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I need some guidance from some folks wiser & more experienced than me. In the fall i will start hs'ing my kiddos. I have four but my questions only regard my two oldest.

So my 8-yr-old is finishing second grade. Every thing comes easily to him. He is accelerated in reading, language arts and math. In looling at the placement charts, i am struggling bw Bigger and Preparing. He writes on his own quite well, basic punctuation is mastered, he understands parts of speech, plural. He has only learned maybe 7-10 cursive letters but is motivated & i think we can make huge strides in it this summer, even working on it casually. In the ps system he is at least a whole grade level ahead in reading and could b in math as well if school didnt have to 'wait' for other students his age.

My first-grader will be 7 in june. He has grown a lot in reading this year. But i feel like his phonics could be stronger. He does not love to read like my oldest--i think bc it is frustrating. He is fairly proficient in math--absolutely on target with his peers and it seems to come fairly easily. His penmanship isnt what i hope for but not awful either. Independent journaling is a real struggle for him. He doesnt enjoy it and works very slowly at school. Again, i think the letter formation for him at start of year was hard so he procrastinated due to lack of confidence. His reading comprehension is really lacking, i think bc he's working so hard on decoding each word that he loses the meaning of each sentence, then each paragraph, etc. as another clue, i wish we would have waited til he was 6 to start schooling with him rather than start at 5. That was a mistake. He is wiggly, active, vocal, sensitive & affectionate.

This fall will be my first 'semester' hs'ing. I had initially hoped to use one curriculum for both, just extending one for the oldest. However, considering that he is accelerated and my second is more on-track with peers or even behind, i think the distance bw them is too great. So i think Beyond will be the right fit for my first-grader and also think the emerging reader set is where i put him re reading.

But my oldest.....based on what info u have, do u think Bigger or Preparing. This child is obedient, likes to please, has an amazing attn span and does not enjoy the feeling of incapability.

I am a little overwhelmed at the thought of running two diff programs as a newbie. I know i CAN do it; i just dont know the details of how to do it yet. I will also be working more informally with my five-yr old in reading, writing & math.

I want my oldest to be challenged. I want my second to be challenged but i also reeally want to see his confidence rise (in addition to his skill set.)

After reading this is it your opinion/best guess that my instincts are correct that the 7-yr old shuld be in Beyond and my oldest in Preparing? ORRR shuld the oldest do Bigger WITH the extensions?

Finally, pls assure me that i will be able to keep all of these balls in the air (with also a near-2-yr-old underfoot.

Thx for reading & sharing your insights!!

First of all, welcome to the boards! I only have one child so I can't help with advice on running 2 programs at once, but I can try to help with placement. Based on what you have said, I would put your oldest in Bigger. I have heard many people on the boards say Bigger is foundational in getting all the skills they need so that they can move into more independence in Preparing on up. It also works out great for 3rd grade and will have you on track to do a guide per year till graduation. I would start without the extensions, and then if you feel you need more, you could always add them later. I think putting your younger son in Beyond for 2nd grade will be a great fit too. Also, remember with either of the guides you can always start at half speed - doing the left side of the guide one day and the right side the next - to get them used to homeschooling and to what is required and then bump them up to full speed after a week or two once you get a good rhythm down.

I have an 8 year old in preparing and she is doing great. We started out half speed just to get a feel for the program but by week 4 she could easily do full speed. The one thing I would be concerned about if you do beyond and bigger is that the following year you would be doing bigger and preparing. Those two guides are very difficult to teach together. Bigger is very teacher intensive. Also, you would set yourself up to teach the same guide consistently 2 years in a row. Honestly, if they only place one guide apart, I would combine them. Or if they truly are that far apart in skills then I would try a 2 guide distance. Another option is to do something different with your 8 year old for a year and then when your younger gets to bigger, you use the extensions and higher level math and English for your older ds. Since they are so close in age, combining would be nice. I would look closely at the sample weeks online and see what you think each one is capable of. I know it's so difficult to know where to begin. Hopefully this helps a little.

I am not sure how I would place them, as both of the previous comments had great advice/reasons for their suggestions. One thing I would like to mention though is that in HOD, math and LA is basically separate from everything else. So, while being able to write some for narrations (Preparing and up) and copy work (Beyond and up), it isn't the only thing to consider. You can always use the appropriate level of English/grammar (Rod and Staff) and math while keeping the history, Bible, science, and read-alouds age appropriate.

For me, all of my kids are a year and half apart in age. It sounds like your oldest is very advanced and your younger normal. This was my case with my oldest. She was much more advanced than her brother who whas 18 months younger than her. She started Preparing at 8 and her brother did Beyond when he was 7. Both of my kids were placed perfectly. Because of they are so different in school and ability, I have no desire to keep them in the same level. They needed to be separated. So if your son places solidly in Preparing, I would have him complete Preparing. The nice things is that since he is more advanced, you can start slow if you need to just to get him used to the schedule and such. It took my dd about a month or so to get comfortable with flow but once she got it, she sored. We are now into unit 28 and she is consistently completing her day in 4-4.5 hours per day 4 days a week. She isn't the fastest at tackling everything diligently and efficiently so most of the time she is near by when she works on stuff. But that is okay by me. I don't mind helping her get situated for science or for her history projects. The only thing I have really done for her is I gather her supplies. Other than that, she does it alone. For whatever reason gather supplies is her time nemesis LOL. And if left to herself it might add an hour a day! But we usually start the day at 9:00 and tackle anything that needs my help on the left side first thing. Then she completes the left side alone. She will also complete math or DITHOR. Then after lunch she has about 2 more hours of school. Again, I do all of her teacher directed things - grammar, spelling, writing, Bible and poetry first thing. Then she finishes science and either math or DITHOR. It feel like I spend about 45 minutes to an hour in the AM with her and again 45 minutes to 1 hour with her in the afternoon. I find this schedules works really well for us because once I get her taken care of I tend to my younger 2. My younger 2 do 3Rs in the AM before lunch. And then we do everything else after lunch. My time with them is about 1-1.5 hours in AM. And then 1 hour or so in the afternoon. With running both guides my day only takes about 4 hours of teaching time total a day. I am SO glad I didn't put everyone in the same level though. This has been extremely doable and very pleasurable running the different levels. Next year I will even be splitting up my younger 2 and they will all be in their own level I estimated about 4.5 hours for next year of my time. HOD does a great job of balancing the mom's day with the kids when the kiddos are placed correctly in each of their guides.

I was in a similar predicament last year. Pulled my son (who was entering 3rd grade) and daughters (who were entering 1st grade) out of ps. Decided to do Beyond (left side) all together and had DS do right side of Bigger (the younger children did Beyond entirely). It worked very well. I found ps wasn't teaching science or history so we needed to "catch up" our eldest there especially, even though he was ahead on reading and math. It was less overwhelming for me than teaching two guides entirely.