New and please help!

[Lindsayhoang02]

Hi ladies, I'm a momma to 7 but only teaching 3 now. My oldest ds is in 4th and second ds in 2nd. I also have a kindergartener and 4 yr old but got MFW K for them awhile back. I think preparing will be great for my 4th grader, but trying to decide if I should have my 2nd grader do preparing also or do Beyond? We are just now finishing up MFW Adventures so we've been doing American history.

Lastly, what do you do if your child finished all the guides but isn't ready for high school? That's awhile for us but I have enjoyed my oldest 2 boys learning the same time periods together. Looking ahead to teaching 7 or 8 children eventually I can't imagine how many guides I'll have to do at once. Sounds overwhelming.

Thanks for any help!
Lindsay
Mom to 7
Ds 9
Ds 7
Ds 5
Ds 3
DD 2 1/2
DD 2 1/2
DD 8 days old

[StephanieU]

I would not put your 7 yo in Preparing. Carrie lists Preparing as for 8-10yo, and she purposefully picks the books for that age range and maturity.
So, I see two options for your oldest two. First, you could put them in separate goodies. Base don what you said, Preparing and Beyond would be the logical choices. This would mean there is a guide between them, so you aren't doing guides back to back, which is recommended to prevent burnout, etc for mom. The second option would be to combine in Bigger. This would be a slight challenge for the 7yo, but after doing MFW Adventures, it should be do-able. This could lessen the number of guides/curriculums you are doing at once, which might be very beneficial with 7 kids.

Now as for not having enough guides, first remember that Carrie is writing two more guides. So, there will be 4 high school guides. But, if you put your 7yo in Bigger this year, there will be a "gap" year. There are a few ways to deal with this. First, often times life happens and you have to slow down and not complete a guide in a year. This will eat up that gap year, and the problem is solved. The second option is to take a year off and focus on the 3Rs as well as your child's interests. I could possibly see doing this when children are combined and one is pushed more than necessary (and it is time for "break"), but often just slowing a guide down to half speed is just as easy. Lastly, if a child is going through the guides without too much issue, then the child can just graduate early. If the child isn't ready to go off to college, community college or programs like College Plus are a great option. It allows them to slowly transition into college while still being at home with your guidance.

[Lindsayhoang02]

Thank you so much for helping me. You were very helpful!

[MelInKansas]

You should really look at the placement chart

http://www.heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php

And see where each of those two fit. If you want to combine them, then it is recommended to combine in the guide that the younger one fits into well, and add on challenge for the older one. So you would place the younger one and add on. It's not hard to do that, and it does help you when going through some of the younger, more teacher-intensive guides.

But from CTC on up the child grows in independence and will do a lot of their work on their own, so you would make time for discussion and grading. So it is really workable to do multiple guides as long as they are 2 guides apart. I made the choice (even though eventually I will be schooling 5) to keep my kids separate because of their age differences and skill differences and I am glad to have them all in their own guides. Then there are some who combine and find that works really well for them (but again, you have to make sure the youngest can keep up, you don't want to be dragging them along where they can't really do what the guide is asking).

If your child has finished all of the other guides then they should be ready for the high school guides. Perhaps the workload is what you would be most concerned about. But you can always slow it down if it is too much, spread it out a little bit. If your child is able to finish HS level work before they would graduate from HS then there's always college courses, which to take them as a high schooler is cheaper (at least here) than it is to pay college tuition.

Probably most introductory level college courses would be a step down from what they had been doing in the HOD HS guides!

[Lindsayhoang02]

Thank you! I think I will do two separate guides. I'm sure I'll do Preparing and Beyond. I looked at it thoroughly and I think that'll work best. Thanks again!!

Lindsay

[Nealewill]

As an encouragement to you - the year before I came to HOD - I came from MFW and my kids had all listened in on Adventures. We did use the American Pioneers & Patriots book but then my two youngest completed Beyond with HOD. It was a great year. We really enjoyed Beyond immensely. And my oldest moved into Preparing alone. It was really nice running both guides and my kids all loved it.

[Lindsayhoang02]

That is encouraging, Daneale. I was concerned about repeating so
Much, but I'm looking forward to starting our year. We just had a baby so I'm taking things slow.

Lindsay

[Nealewill]

You are welcome. I was also very hesitant about doing Beyond because I was worried about having too much overlap. But it actually turned out totally fine. My kids loved hearing the stories again. And the other two books included in the history reading gave me (and my kids) a whole new perspective on the Pilgrims. We learned a ton. Also, the crafts and activities were totally different so that helped as well. In general though - the year was wonderful and my two youngest thoroughly enjoyed it.

I did see you had a question about what do with kids if they finish up high school but aren't ready yet to actually move to high school. Well, one thing that is really nice about HOD is that you can combine kids in a levels if you want too. And the other thing that is great is that with each level, the child can become more and more independent. With Preparing, I only spent about 1.5 hours a day helping my dd. Then I spent about 2.5 hours a day with the other 2 kids. So that is a 4 hour teaching day - perfect for me. Also, HOD is meant that when combining, you would match the level to the youngest child's abilities in that level. This way, you can adjust only the 3rs in difficulty (mainly reading, spelling, and math).

