a great day

[Nealewill]

Today was a great and glorious day for me! For the past 2 months we have been doubled up days in Beyond to finish by summer for my younger 2. Goal accomplished, we finished last week. So today - we started Little Hearts and Bigger. And I had planned on only doing 1/2 speed depending on how the day went. I am so happy to report, we did every box as written in the guide and the two youngers finished their work in about 3 hours total for me. My oldest dd is doing Preparing (she has 4 weeks left) and I only spend an hour with her now. Today was such a good day!!!! I couldn't believe how easy it was to complete 3 guides. And the best part was my two kids who were together before each told me (separately) how much they loved having their one on one time with me and only me. What a blessing! Thanks again HOD for making it so easy to have everyone do their own guide and to have their own learning experiences and accomplishments!

[MelInKansas]

Wow, that's wonderful! Good job to you and your kiddos! And your oldest is so close to finishing, keep it going strong to the end!

We have major summer-itis here and will be taking a break after we finish one more week of our guides. I have enjoyed so much having my younger ones each in their own guides and find it runs very smoothly and is wonderful to have them all well-placed. Since you just started new guides, are you going through the summer with them, or just a few weeks and then taking a summer break?

[Nealewill]

We actually school all year long. But my goal is to finish Preparing over the next 3+ weeks. We may skip spelling, math (we are ahead) and we have finished DITHOR already for the year. We moved the read aloud to bed time (because we always read at night anyway. So I am only spending about 1 hour a day with her. And I plan to have her start school at 8:30 and work till 11:30 and give her best.

Once she finished Preparing, we will start CTC the first week of July hopefully. We usually like to take off most June but this year we don't have much planned. I think we are going take some time off in August and September. Then we always take time in November and most of December.

Honestly, I find my kids do great with a schedule. That is the main reason why we do school over the summer now. Once my dd finishes Preparing, we will move doing only 2 hours of school work a day for 3-4 days per week. It helps to get us a little bit ahead, gives them something to do, and it helps to maintain a schedule. My younger 2 will probably move to doing 1 hour a day once we move to this schedule. But we came off of a few weeks off already. We didn't have school 2 weeks in April and then 2 weeks in May. So everyone is pretty rested. I will also get to a point in July I will probably have to give the kids off a few weeks because I will be working on some tax stuff for the non-profit I work for. So I will take off then if I need to. I did have summeritis but I am loving the new guides. So I am now over it And my dd is devouring all of the great books at the end of Preparing. So I think she is wanting to keep going now too. It is a good feeling her for now. No one knows though what next week holds. All the kids in my neighborhood will be off next week. I am hoping to go full speed through 6/5 though and then switch to half speed after that for a few months.

[nena3927]

Yay!!! I'm so glad your day went great and the transition went so well. I LOVE HOD!!!

[Gwenny]

That's great!! We are about a week away from finishing Beyond and Preparing! Excited about starting Bigger and CtC. I have another guy in LHFHG and one almost halfway done with CtC. I love HOD!

[Nealewill]

Gwenny - you and I are going to be in the same guides this coming year! While you are half way through CTC, I will be starting it soon And I LOVE HOD too! My husband said it is the best curriculum he has ever seen! That means a lot coming from him

[MelInKansas]

Good for you. The schools here got out the week before Memorial Day. We have neighbor kids who are now home all day and love to play with my kids. And we kept plugging away through April and May in anticipation of this June break. My LHTH has only 2 more weeks to go and I am going to keep going with her, but honestly I finish LHTH (and the added math and handwriting) before her older sisters are even done with breakfast most of the time. That will not feel like school. Preparing is the one that takes the longest to complete, I am so happy about all my DD is doing and learning but for us I have to put in at least 2 1/2 hours with her and she probably has another 2 hours she does on her own to finish it. DITHOR is a big chunk of that and I am so happy she is doing the level 4/5 books and loving them so I will just keep her going!

I think it's funny that most of my friends whose kids go to school are thinking "oh man, how will we keep busy, what will I do with my kids home all day," etc etc. I am thinking "wow, this is great, the kids are home all day but we don't have to do school!" At least for a while. As you said, we can't take 2-3 months off at a time, the schedule and the work keep us going and keep things positive around here. Too much free time is not good. If we had a farm or something else that we were always working on outside then I would take more breaks, especially in spring and fall. But we need the consistent schedule and work of school going. We will probably pick it back up in July.

[Nealewill]

I wonder if those kids have anything due over the summer. The reason I ask is because my neighbors both down the street and up the street both got summer work. They all have 1 hour of math a day and then 1 hour of reading each day. So they all have 2 hours of school a day in the summer. I am actually coordinating with their mom now about a school schedule.