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Well, we have accomplished one unit of Preparing in the past 5 weeks. Holidays and illness notwithstanding, obviously we need to pick up the pace a bit.

First of all I LOVE Preparing. As always the unit is so well tied together and the activities we are doing to reinforce the learning are excellent. I love the way everything is just a little jump up from what we were doing in Bigger. She is definitely ready for the challenge and at least since we started after Christmas she has really seemed to enjoy it and look forward to it. We are loving Grandpa's Box - what a great read! I love how it puts the Biblical story into the image of a battle (and yet God has won!). I have started reading the Bible for 2014 so I am right in the middle of the same passages in the beginning of Genesis and love the discussions with my daughter.

Here's my fear... I have NO idea how I am going to fit it in with Beyond, LHTH (which has not restarted since my oldest started Preparing), and keeping the 1YO contained. I need wisdom (as always). I also need discipline to actually implement a schedule. I can now do a reasonable job of creating one but I confess of the last 3 schedules I created I didn't stick to any of them for more than a day or two. So what good is that? If I would live by a good schedule then I would find it easier to implement with my kids. My oldest actually wants the structure and organization that provides, but she gets frustrated because our life never seems to work out that way.

Thanks for reading my little issues.... I know God is so much bigger and He always provides what we need. I am also a little nervous, I always start dropping things when the thick of our ministry starts up again, which will be mid-January. That's why I am trying to get a jump on it and get back into a good routine NOW.

It's always a little hard to stick to a new schedule.

Two things I have found that help me -
1) I try a schedule for a week tweaking along the way. When I get one that at least works well for my oldest...
2) I print the schedule for him, he likes to reference it and can usually be okay even if I get a little off-track
Knowing that he has one, and can keep me accountable, I do my best not to get too far off. That is the way he has problems. Since he is my most difficult to teach I want to keep him/me on track as much as possible.

Hope you find something that works for you. Have fun!

I understand! I think you will actually find that Preparing is probably a little bit less work than Bigger. My dd has really taken charge this year and she loves the independence. One thing I have realized is that I also need to stick more to a schedule. I created one and am hoping that all goes well with it. But I would say, once your dd gets into the groove of the day, you will probably find that you spend a little bit less time with her than you were with bigger maybe. I actually just give my dd the guide and she pencils a checkmark next to the completed items. Plus, I highlighted me guide (yes I did!) with yellow for anything with teacher box or semi-independent that I know I need to help with and orange for anything my child can do independently. I also highlighted the vocab words in orange and the time line items in orange. This is helping my child pull the info of the page better to see what she can do alone and what she can't. I am finding that it is much easier to be independent this way. Plus, she still shows me everything she does when she is finished.

Thanks both of you for those words of encouragement. I like the highlighting idea. Even for re-using the guide that would still work for the next one. She does do check marks, and right now I am trying to be really hands-on so she gets in the habit of doing things well and understands what is expected of her. We had a problem with Bigger (because she was doing some things like Math independently and I would often get her started on vocabulary or notebooking and allow her to finish it herself). The problem was, I didn't really check back and make sure it was done well, so she started getting lazy and got in some bad habits. So I felt like now was the time to work on it, especially as I mentioned, I have about 2 weeks before my life will go up a notch again in terms of how busy I am.

I am sure she will start becoming more independent and will be able to do her work well independently once we get into the groove of things. So having her own schedule might work really well. One thing I do struggle with is consistent bedtimes, and therefore consistent times to get up are difficult too. This is partially because of some of our evening activities, so therefore not necessarily just bad habits on our part. And then the other part is my husband's work schedule. When he is working late, often we just want to treasure a little time with Daddy because there is not always a lot of it to be had.

My 1 year old is a wildcard. I think the thing I need to pray about the most over the next few days while I am contemplating this is what to do with him, and start trying to re-train him in some good habits that will help us get school done. I had him blanket trained for a while, but I dropped that as he got really grumpy about having to stay on the blanket. I think we need to revisit it. Or try room time which worked well for my 4YO when she was about 2. As long as he's the only one in there and I make sure to put the diaper cream and lotion bottles away....

Melissa,
I just wanted to send a note of encouragement. It seems 8 is on the younger side to do Preparing. It would be ok to slow the pace if you need to. Each guide needs a training in period and some folks stagger start when they start multiple guides. Some even start 1/2 speed and work to full speed at unit 17 or so. Give yourself grace, especially since you know that this is your busy season. If you can keep pace with math, dictation, and grammar. I have 1 kiddo that is in 3 different parts of a guide. Good thing for post it notes.
Although I am not suggesting you change guides I will share what I did for my son. Because life happened I didn't do all of Bigger so my son had gaps in skills. We enjoyed Preparing, but I knew he wasn't ready for CTC so he worked on skills with a curriculum I created. You can avoid the trouble I had by taking Preparing slowly.

Melisaa,
If I had known about slowing Preparing down to gain those skills it would have saved me a lot of hastle. It was a lot of work to create my own curriculum. So my suggestion to you is to slow down, and make sure your dc has the needed skills. Make sure that an I is completed I and S is S and T is T. Since your kiddo is young you have "wiggle" room to stay on track. Not that there is a set in stone track. Enjoy this guide it is delightful! My son needed skills to write in cursive, use a dictionary, written narration, and follow directions. I have seen progress in all those areas, but it has taken 2 years. CTC is a big jump in skills so take the time now to train. CTC will be a delightful experience because you are slow and steady now.

