Trying to decide if I should separate my kids this year

[lttwhivy]

* I placed this post in the wrong location so I'm re-posting here-

I am searching for advice in placement of my kids. I have a DD ( soon to be 13) and a DS (soon to be 11) and we have been using HOD for 2 years now. I started them together in Christ to Creation and we are about to finish Resurrection to Reformation in the next few weeks. My question is when and how do I separate them with material? My daughter will be considered an 8th grader this coming year, my son will be considered a 6th grader. I know I could have them continue the next 2 "grade" levels together, but once we finish them, my DD can easily move into the high school level material, but where does that leave my son? I have a concern that he would be too young to move into the high school material with my DD. It would leave us in a gap where I wouldn't have HOD material to cover that year. If I move him up with her he would graduate too young. Should I split them up now? Move my daughter into Missions and Modern Marvels? That means she would miss all history and science in Revival and Revolution. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Gretchen

[8arrows]

Has it been going well? If so, I would not change a thing. If the younger one finishes early, there are always community college classes. I successfully combined three of mine throughout. Your scenario:

6th and 8th REV2REV
7th and 9th MTMM (beefed up for high school for oldest--There are several posts about this. Make sure to include an economics credit.)
8th and 10th geography guide
9th and 11th world history
10th and 12th 1st 1/2 of American history and government
11th 2nd 1/2 of American history
12th community college or online classes, CLEPS, apprenticeship, etc.

If you think your 8th grader could skip a guide, you could separate them and move the 8th grader up, but I don't think you need to. MTMM was a don't miss guide for us. If things went well, I would keep going until there is a problem, if there ever is one.

[lttwhivy]

Thanks for the reply -- that is EXACTLY what my hubby said to do also! I will stick with the program since it really works well for us, and if I need to supplement with other material for either kid then I'm sure I can do that. I guess I had a mommy panic moment

[chillin'inandover]

Gretchen,
My son will be in Rev2Rev this year. The only thing I would suggest is that your 8th grader do the Exploration Education Advanced science kit and the 6th grader do the standard kit. According to the website, there are 180 lessons for the advanced kit and 108 lessons for the standard kit. It will be 5 days per week for 36 weeks for advanced and 3 days for 36 weeks for stand kit. There are more projects for advanced vs standard. That would "beef up" the 8th graders work at least in science. Of course the 8th grader doesn't need the rest of the guide "beefed up". The website for science lists advanced for 7-10th grade and it could be considered high school credit if you desire. My son has started his advanced kit this summer because we only school 4 days, and I saw no other way to get it done. He will get 36 lessons finished this summer to be able to finish 180 lessons during the traditional school year. He is enjoying the challenge because he loves science. It has been a wise choice for our family and my son. He probably would have gone to a science camp.

[lttwhivy]

Thanks Tammy,

I was wondering what the difference is with the science material. We only do four days a week, so I'm glad to know that I will need to make some adjustments to complete the lessons. I feel better about keeping them together, it should work for everyone

[Nealewill]

I am so glad you feel better about keeping them together. I agree with the other moms, if you want to, you should keep them together.

Some other thoughts I had about thinking about high school as it sounds like it is quickly approaching is I would just plan to get 2 guides the following year. Next year when you do MTMM, I would also buy the WG guide also so that you can use it for some of the high schools. And when you go to buy the WG level, HOD will still give you a discount on the package for WG because you previously bought the guide as long as you call them. This way you could move the 9th grader up for Literature, Spanish, Logic, and Math. And then each year there after, I would do the same thing. I would get the next guide up so that you could continue on for the path. Also, since your child won't complete the last guide, I would be sure in 9th grade to add in an economics class or a finance class. I know in Ohio, I need a half credit of government also but I think from previously reading something on this site, that would be covered in the 3rd high school guide. I also don't know what the requirements are for your state for science but I would find out. If you need 4 sciences, you can definitely get them with getting the Advanced kit for Rev to Rev and then adding the Chemistry 101 DVDs for MTMM. But if you do the Chemistry DVDs in MTMM, I guess the 3rd guide is supposed to have Chemistry. So I don't know if you would want to do that Chemistry. You may want to do the science from the 4th guide instead of the 3rd. Or you may want to skip the science for 9th grade and go straight to Biology. I guess all I am saying is you have a of options.

So I guess the best news is - you can keep them together and then modify some of the subjects or eventual split the kids for some of the subject as you wish to meet your requirements. By the time they are in the WG guide, they are going to be working extremely independently and you may not care at all about having them split for some stuff since it won't increase your time one lick! And I wanted to add - the one really nice thing about having your younger child start the WG guide in 8th grade is that you will have 5 years for her finish to the high school guides. That is what our plan is here - 2 out of my 3 kids will always be on the younger end of the guide. But 1 of those kids isn't a fast reader (my oldest). She gets faster and faster every year. But I love that she will have 5 years to do those 5 guides instead of 4. So your youngest will have that same opportunity too. I am not saying she will need it, but it is available and I think that is awesome!

[Tidbits of Learning]

While I think it is great to keep kids together, I also think high school is a different ball game. I had always combined my dd's together when we did HOD prior and I really thought about it this year. However, the more I thought about beefing up and adding to things for Economics and Government and science labs...the more it seemed like it would just be simpler to put dd where she placed now. Why beef up a guide when I can buy a guide ready made for her that is open and go?
If you looked at the placement chart right now, would your dd place where she is or could you place her in MTMM? High school is all about credits and getting the credits required for graduation and college. Those credits look different in different states. If it were me, I would think it would be much easier to go ahead and move dd up so that I didn't have to compare our state's requirements to the lower guides and try to make it fit high school requirements.
FWIW, after looking at our state's requirements I do plan to have my dd12 and ds11 eventually skip MTMM to get to WG for 9th grade. The content of the middle school guides will be covered again in high school guides.

[Carrie]

Gretchen,

As you can see from the advice from the wise moms here on the board, you could honestly go either way. Since you are on the verge of high school, but not actually there yet, one thing I would really use to make my decision for the upcoming year is how well you feel your older daughter is placed right now. Do you feel that she is well-placed and did well with RTR? Or, did you feel that she was done very quickly and waiting on her younger sibling a lot? If the placement felt right this past year, then I would be more inclined to keep your kiddos together for the upcoming year, and then reassess as your daughter is ready to enter high school. At that point, we could ponder again whether to move her forward to the first high school guide.

Or, if the reverse is true and you felt she literally flew through her school and was always needing more, often waiting on her younger sibling, then you could look at moving her to MTMM this year instead. Whatever you do, it will be very important for your older daughter to be doing Drawn into the Heart of Reading this coming year in preparation for high school level literature. It will also be important for her writing skills to be very strong and moving forward and for her grammar to be on track (especially if you are looking to bump her ahead). Last, it would be good if her math skills were also on track. Otherwise, if she is a bit behind in any of her 3 R's, then moving her ahead in the other areas could quickly cause an overload.

Feel free to share your thoughts as we help you talk through your options.

Blessings,
Carrie