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Looking ahead, we will be in the middle of Bigger when we break for the summer. We usually take 2 - 2 and 1/2 months off of our formal school year. Is it tough to stop in the middle of a guide for that long? I have marked where I plan to stop, so we are not in the middle of a science or storytime book. Just wondering how others have handled this to keep the flow, without formal schooling through summer.

Schooling year round won't work for us, either, so we'll have at least 3 of our 4 guides left to finish in the fall, too, so you won't be alone!

No experience to share, though, as this is our first year with AO (and with switching things in the middle of a year to make things not line up with the traditional school year).

Looking forward to reading others' experience!
Blessings,

I took a summer break with both Bigger and Beyond. It worked just fine, no problems at all.

We did it last year with Beyond with my last little guy and just picked it back up this fall when we headed back to school. It actually worked very well! As we got going this fall, it was also amazing to me to compare how much he was improving in many areas of the same guide (simply due to age and maturity). It was actually fun to see and compare! Then, when we finished Beyond, we headed into Bigger half-speed for 10 weeks, because he was still having quite a few challenges reading. We are now using Bigger full-speed, and it is going well! He was actually asking to do a whole day in a day.

Blessings,
Carrie

Thanks for the replies. I know many are in the middle of a guide at the end of a school year, but some don't take as long a break.

Carrie, thanks for sharing how your little guy is doing. With all of Angie's struggles, I don't want to move through the guides too quickly. We are doing full speed since we started Bigger in November, but will take a day here and there for just the basics if there are other things going on. So, to have our 180 days, I have planned to stop after unit 18. This will end a science book (I don't want to stop in the middle of that ). I don't want to stop in the middle of a storytime book, so we will stop storytime after unit 16. We will do storytime 2 weeks before we start up full time in the fall so it can line up with our days when we start unit 19. It is a good feeling to be able to keep moving forward in each guide as they come. I'm anxious to compare our first half of Bigger with the last half in the fall. Maybe she will then be ready for some independent reading when we get to Preparing.

We have done this multiple times with Riley and with Emmett, as we take a summer break. I encourage the boys to keep reading for fun in the summer on their own, but otherwise, we take the summer off. It has been nice to come back to a familiar guide, and as Carrie shared, I too saw growth just given time. I plan to have Emmett stop BHFHG when Wyatt finishes his WH guide in May. Emmett will probably be about 10 weeks into the guide or so. I'll look forward to returning to BHFHG after summer, and then we'll do school 4 days a week to finish it out. I think breaks are good to take, as they are rejuvenating and build anticipation as we look forward to beginning again.

In Christ,
Julie

Julie, I agree that it is good to have that time off between school years. I get concerned about Angie forgetting some things if we are off too long, but that is more in the math line. Along with continuing her practice in reading, I will probably have her do some math now and then, just to review concepts that she has learned, to make sure they are sticking. I know what you mean about a summer break being rejuvenating. Moms AND kids need that. Then we look forward to starting the next year. I am looking forward to seeing Angie's progress from this year to next.