Getting started with combining

[mmschool]

Hi, I have a friend that is having trouble knowing how to get kids going combined. The older guides seem to cover a range, but the younger guides are more targeted. How do you get the kids into groups to begin with?

My friend has six kids. The eldest is in beyond and reading way above grade level. She is on the young side, but looks ready to sail with bigger next year. The she has an older four boy, new four year old twins that are adopted, a three year old and a one year old. At the moment she is doing the preschool program with all the littles. It works out to half speed because she only does two to three days a week. The oldest in that group is a boy working through some attitude problems, but he is going to be k in the fall, in a state that requires k. He will be 5 1/2 by then. Does she start little hearts then with him? What about the boys a year behind? They will probably need to be five to get as much English as possible. With kindergartens three years in a row, how do you combine without holding someone up at the preschool level? Will she end up doing four levels at a time? The total age span in the house is five years oldest to youngest.

Thanks for the advice.

[farmfamily]

Your friend sounds like an amazing lady! From what you said, I think she should plan to keep her eldest moving along separately from the others. This dd sounds well placed already, but she ought to be able easily to combine the next 3 or even 4. What she should probably do is keep going with LHTH (the preschool program) half speed for this group, and whenever any are ready or are entering k, she can buy the Little Hearts guide and start them with the reading/math/ fine motor skills from that guide. They would continue with LHTH half speed while adding in full speed reading, math, & fine motor skills from Little Hearts. This can make a fine k year, and if she wants she can add in some read- aloud time. Hopefully when they finish LHTH, the younger ones from the group will be able to do Little Hearts as written. They could go slow, (half speed or 4 days a week) to make sure the youngest ones in the group are ready for everything. Meanwhile the older ones would continue to go full speed with reading, math, fine motor skills. At this point she would probably need to buy the Beyond guide to keep the older ones going with these skills, and they would possibly add spelling and emerging readers. Eventually (probably by Bigger) she would no longer have to work from two guides for these students. That's the way to do it I think. I wish her all the best!

[MelInKansas]

farmfamily has given good advice. Just to chime in, each child has to do their own work in reading, writing, and math. Math, you can do some group activities for younger grades, but to be sure each child understands each one should have their own workbook and do their own pages along with the activities written in the guides. The guide is your history spine, and includes writing, Bible, science, geography, art, etc. You can do any level of reading, writing, and math with any guide (though it is easiest to do the level written in the guide, and for early grades you often need another guide to do different levels of the 3Rs). So, you look at the placement chart and think of where each child fits in terms of reading comprehension, readiness for longer readings, and narration skills. Since you are starting with preschool, you will build these from the ground up in LHTH and LHFHG.

You could do LHTH for K and add in a learn-to-read program, beginning handwriting (if the child is ready), and math from LHFHG (again if the child is ready). That would be a solid K program. Then you could keep at least 3 of the 4 year olds combined. Also in order to combine or just to not push the child ahead too early, many will repeat LHTH twice full-speed, or LHFHG twice depending on which seems to work the best. So, the older 5YO could do LHFHG while the younger ones do LHTH that school year, and then the following year the older one repeats LHFHG again with the younger two. Combining doesn't have to hold anyone back, there are extensions or extra books with each guide that can challenge the older one(s) more.

If the state has hour requirements remember you can count many different things like Bible, read-aloud library books, home-ec, P.E., coloring, play dough, exploring nature, etc. This is what Kindergarten teachers do. They do not fill their 6 hours of instructional time with book learning.

[MomtoJGJE]

I would just keep doing what she's doing. When they get through with LHTH, start with LHFHG. I would definitely keep either the three 4yos together or the twins and the 3yo together (depending on which work best together) if not all four of those children. 6-9 months makes a HUGE difference in development at those ages.... I would tell her to not worry about it AT ALL until at least March or April... give it another 6 months and see where the kids stand. THEN revisit whether to repeat LHTH with fine motor skills/math added in or to start with LHFHG half speed (to give the younger ones time to "catch up" a bit) OR to separate the four kids so close in age into two groups.