Tammy, thanks for those thoughts. My DD will be 9 in a couple of weeks, and yes she does have wiggle room to finish Preparing. I already have it in my head that if she does not finish it until May of 2015 that is just fine. 1/2 speed is going pretty well and maybe I will stay with 1/2 speed longer than I had originally thought I would. I wasn't going to go straight up to full speed, more like 2/3 or 3/4 by next week. As my unexpected 3 weeks off demonstrates, life just happens sometimes and again, I am not at a point where I am in a major hurry to get through. When she is more independent I suppose HER being sick will be the only thing that will prevent school from happening. Right now, it's HER sick, or ME sick, or the 1YO sick (because I absolutely cannot school her and take care of a sick 1YO at the same time, at least I haven't figured it out yet).

But I know we can do better. I don't want to be the one holding anyone back. And I think she can really do the I, and S as written but I wanted to make sure she was doing them well and focussing the attention that is needed. Sometimes left too much on her own she will not. I suppose that can creep back in even if we do get a good start and then she is left more on her own in the coming weeks.

Selfishly, I really enjoy doing the stuff with her. It is precious time spent with her. Though as she grows more independent I guess I will have to settle for reading the same books she is reading...

(((HUGS))), Melissa! I can hear through your words how overwhelmed and frustrated you must feel. Perhaps because I'm reading my own feelings into your post, though! We chatted a bit on another thread recently about a similar issue in my home, and your advice has helped me immensely (to utilize naptime for teaching.) I don't know that I'm going to be much help on a schedule, since I'm not very successful with one, either; but I was wondering if you're trying to use a time-based schedule or a routine? I read an article recently on how to discern whether you're a schedule or a routine family, and realized that much of my frustrations stem because I'm trying to use a time-based schedule, when our lives really will work much smoother with routine. For one thing, my husband is also in ministry, and thus, his (and, therefore, our!) schedule is often unpredictable. He often likes to take one of the kids with him on ministry related visitation calls, so that impacts our school time, as well. Then I'm beginning to teach some piano lessons again (something I haven't done since we started homeschooling) and those days demand a different time frame. And, as you said, when bedtime cannot happen consistently, rising time is often thrown off as well. I've really found that inconsistent start times are the biggest culprit to throwing off any schedule...or routine...that I've ever made! So, all that to say that it sounds like your situation, as ours, may not work with neat little timed boxes for everything to fit into.

As far as fitting it all in...whew! I'm still struggling with this one as well. My difficulty running 3 guides this year has left me scrambling to find a way to not ever have to face the hurdle of 4 guides in this home! I have to say that I'm not sure that all my scrambling is accomplishing anything good and useful. Well, it did get me through a couple of really hard months with a very, very busy little guy running around and terrorizing everything...but, long term my "solution" will probably not work. I'm working really hard to separate my fear of the future (really nothing but sinful worry) from something that truly needs to change for the short term. For me, I do think cutting down from 3 guides to 2 was a helpful thing short term (we've done it a couple of months now), but I've already begun to mull through some ways that I can work to get my 1st grader back toward something on his level.

I think for your Preparing I'd keep it half pace a little longer. Start to build up a little at a time after your dd has more than one Unit under her belt to begin to get a feel for the expectations of each box, and how her day will flow. I've had difficulty when starting both Preparing and CTC to transition from a Unit or two where I want to sit with my dd and make sure that everything is going to be done completely and correctly to that point that I have to turn those Independent boxes over to her and resist the urge to check it until it's done! At some point I just have to let it go and focus on the younger kids, knowing that there will be time later for to check in with what the oldest has done on her own.

Sorry I cannot offer much in the way of concrete help here If nothing else, at least you know that you're not alone!

Thanks Becky, for your empathy, shared blessings, and understanding. You are right, I am much more of a "routine" person and I am actually also pretty good at flying by the seat of my pants when needed. I don't mind improvising every once in a while. But then it seems to all fall apart at times too, partially because I am so unstructured. A routine would help my DD, and I do kind of have one in place for us now, 1/2 speed Preparing, full speed Beyond (which is perfect for my 6 1/2 YO), and I think all the challenge I need to add in for next week is adding LHTH back in.

What you said is exactly what I was thinking today. 1/2 speed for a few more weeks, maybe 2 more units, then evaluate from there. What I was thinking after today and yesterday is that 1/2 speed just feels really right right now. She's doing well and we are both really enjoying it. (we have been doing math and DITHR every day, math because she loves it and it is easy, and DITHR because we have a library book that will need to be returned ) She is taking extra time to do things she enjoys (she wanted to work on both of the people in the Genesis 1 picture in Draw and Write Through History because she had the time, and I was proud of her because usually she rushes through those kind of projects).

I am trying to accustom my DS to "room time" as long as I give him one really fun thing to play with and make sure his room is "toddler proofed." He trashed it, but I guess that's the price for 20 minutes of uninterrupted school time.