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Hi again, i am looking at possibly starting HOD next yr, doing Beyond for my 6yo..?...so, wondering do most of you finish a guide within a year?..or do most people spread them out over 1 1/2 yr or 2 yr?..seems alot of people go 1/2 speed or 4 days/week. Is the program designed this way?..to span the age range, instead of doing one guide per yr, or grade??...thanks so much for any thought!

We have done 1 guide a year and we started with Preparing. The guides from at least Beyond on up are designed to be done one a year. I think if people slow down the guides it is because their dc are on the youngest end of the guides and maybe are not quite ready for some of the skills in the guide, or sometimes they have life situations that cause them to just not get through the guide as fast.

We do a guide a year here too. I think the placement chart is VERY important, so if placed correctly, a guide a year is very doable as the child naturally progresses through the various skills.

The guides are designed to be completed in whatever is one year of school for you. Ours is a bit broken up.
I have one child able to do a guide a year, and one that needs to go half-speed to start so it takes longer. The guides are also easy to implement that plan.

We are doing Bigger this year and we will be finished within the current school year. We started in Septemeber, took December and this month (April) off. We'll be done towards the end of June, hopefully. So yes, done in one school year. We plan on doing Preparing next year and having it take a school year as well. The only thing that would change that is if my daughter seems like she needs me to slow it down a bit since she will be a newly turned 8yr old 3rd grader.

We finish every guide in one year. At some point, I may have to slow it down for my youngest - especially since he is on the young end of the guides.

I like structure.

We start each guide in the fall, full speed, and finish in May. (I'm also one of those people that needs Day 1 to be on Monday each week and Day 5 on Friday (or 4 on Thursday once we hit Preparing and above).

This is one reason that I hold off on Little Hearts for His Glory until first grade. Then it's one guide per year from there to the end.

A guide can be done in a year. We did Little Hearts in less than a year, finished Beyond easily within a year. However, this year we've taken Bigger a bit slower. Ds has outside activities one day per week, plus his independent reading isn't quite where it needs to be. We'll finish the last 10 units of Bigger in the fall. The plan is to then do Preparing over the remainder of the year and into the next year. We'll see how it goes as he does it.

We have been doing HOD for about four years now. We have always managed to finish our guide at the end of the school year. Besides, by the end of the year, we've mastered the skill level and we're ready to move on.

StillJulie wrote:I like structure.

We start each guide in the fall, full speed, and finish in May. (I'm also one of those people that needs Day 1 to be on Monday each week and Day 5 on Friday (or 4 on Thursday once we hit Preparing and above).

Same here!!

We did LHFHG in a year's time. Beyond was a little slower because I had a baby last year and took a few weeks off after he was born. As my children get older, we probably won't have to take off school as much or as long, at least I'm hopeful we won't, because the older 2 will be able to do more work independently.

So yes, life events. Also I read here on the board that if your child is on the younger\ age range of the guides there's one guide too few... as in you kind of get a flex year in there anyway, at least from K-8th grade. I don't know how the high school guides work.