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For those of you who want to stretch a guide out to let your kids mature...how do you do it? I need to decide if I want to

-do LHFHG, Beyond and Bigger 4x/week

OR

-do Bigger half speed

Basically, I need to do something like that to not get to Preparing too soon. The problem is, the idea of doing a guide half speed would most likely make me batty! But I also think doing a guide a year would be ideal because I already think I will be doing different levels of math for my 2 guys and being in all different places concerns me a bit.

So, is Bigger the guide I should stretch out because it is meatier, a d if so, what can I add or do to make it feel like "enough" for a 3rd grader? Even if I use the extensions,I know I will not be comfortable doing half speed. Has anyone else done this who could share their experience? Or should I stick with my original plan to do all 3 guides at 4x/week? I know this will not add a whole year, but will add some time. Maybe half? I don't like to think too far ahead, but I kind of need to know before I start next year what I want to do.

Thanks!

We are currently using Beyond 4 days a week. I have to admit that it is really bothering me to leave it unfinished for the summer. When my son finishes Preparing, my daughter will have completed Unit 27 of Beyond. I think Bigger would be the best to do half-speed. I definitely do not want my daughter to get to Preparing before 4th grade so I plan to start Bigger at half-speed 4x a week and work up to full-spped 4x a week.

We have done Bigger at 1/2 speed 4 days/week this year for 2nd grade. Next year, I plan to use Bigger at full speed 4 days/week. This has worked really well for my 7yo ds. I will do all 3 of the younger guides 4 days/week for my youngers coming up. Because I also have a son in Preparing, doing 4 days has worked nicely to keep us all on the same schedule. I do 3R's daily to finish in 1 yr. HTH!

We're using Bigger and Preparing over 3 years, so not quite half speed. For my ds slowing Little Hearts or Beyond down would have been too slow. However, the jump in Bigger was easy enough to slow down. We still do reading and math everyday, so he isn't getting behind there. hth.

So, if you slow down Bigger and/or Preparing, do you feel there is enough there? Or do you add in other things? Even doing the 3 R's, I wonder if I would feel like it is enough, although I hear it is quite a big jump from Beyond. I guess I would just have to try it to see.

My other thought was to stretch out the first two so that my younger son wouldn't reach Beyond too soon, because of the history and copy work. If I do take 1 year for each, he would just have turned 6 when we start Beyond. Its too early to tell but I anticipate him struggling a bit with that. Question: Can you do Beyond and NOT do the copy work or spelling? I think I would do the K options with him in LHFHG, and the 1st grade options when we do the Beyond Guide. has anyone ever done that? Sorry for all the random questions. There's a lot floating around in my mind.

amysue277 wrote:So, if you slow down Bigger and/or Preparing, do you feel there is enough there? Or do you add in other things? Even doing the 3 R's, I wonder if I would feel like it is enough, although I hear it is quite a big jump from Beyond. I guess I would just have to try it to see.

We don't do it on a schedule, so I may be no help. On days we only do the 3 Rs we have an outside activity going on- field trip, music lesson (2 hrs plus drive time), spending time with either of his grandmothers, etc. Then we have days we do 3 Rs plus history/rotating box OR 3 Rs science/other boxes. On these days he is engaged in other learning- listening to the extension books as read alouds or audio books, working on the computer, studying a state, doing an art project he's interested in, working in the yard/garden, etc. We also have days where the entire day gets done. For this year I've had a basic idea where I wanted him to be by Christmas, then again by the end of our school year (May 24th). He's right where he should be. He's already finished cursive and is now working on copywork, he'll finish his reading and math by the 24th. This will leave us 10 weeks of Bigger to finish in the fall. We'll take a week off then dive into Preparing.

This is what has worked for us. However, everyone is different. As you dive into HOD you'll figure out what works for you. You can always try it one way and speed up/slow down if needed.

We did Bigger over 2 years. We did the Units over 2 weeks, with the Days 1-5 on M-W-F-M-W. I used the other days for my own plans. For us, it worked out very well, but then I also felt that after the first half (the end of 3rd grade) my dd could have gone into Preparing.

Thinking in retrospect, we could have done the first half of Bigger half speed, the second half full-speed, which would have meant we started Preparing in the middle of the school year, but that is okay. We have to school 180 days, so future 4-day-per-week guides will not be finished up with the school years here, anyway.

The second half of Bigger was my personal favorite. We loved the Pioneer Sampler. Since we read all the story-time books during the first half, we read the Little House books along with it. It was a nice combination.

BTW, we did math and English full speed, too.

Going half speed takes some organization and can undo all of Carrie's marvelous work in guiding the child through the skills. So, tread carefully.