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This is my tenth year homeschooling and our third year using HOD, but we are only finishing our second guide. We started with Beyond and we are now finishing up Bigger. My ds will be 11 in June. I am struggling with skipping Preparing and moving to C to C just to get him on a better schedule grade-level wise. He is NOT a writer. He will type anything, but as for physically writing anything, we have issues. He has NO physical or learning disabilities. I know that Preparing has a lot of writing and that it increases with each Guide. I know better than to worry about "grade level" and that kind of thing. He fits into both Preparing and C to C, but I feel Preparing is better due to the level of writing and the newly "independent" boxes. Also, we haven't used DITHOR and I am worried about the level of work in that. He will tolerate school without too much fuss but only if he sees he will have time to be out doing his other things. Maybe I have let his "other things" take too much priority? I am so confused.

We do a lot of other things outside of school and that is why it is taking us so long. My kid loves to build things, he has built a two story fort with minimal help and lots of supervision. He also spends time in with his granddad who has been teaching him "mechanical" and "carpentry" things. He rides a dirt bike, which he is continuing to learn to repair. He is a green belt in karate, about to test for purple (which is one removed from the first level brown). He helps with our businesses, usually willingly (lol), and he hunts and fishes with his dad. He helps with yard work and bush hogging. I guess I am trying to figure out if I will be doing him a disservice either just moving through guides as we go, or by skipping Preparing. I feel in my heart that he needs Preparing, but I don't want him to be too old for the others, I guess. I have looked at Preparing with extensions, but I don't really understand what that exactly means. I also thought of using parts of other curriculum for some things and then HOD for the others. But, that doesn't make much sense to me either. We love HOD and I just need to get on track.

I think I am just looking for something to make me feel better about going from Guide to Guide, regardless of the "age levels" listed for each guide. I see most of the folks on HOD are finished with Preparing and some even further along than that by this age, and then I feel discouraged with where we are. I love homeschooling because of the freedom to actually have a life and to teach "life skills", but I don't want him to be behind either. I am sorry for the long post, but I need to make a decision and order soon.

I need someone to straighten me out, lol!!

Off the top of my head it sounds to me like your son has many interests, skills, and talents and he is using them and learning a LOT in the things he is doing. Helping with your business, fixing things, building things, these are all wonderful activities that will make him into a man of character with skills that will hopefully help him greatly in life. That being said, there are only so many hours in a day and if book work is not his interest, passion, or skill I would say keep with it of course, but don't stress over which "grade level" he is at if he is challenged enough and doing his best. My thought is add in DITHOR next year with Preparing and that will be enough increase in workload for him. Each guide adds in more work and a longer school day for the child so I would be concerned in your skipping to CtC that it would really overwhelm him (especially also adding DITHOR having not done that before). The guides can hold a lot of interest for older children than the age range (or at the oldest end of the age range).

He will be a 6th grader next year right? One way to speed it up slightly is to do 5 days of school a week instead of 4. Do you currently do 5 days a week? Preparing only schedules 4 days a week so you would finish it earlier by doing 5. You will have 3 years to get him fairly well positioned for High School. Even when he reaches High School you could keep going through the Middle School guides and add in as suggested by others on this board to make it high-school credits. Given what you have told us about him that's what I would do. Though you may want to add in more independence for him since he is older, if you feel that is appropriate. Have him read the Storytime books and discuss them with you, have him do the History projects independently, things like that.

Melissa already had some great insight! You can feel good about all of the things your ds is learning outside of school, but yes, school is still important to consider. So, there is either the above option of schooling 5 days a week and moving ahead that way. Or there is this option...
6th - PHFHG
7th - CTC
8th - RTR
9th - RevtoRev (count as Early American History)
10th - MTMM (count as Late American History)
11th - World Geography
12th - World History

Perhaps you should just do PHFHG next year, and see how it goes? The extensions add more mature reading to the history that matches the weekly history themes, have a paginated schedule in the Appendix of each guide, and include suggested follow-ups such as oral narrations/written narrations/writing a summary, etc. They are meant to be completed independently. You have many high school path options with HOD! There are also easy to implement suggestions for beefing up guides for high school at the top of our message board, under Main Board.

In Christ,
Julie