HOD with two or more guides

[Taramisu]

Hi,
I'm planning on using LHFHG with my son who will be kindergarten age next year and just thinking about the future with other kids. I have a 2 year old daughter now who has a birthday at the end of Aug (so not sure when she will be going into kindergarten since she is right near the cut off date) but she and her brother are almost 3 years apart. We hope to have at least 1 or 2 more kids in the future (but the next one will be 3+ years apart from my youngest now). I realize I am looking way in the future, BUT, if I do fall in love with HOD (as I believe I will!) and plan to use it with 2-4 kids (each with their own individual guide), can anyone tell me how much time this would take? What parts would you do all together (or group at least some together)? I think I've read of people doing Bible together, but then which guide/program do you use for that and do you just not do the others' Bible lesson? I'm really confused about that. Or the read alouds, people say they do together...does that mean you read everyone's read alouds with everyone? Are there any tips to save on time?

At what age do the kids begin to be more independent with their lessons? I'm assuming reading ability has a big part in this...

Thank you!
Tara

[StephanieU]

HOD introduces independent assignments with Preparing, which many families use for 4th grade. Bigger and Preparing are the two guides that take the most time for the parent (2-3 hours a day each). I will most likely end up with for guides, and I dunt plan on combining anything really. We will probably have a family dictation/spelling time, ands maybe we will do something else all at the dining table at the same time, but they all will do everything in their individual guides.
We will be starting two guides in Monday. My oldest will be in unit 8 of Bigger, and my second will start LHFHG. We will probably stay LHTH soon after that, doing it 3-4 days a week, since I like to start LHFHG at 5.5-6yo.

[MelInKansas]

I have your situation, my kids are all about 3 years apart. Our school day right now starts at 8:30 and ends about 1:30 of course with breaks and lunch. As mentioned in the other post, children gain independence about 3rd or 4th grade and can do many subjects independently. HOD does this without sacrificing quality discussion time with your kids, I know some homeschoolers whose kids just do their work all day and all the parents do is grade the work. Grading and discussion of thought provoking questions are part of the time you do spend with them, whereas they do projects and read their own history, science, and other things at a pretty early age (with books at their level and ways to check on their comprehension).

Here's the time I would estimate I spend with each child, one-on-one.

5th grader - CTC - 2 hours
3rd grader - Bigger - 3 hours (very little of her work is independent at this point)
1st grader - LHFHG (almost in Beyond) - 1-1.5 hours
3 year old - random workbooks, cutting, puzzles, etc - 15 minutes

I think for schooling 3 kids that's really not too bad! Again of course because I have 5 kids I can't just go straight through anything, I have blocks scheduled for each part and each person and there are often interruptions.

Some people do combine kids but I do not think this would save that much time, especially with more than a 2 year age difference. Young grades are really difficult to combine because of the wide range of skills and attention span in young children. Then by the time they get to be older it's difficult because you have to hold one back to wait for the next one to catch up. The open-and-go aspect of it is not as easy when combining kids who don't fit squarely into the guide. So I find the trade-off of being able to use the materials as written is worth doing a separate guide with each of my kids. At least for now. I'm so into a rhythm this way I don't know how I would try to do it differently.

[Taramisu]

Thank you! That's very helpful to know. I actually love teaching one-on-one and doing schoolwork with my kids, but I don't want to feel overwhelmed like we are spending the ENTIRE day on school between the different guides. Sounds like it is doable, though, with some practice and scheduling

[MelInKansas]

Very doable.

The younger kids are in a guide I have taught before. This makes it seem quicker and easier at least, even though each child has their own challenges within the guide, I'm at least familiar with the material. I have even learned a lot from my oldest about what the expectations should be on the assignments, to prepare them for what's ahead. Those oldest children are always the guinea pigs.

I do use a schedule, though I don't stick strictly to times on it, but I like the routine of doing each one's stuff in the same order so we all know what to expect.

[Nealewill]

I do everything separately and love it that way. We do nothing together.

As Melissa shared, those are fairly accurate times. I did find though that I was able to probably spend a little bit less time with my kids last year. My oldest is very independent as was my youngest. I also kept a notebook telling my kids things to do alone.

RtR - 1.5 hours
CTC - 1-1.5 hours
Preparing - 2 hours
Bigger - 2.5 hours
Beyond - 2 hours
Little Hearts - 1-1.5 hours

I have 3 kids and my goal is to keep teaching time under 4 hours. This year I am teaching Bigger and Preparing at the same time (which HOD doesn't necessarily recommend - if your kids are one guide apart, you can easily combine into one guide and adjust for the older child but I prefer having all of my kids separate) and it takes me about 5-5.5 hours now to finish with my teaching time. However, we only complete school 4 days a week. If you ever feel overwhelmed, you can always extend your week over 5 days if you are in a guide where school is only scheduled 4 days.

[Taramisu]

Thank you! Can you tell me when the guides start with 4 day units? The LHFHG are 5 day units, correct?

[StephanieU]

LHTH through Bigger are five days a week. Preparing through high school are for days a week. Many families do LHTH through Bigger for days a week, starting LHTH at 4yo. That spreads those for guides out to five years, leaving you with nine years of school to do nine guides.

[mrsrandolph]

Keep in mind that as you pass into each subsequent guide, the guides become more and more independent for the child. Creation To Christ is quite independent, and Resurrection to Reformation is VERY independent. Just the early guides are teacher intensive. BUT those early guides do not take very long to get through each day. I have run 3 very teacher directed guides and Drawn Into the Heart of Reading with no trouble. And that is with Each of my 4 having their own level of math.

Currently, I have 2 finishing up Beyond Little Hearts For His Glory, One In Creation to Christ, One is in Resurrection to Reformation. 2 levels of DITHOR and 4 levels of math. And we start at 8:00 and are finished no later than 2:00.

[rumkimom]

I am running 3 guides. All my kids are new to HOD so the oldest needs more guidance than normal (she also has learning issues)....We are running LHFHG, Bigger and RtR (1/2 speed for RtR) and start around 8:00am....and are done by 12:30pm. Today we started late (8:30) but were done early (11:30). Some days take more time than others. We will be working out way up to full speed in RtR, but I can't see us going later than 1:00pm.

[MomtoJGJE]

I'm currently running four guides full speed and will add in LHTH after Christmas for my youngest. I'd say my total teaching time per day is about 2 hours depending.

Charlotte Mason said that if a child is 9 and capable of reading her own history, they should start. So with that in mind I start guiding mine toward independence in Bigger. So mine are a step ahead in independence from the guides. For instance, my dd finishing up Preparing in the next few weeks is almost completely indpendent. I read storytime to her and that's it. My dd halfway through Bigger reads either her history or science every day, and some days she reads both on her own. Generally if it's a notebooking day in science.

So I teach anything necessary in math to the three olders, occasionally read a science or history, and briefly go over English/dictation (they read the lesson and look over the questions on their own). I do LHFHG with my 6yo while they are doing school.

My oldest is a "I'm going to go away and do all my work" type of person. She is in RtR this year and gets done in about three hours with everything. I only teach her math.
Second is "I'm only going to do as much as I have to" girl. She is finishing up Preparing. If I make her do a full day of work it takes her 2-3 hours. Mainly because she pauses to whine about the amount of reading every hour or so.
Third is my child who forgets nothing. So I rarely have to actually teach anything to her. She is done completely in less than an hour unless she has to wait on me to read something. Most days she chooses to read all her history and science just so she doesn't have to wait.