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I have a daughter who is turning 7 this week. She my overachiever (and I love her) and is a 2nd grader this year. I have her doing Bigger this year. She is half way through it now. But seeing the work my son is doing in preparing as a fourth grader, and the flow of guides left to work through, I think I've got a problem. She's already a year ahead academically, but now she's ahead by an extra guide as well! AAKK!

OPTIONS:
1. SLOW HER DOWN. Start having her do only 3 or 4 days of guide per week, and pursue other interests or smaller unit studies to stretch bigger out for another year.

2.Finish out Bigger this school year, and do something like MFW cultures for one year, then come back in 4th and do preparing.

3. Got any ideas? She's bright, but she's certainly not ready at age 7 to complete the level of work in preparing, as it was intended.

I would probably slow her down to 3 days, continuing math and reading each day. There's lots of other good, fun stuff you can add. Are you using the extensions? You could read them together for fun. Or, looks for more ideas to expand what she's already learning.

We are not currently using the extensions, but that's something to think about. We would only be using from Unit 17 on.

We started our year late, so we are a bit behind, and only on unit 13 right now. If she starts unit 14 at half pace, that will give us 8 weeks and "finish" the school year at the end of May.( um, perfect?!)

Since we are expecting a Military transfer this coming fall, we had planned to school over the summer, and take off Sept -NOV instead (packing, driving cross country, getting settled) We would then start back up, possibly at full speed after the new year, and finish "on time" .

Thanks! It's hard to think about and plan without my other half here to be my sounding board

We used Bigger over 3rd and 4th grades by going half speed. I had my dd do a 50 states notebook, read the extensions, and also do an Indiana (our state) state study (something typically done at this age here). We continued to do DITHOR, R&S English, math at regular speed. We also have been adding Apologia science (some that aren't scheduled in HOD already) along with the notebooking journals. I have seen tremendous growth in skills over these last 2 years.

Is your daughter doing everything in Bigger as intended, and doing well, and enjoying school? Then I think that slowing her down now might be counterproductive, as she might get bored. In this case, I would suggest letting her do what she is doing until she finishes Bigger, then take Preparing slower, maybe half-speed. Chances are, with the jump in skills, she will need to take Preparing slower at first. On the other hand, if she is currently running into any difficulty with Bigger, you could take her down to half-speed now. Just know that if she successfully completes the work in Bigger, she will be well-prepared for Preparing, even if she is a little shy of the target age of 8-10.

blessedmomof4 wrote:Is your daughter doing everything in Bigger as intended, and doing well, and enjoying school? Then I think that slowing her down now might be counterproductive, as she might get bored. In this case, I would suggest letting her do what she is doing until she finishes Bigger, then take Preparing slower, maybe half-speed. Chances are, with the jump in skills, she will need to take Preparing slower at first. On the other hand, if she is currently running into any difficulty with Bigger, you could take her down to half-speed now. Just know that if she successfully completes the work in Bigger, she will be well-prepared for Preparing, even if she is a little shy of the target age of 8-10.

Actually she's not. I didn't have here doing the DITHOR work book this year, though she is doing the 2/3 reading. Other than that she is doing all the work. She is in R&S 2 this year, and in Math in Focus 2A/B . I spend a couple hours and stack of postit notes figuring out a good schedule for her, and I've come up with one that will stretch her out for now, and rev her up after we move. It will also give her a little extra time for Typing and finishing the Latin we started.

But you I could certainly do that with Preparing too. I see plus sides to both options. Thanks