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My oldest two are now combined in Preparing. If I want my oldest to complete the 4 years of highschool guides then he has to skip a guide somewhere. What do I do? My younger son could really be slowed down some. So I was looking at bumping my oldest up to Res. to Ref. and then my younger son would go to CTC. My oldest son will fit in the placement chart for Res. to Ref. He is a strong reader, good writer, very independently motivated boy. The only concern is not having formal writing instruction. Besides the poetry writing in Preparing( that he does a great job with) he has only had a little from Igniting your Writing. I can do this after we finish for the year before starting the next program. Also, I am worried about splitting them up. I also have 2 younger kids. I am not sure if it will be too much. But, to be able to slow my 2 nd son down to stay on his level would be great. He needs some time to mature in his reading skills. So, what should I do? I am not even sure what we will do for highschool. That seems so far away, but so close I have to consider it. I love HOD! We have used only HOD from the beginning. The only thing we would do besides HOD for highschool is college courses.

Could you use the 5th day in CTC-MTMM to keep moving forward and gain some ground there in finishing all 4 guides?

HTH,
Kathy

I can't go at a fast pace because of keeping my 2nd son with him like that. I don't want one a smidge ahead of the other either. I'd like at least one guide apart. I also only school 4 days for my sanity level. I need that extra day as a cushion to catch up on housework and finish any school work that needs finishing.

My dd just skipped a guide here. As we've been going along with HOD for the past 5-6 years, HOD has had a guide between where we always were and what HOD was working on. As things progressed, I always considered that last guide before the high school guides to be a 'bonus' or 'optional' one. I always felt we'd skip the guide just before highschool, which is the MtMM guide. Or, if we did all the guides then dd would perhaps graduate a year older than normal.

Well, here we are. Dd has had her limit of learning 'old' history and wanted to take up modern history, something we'd never done. So, we skipped Rev to Rev and just started MtMM. Once that is done, we will go right into the high school guides for those years. We should go through all the guides UNLESS we decided to do Rev to Rev next. I know that is a flip flop. However, dd isn't keen on Tiner and would rather do the science in Rev to Rev. So, we'll see. Right now I am beefing up some things for early high school credit. And, with the little I am doing of that I have to say I'd rather follow a guide all laid out with no beef-ups. I don't get much planning time, and beefing up what I am and coordinating it all is making my head swim on some days.

I see no reason why you can't skip a guide. Having your children in separate guides in okay. They do more independent work as time goes on, so that does help with the time you'd need for involvement. However, I also see the flip side of keeping them in the same guide up until the high school point. Then just bypass that last guide.

What helped me was letting dd read all the info on Rev to Rev and MtMM, from the general overview to the summaries of each book that would be used. From there she shared her interests with me, what captured her more, etc. MtMM it was.

eta:
Re-reading your post, and please keep in mind that I don't know all of your oldest's abilities, I think RTR might be too much for a 10yo. What about moving your oldest in CTC, and then going half pace for a bit with the younger one in Preparing. Or keep them both in Preparing, just with one at regular speed and the other at half speed?

My oldest will be 11(6th grade) next year. So he would then be middle of the guide age. My boys are exactly two years apart.

Amy,

As we look toward high school, it is so easy to get worried that as parents we're not going to cover everything that is needed or get through everything. However, I want to encourage you that it is possible to gain all the credits needed for graduation without actually completing all of the HOD High School level guides. So, it isn't necessary to skip a guide in order to prepare your child well. We have many families who are using the guides we have written now for high school already, so there are ways to make that path work, and we'd be glad to help you with that.

When looking at the important decision of which path to take with your kiddos, you may find it is different with each child. With this in mind, it is really necessary to take a good look at each child to see if the placement fits him/her well at this point in time. If your two kiddos are well placed together, then I wouldn't look at jumping your oldest forward at this point in time. It sounds like he is thriving in his current placement from what you've shard so far.

The jump from Preparing to RTR is absolutely a huge one. I would not recommend that type of a jump unless you are finding that your oldest is severely underchallenged in every way in Preparing. If not, I would recommend proceeding forward with him into CTC as planned. As you get closer to high school, you can evaluate again each year. The early years would be the time that would be much less likely to be a place to fast forward your child, as there are so many important skills being taught during that time.

On the other hand, if you need to slow down your second child that can easily be accomplished once you get underway with CTC and see if he needs that. You could just slow him down to half speed and keep going full speed with your oldest. There is so much independence built in CTC and so many writing skills practiced that I wouldn't want your oldest son to miss out on those! Jumping forward seems easy, but going back is very hard. So, we definitely don't want to catapult a child into the deep end of the pool too quickly. It's better to wade in more slowly!

Blessings,
Carrie

Thanks Carrie! I will think about it some more. My oldest is doing very well in Preparing. He finds it fairly easy. I may start them both in CTC and see how my younger son does. He may keep hanging in there.

I know this is an old thread, but I am quite curious what you ended up doing?

I did decide to let my oldest skip to RTR. He read lots of the CTC books on his own. That boy loves a good book!!!
In the end I had to look at what would work for my family. I wanted my younger son to not feel like all the fun activities were spoiled cause big brother just did it all. So I knew I needed at least a year between what they were doing to make it fresh. Being so close in age there is always a lot of competition and measuring up to big brother. My oldest made the leap really well. His hardest thing is that everyone is doing something different than him. My oldest has a hard time focusing on his own work with anyone talking or doing something. He is almost done with RTR for the year. 10 weeks left. He has loved it too.

I finished Preparing with my younger son at the beginning of this school year. We took it slow and worked on some skills. Then he started CTC really slow. I added in some other things so we could take it less than half speed except the basics. I really wanted to work on reading aloud and narration. At the beginning of our next school year he will go full speed and then slow back down towards the end finishing CTC.

So, now that we are at the nearly end of our year I would say it went great. I see that if they would have been in their own guide from the beginning then I wouldn't have had some problems. But, I don't regret when I combined them because I really felt led by God to do so at the time. With everything else going on in our life at that time I needed to simplify.

Thanks for your detailed reply! I am considering uncombining my girls, so it is helpful to hear your experience. I have enjoyed having them combined, but I think next fall may be the time to separate them.