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We began HOD CTC late last year (Oct. 28, 2013). We are now in unit 17 with ds10 and ds12. My 12 year old is flourishing and doing very well in everything offered in the guide. He is very well placed and this has been a great year for him thus far.

My 10 year old is also doing very well except he just told me today that the writing is too much for him. He is on the younger end of the guide; he began it 2 months before his 10th birthday. He has never complained or said anything until now about the writing. His answers are well stated but messy because it is physically difficult for him to write so much. This leaves me to consider other options for him for next year so he can mature a bit before going into HOD RTR. From what I've seen, it has a LOT of writing and it would be too much for ds10.

(Note: He is my easy going child that never really complains about anything. He just gets it done. After I spoke with him about how things were going, he shyly told me it was too much work and has been from the beginning. I missed any nonverbal queue he may have given . I am now starting to think my expectations of him are too high and he is just use to meeting expectations, even if it isn't honestly going well for him. Now, off to re-evaluate myself so I can get my dear child on track without him feeling pressure to meet perceived unspoken expectations.)

Now, another piece to the puzzle is I want to separate them into their own guides anyway. My oldest wants his own thing and to not feel like he is in the same class as little brother since he is going into junior high. There is also a bit of competition that has arisen as well as one kiddo not trying as hard because the other is quick to answer. There are some other things but the point is they would do better in their own guide. So I need your help .

I have some options...some makes more sense than others . Please chime in and be sure to offer other options that I haven't considered yet.

Note: We aren't necessarily concerned with teaching history out of order. I am more concerned with giving him a proper workload for his age and maturity level.

Option 1: Have ds10 stop CTC and go to Preparing. He will finish Preparing, then finish the 2nd half of CTC before going into HOD RTR.

Option 2 (feel free to edit or delete, as I'm not sure if it is ok to post this one here): Ds10 finishes CTC then takes a break from HOD. He goes into something else such as MFW ECC for a year then head back to HOD RTR after he's matured a bit.

This option would mean I would teach MFW ECC to ds10 and HOD RTR to ds12. How would this look for me? I can't put my oldest in ECC because he doesn't do well with MFW. Now that we've found what works for him, he would like to stick with it.

Option 3: Keep him flowing with the HOD guides and put him in HOD RTR after finishing CTC.

Option 4: Anything else I haven't mentioned .

Thank you for your time!!

I think this is a perfect time for you to keep your oldest going on CtC and put your younger in Preparing. So Option 1.
I'll bet they will both flourish with that. Preparing is wonderful.

I also vote for Option 1. Preparing is much less writing but still fantastic. My ds 10 would really love the material. My dd has found it fantastic. I love HOD and haven't found anything that really compares in anyway (not even MFW). So I would stick with HOD. And I think with your son, since he doesn't complain, he will find Preparing a fresh breath of air and then moving into CTC later would be very doable for him.

Summer break is coming soon, and you have 18 more weeks to complete in CTC. A lot can change, maturity-wise, in that amount of time. My first advice would be to stay put; the second option, in my opinion, would be option 1.

Since she wants to separate them anyway, this seems like the perfect time.

Depending on when you break for summer (if you do), another option would be to slow CtC down to half speed for the history and science things. You could still do the 3Rs daily, but maybe do history one day and science the next or something like that. It would spread the boys out by about 18 weeks if you did that - which isn't a full year but might be enough. Otherwise I would say Ooption 1.