

We only have so many years with our dear children and I want to make every moment count! I believe the Lord will bless us as long as we are obedient to what He has called us to do.

MicheleW- I'd make sure he had a SOLID foundation of a Biblical worldview. He needs to see God's hand in all of history and what happens when man turns from God. He also needs to be firm in knowing why he believes what he believes. To me, those are my main concerns before graduation.

Emily- My oldest dual enrolled for several classes his senior year. However, we stuck to classes that didn't have a worldview focus- intro level graphics for his major (web design, color control, etc), math in graphics, Spanish, AP art, etc. That way he was getting pre-reqs completed for college, but things that could influence his worldview (esp history, lit) we still taught at home.

A word of warning to all parents with kids taking college classes, even the most benign looking classes can pose great struggles for our kids. My ds's best friend took English 101 at a local community college last fall (as a freshman). The teacher repeatedly bashed Christianity, debated the existence of any God, argued that all gods are God, etc. Thankfully, his friend was raised with a solid foundation in the Word and wasn't influenced by this teacher (even took concerns to the dean). However, I'm sure that wasn't or wouldn't be the case for all incoming freshmans.

Angie,

Thank you for the encouraging words. Everything you have said just reinforces in my mind that keeping my children at home for most of their learning is what God's plan is for our family.

blessed2five wrote:Angie,

Thank you for the encouraging words. Everything you have said just reinforces in my mind that keeping my children at home for most of their learning is what God's plan is for our family.

You're welcome! We all too often think it'll only be in certain types of classes or places that our kids will be challenged. Emily (my ds's friend)'s experience really opened my eyes that it can be anyone at anytime. This took place in English 101, a basic english review, parts of speech, putting a paragraph together type class in a small Midwestern community college.

intotheirhearts,

The ladies are doing a great job of answering your questions. I'll also paste a previous post of mine below (and provide the link to the thread it is found within) to help you as you think through this question as well.

This is a great question, and one that we have definitely pondered! If you do happen to have a 5 year old in LHFHG, and you use a guide a year every year it is possible that you will finish the HOD cycle by the end of your child's junior year. It is good to keep in mind that it will be a rare family who will not be touched by hardship, transition, or life's surprises and is truly able to keep the pace of completing a guide a year every single year that their child is school-age. So, it is often a huge blessing to have a bit of wiggle room already built in for you. Many families do not have this wiggle-room and would desperately love to have it!

I mention completing the guides, because families may in their quest to stay on the guide a year plan, omit whatever was not finished in a previous guide to move on to a new guide the next year. This pattern can leave a child feeling overwhelmed and unprepared in starting a new guide, so often it is better to stay-the-course and carry a guide over into the next year to finish, which can also draw out time spent in a guide and is something to consider.

With these thoughts in mind, I wouldn't make a specific plan to stretch the guides out as plans can often change. If your child and you as the teacher are able to complete a guide at full-speed, I would definitely do it. You will know if you ever need to shift to half-speed or need to slow a guide down. For those with combining scenarios, we will sometimes slow a 5 day guide down to 4 days a week to allow a younger child to stay with an older child, so this is one scenario in which a bit of slowing down is often recommended. Another time that slowing down is recommended is if a child is on the youngest side of a guide and seems to be struggling a bit with the workload. Or, if a family is large or has time-consuming health issues, we may advise slowing down a younger child for a time. One other time that slowing down a 5 day plan to a 4 day a week pace would be if other children in the family are using HOD guides that have them on a 4 day a week plan and the family desires all kiddos to be on a 4 day plan. However, if the child being slowed down is on the upper end of the age range of a guide, we would not recommend slowing down for that child in this situation.

Another thing that we would not recommend, would be to plan to use another company's program in between your HOD programs simply so your child will not run out of HOD programs before he/she graduates. We often talk to many parents who have switched to something else and then returned to HOD only to discover that their child lost the momentum and progression of skills that we were carefully building from one HOD guide to the next. When they returned to HOD there was much reteaching of forgotten skills that were not focused upon in their year off. Using HOD guides in consecutive order will gently and progressively move your child toward the needed skills for upper level work.

Of course, you are always in the driver's seat and may choose any program you desire for your kiddos from year to year. I just wanted to share a bit of perspective on reasons not to panic and overplan what you think may be a gap year that in most cases will never actually come to fruition.

In those rare instances where a child begins the HOD path as a 5 year old and truly completes a guide a year every year through high school graduation, you have a couple of options. You may either graduate your child early, as he/she will have completed his/her high school requirements, or you may use that final year of high school to further pursue studies of interest, apply to colleges, retake the ACT or SAT if desired, begin a program such as College-Plus and start earning college credit while still in high school, travel abroad, work in missions-related work, take some courses at the community college, do an apprenticeship, etc. etc. The possibilities are endless! From our perspective it is better to have a year left to pursue these things later than to plan on stretching coursework out in the early years. Leaving yourself wiggle-room to stretch as the need arises is a wise option.

Link to thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10805&p=78801

Also, here's one more terrific thread that will give you possibilities to ponder as well: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8558&p=62501

Blessings,
Carrie