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Oldest (almost 11) is doing Preparing. Love it! I plan to move her on to to the next guide next year.
DD2 (9) is doing Bigger. Honestly, I'm bored with it this year as I just did it last year with my oldest.
DD3 (7) is doing MFW 1st.

When we started HOD 1 1/2 years ago, I honestly could not see how to combine any of them as they were all in such different levels.

My oldest is doing super well with Preparing. She is a great listener, works quickly, and I can trust her to get the independent work done well.

I know there's lots of time before the coming fall, but I'm just not sure dd2 will be ready to go full out with Preparing.

My 3rd daughter is more like the oldest. She does a great job of sitting down, doing what needs to be done, and she's a good listener/reader too.

So, I'm thinking of taking the next year off from HOD with the middle 2 so they come back the next year and do Preparing together? They will be 9 and 11 that year.

Or do you think it's possible to do Preparing this fall 1/2 speed with the both of them and take 2 years to do it?

DD3 is a super reader, writing both upper/lower case, but no cursive yet of course. She will be in 2nd grade math here in another month or so.

Or, would it be best to just keep them in separate guides still?

I know that my attitude rubs off on the kids, and I'm wondering if you're bored with Bigger how your DD2 is doing with it? What about stopping that right now, finishing out her year with something else and coming back to it next year with both of your children (DD2 and 3?) I think Bigger is a great preparation for Preparing and you're risking losing momentum to move on to that guide if you skip a year in between. Also, as I mentioned before, if you're bored with it, it's possible that your dd is not getting full effect from it right now. It would be really hard to run guides back to back, I'd really try to build a gap of a year between your oldest 2 kiddos!

mom23 wrote:I know that my attitude rubs off on the kids, and I'm wondering if you're bored with Bigger how your DD2 is doing with it? What about stopping that right now, finishing out her year with something else and coming back to it next year with both of your children (DD2 and 3?) I think Bigger is a great preparation for Preparing and you're risking losing momentum to move on to that guide if you skip a year in between. Also, as I mentioned before, if you're bored with it, it's possible that your dd is not getting full effect from it right now. It would be really hard to run guides back to back, I'd really try to build a gap of a year between your oldest 2 kiddos!

I never even thought of that. I could probably do that and start again next year and she'd never know the difference!

I agree that seems like a better solution, stop Bigger, and restart it next year with 2 of them in it. From MFW 1st I think Bigger may be a better step for that child and a year off will help you enjoy it again!