The other wonderful thing with HOD is that because of the way it is set up, your child doesn't necessarily have to complete every level to graduate High School. Most products that they use are very multi age. So the writing used in the WG and WH guide are actually 10th and 11th grade writing programs. I showed my homeschool assessor the science books for the WG and she said I could actually count that as both physics and chemistry (non-lab for transcript purposes). Ohio is a pretty strict homeschooling state so they have a lot of regs when it comes to reporting and class requirements. But with HOD, if you want to combine and to make it easiest on you and your kids, you would want to have 1 guide in between. And then place your kids in the guides they would line up with. With the ages you mentioned of your older two, doing Preparing and Beyond this year will be great because Preparing will probably take a little bit of time on your end to help your oldest get used to doing her work alone. With Beyond, that guide is a lot of fun and not as heavy on the 2nd grader. Then next year, you would be doing CTC, Bigger and Little Hearts and your K child and 4 year old would then go into Little Hearts together. Since you have 3 other kids and 1 on the way, I would think you might also be able to have them combine as well when they start coming up through the levels. And with having this many kids, I have read several who will adjust the grammar, spelling and math to their kids. I probably wouldn't adjust grammar and spelling though if it were me. I would keep spelling and grammar to whatever guide the child is working in and I would basically only change math for the kids that are in the same level. I have 2 reason for this. One, it cuts way down on your teaching time. My guess is you will probably be running up to 5 guides. Even if you only spend 1 hour a day with each guide, that is a 5 hour day. You will probably spend another 2 hours a day doing something else for someone - math or something. But regardless, you will want to cut down on things that can save you time. And the other reason I would keep them together at all costs is because with spelling, you just want to finish the dictation by 12th grade. If you have 1 grade difference between kids, they will probably finish by 9th and 10th. So the grade didn't matter. With grammar, R&S is very challenging. If they don't finish up through 8 by the time they graduate, it doesn't actually matter. For me, even though my 2 youngest are separated this year, they actually do all of their LA together still and they will do this until my middle child goes into high school. And then once your children get to Rev to Rev or MTMM, if they are actually going into High School but use one of these guides, there are forums set up that talk about beefing these levels up to make them high school worthy. Making them high school worthy would probably be fairly easily so I wouldn't worry about it until you get to stage.

If I had realized how the combine was meant to work out when I started, and I had intentions of combining them, I probably should have started my two youngest in Little Hearts when I found HOD and then they should both be in Beyond this year. But that isn't what happened. I started my youngest in Beyond when she was 5 and she did fine. However, I highly recommend having the kids be in the age group listed because as they get older, the work load increases in volume and maturity. By the time I finished Beyond and my oldest finished Preparing, I knew I wasn't going to put my 6 year old in Bigger. Honestly, she could do it. And she would have done it with a pretty good attitude probably. But I was worried she that wouldn't really be ready for Preparing at 7 (or all future higher levels at her younger age for that matter) and didn't want to stress her out. So I put her in Little hearts this year instead. My son moved to Bigger and it actually worked out well having them separate for history and science. However, with my youngest, she is gifted. She does the same spelling, grammar and reading as my middle child. She will start DITHOR with her brother after Christmas. And we do not use Singapore for math because we had already found a different program - but that program has a lot of math games and my two youngest play all their math games together (my youngest can do her brother's math level but I am just not letting her). For me, keeping them combine for LA is great because it saves me in teaching time. Also, the next year, my two youngest are going to both be independent. While HOD does recommend having a level in between, that won't end up happening for us because I am putting my youngest in Bigger and my son will move to Preparing. The good news is, that because my youngest is gifted, she already reads most of the stuff in Little Hearts to herself right now. I anticipating making Bigger very independent as well for her. My son will move to Preparing and I am sure he will need some handholding to get him comfortable with being independent. But in general, I think my teaching time will still be no more than 4 hours a day.

For me - teaching no more than 4 hours a day is a must because I work from home around 30 hours a week. I picked HOD specifically because my kids could get a great, interesting, fun filled, godly education without me having to teach all day long. I love the independence offered. I love the flexibility. I love that their products are very much multi grade and that your kids can learn a ton on their own as they get older. And even with my kids - they love it too. I am sure I sound somewhat mean but I actually have never really considered their "opinions" as a priority when initially researching and considering curriculum. Do I want them to be happy? Well, I don't want them miserable. But sometimes they are going to have learn about things they don't enjoy and that is okay. For me, HOD is a huge blessing because they learn a ton and they do enjoy it. HOD has met practically every educational goal I set and I am still able to accomplish any other goals I have for the kids (we all take music lessons, my oldest sings, we attend a co-op, my kids play sports, they attend an AWANA [scripture memorizing club], and this year I added in a chess curriculum for fun so we are all learning the ins and outs of chess). For me, being able to still be myself and add a fun thing or two is important. I can do all that and know educationally my kids are getting what they need and enjoying it at the same time. HOD has been a huge blessing in my family and I am very thankful to have found it.

Sorry for big long novel LOL. It may seem challenging to think about the future but you will grow into the workload. Hopefully what I have shared will help you not feel overwhelmed as you think about it.

[my3sons]

Good morning, Lindsayhoang02! I was just reading through all of the wise and encouraging words here, and thinking "What an amazing group of ladies this is!" I was also thinking that this is such a busy, exciting time in life for you as a young mama of little ones. I honestly don't believe teaching PHFHG and Beyond will not be hard to do - what will be hard to do is to plan what to do with all of the precious little ones throughout the day. Little ones can be the ones we forget to plan for sometimes, and yet they are the ones that impact the flow of our day, especially our teaching time, the most. With that thought in mind, here are some excellent threads on planning for your littles throughout the day...

What to do with toddlers while schooling:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=198&p=33557
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4987&p=36744#p36744
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9569&p=69865#p69865

My post about learning stations for Emmett:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10565&p=76777

I hope something here can help, but planning for the littles, and enlisting your oldest 2 dc to take turns helping with them, may make a huge difference in your day! I am excited for you to begin, and I hope you have a wonderful year using 2 of HOD's amazing guides!

In Christ,
Julie