LHFHG with 1st grader and almost 5 yo

[inHistiming]

Hi there! I am beginning LHFHG next week with my 6 yo. Her 4 yo sister (who is also on the autism spectrum) will be tagging along on parts. I was wondering what your suggestions might be. I would like to go slowly, one page of plans per day, and complete the manual in two years, so that I can keep them together throughout their homeschooling years. Have any of you done this and how did it work for you?

[rumkimom]

I am not sure where your daughter is on the autism spectrum (I also have one there)....but I was not able to school my girls together due to the one child's special learning issues. Just to let you know that it is not always the best thing to keep kids together. Oh, my girls are 2.5 years apart in age. I tried them together in HOD years ago and it just did not work for my one and I wanted to school them together so I switched to other things....I now wish I had separated them and stuck with HOD. They are now 16 (almost 17) and 14....and the 14 year old (autism spectrum & Expressive-Receptive Language disorder) is now doing HOD. It is slow going with her, she is in RtR this year and going half speed. I would recommend doing LHTH with the little one and full days in LHFHG with the older one. Those 2 guides are very doable together. You do not want to hold back your older one....LHFHG full days are perfect for 1st grade. I am currently running LHFHG, Bigger and half speed RtR.

[StephanieU]

If you want to spread it out over two years, I would personally do the right side minus storytime daily (there are two levels for Math and FMS, so you will just do both by the end). Then, I would just spread out the left side. You can do field trips, unit studies, run errands, or anything else that seems logical to spread out the left side. For the Bible history portion of the guide, it would be easy to spend two days on each story, reading it out of multiple Bibles, and crafts, and watching videos. Fit the latter portion of history, you might be able to fund many of the supplemental books Carrie lists in the appendix to spread it out. And if it only takes 1.5 years to get through LHFHG, you can do similar things with Beyond and Bigger.

[Rice]

I agree with Wendy. Although my children don't have ASD, learning challenges (one late to learn to read, one with Executive Functioning deficits) have made it so their younger brother is in a higher guide than them both! I share that to say that unless your children have the same skill set, you'd all do better to have them in separate guides. It's not difficult to run two guides but is difficult to run a guide with having to adapt work for one who is in over their head.

I also agree that LHFHG makes a great grade 1.

Blessings,

[mrsrandolph]

I would NOT do LHFHG with a child that young, even the child were gifted.

[hs.mama07]

Hi! Yea for starting LHFHG! We loved that guide! I too would be careful with combining. Personally, I wouldn't want to use LHFHG with a child any younger than 5--and even at 5 they'd need to be very mature and ready for school. The reason is that the guides increase in difficulty each year so a young 5 in LHFHG will end up being a young 8 in Preparing--which can be a lot! The reading and writing increases each year in HOD so making sure your child is properly placed in those areas is very important! For those with learning challenges, sometimes its better to let them be in the middle or the top of the age range. Which would mean letting your 4 yr old wait to do LHFHG until she is 6 or 7. For your 6 year old, you would then be free to go at her own pace--finishing the guide in a year if she is able and move on up to Beyond. HOD really does work better that way--when kids are properly placed and able to move forward at their own speed.

We are currently using LHTH for my 5 year old and adding some K math and fine motor skills. We are taking it slow, spreading it out so that he won't get to LHFHG until he is 6 or 6.5. He's good on academics, but needs a lot of growth in fine motor skills, attention, and following directions.

Hope that helps...and hope you enjoy LHFHG!!

[hs.mama07]

Hmmm...I realized you said you were going to stretch the guide out over two years, which would mean your younger daughter would be almost 7 when starting Beyond and in the middle of the age range. In light of that, I guess it would just depend on where she is now. Is she ready to start LHFHG? I'm afraid, if you have to tweak it too much this year, even going slowly, then she may miss some important foundational stuff. Basics of math and fine motor skills, listening, etc, that she may not learn very strongly this year. If that happens, then you may be stuck tweaking throughout the guides...and you don't want to do that. Have you looked at the placement chart? Does your younger daughter fit in LHFHG? I'd also be concerned about your older daughter getting bored if she is ready for more of a challenge. Do you think that would be a problem?

[Nealewill]

You can definitely stretch it out over two years but one thing to consider is that HOD works best combining children who are like in their abilities. Are these two child similar in their abilities? If they aren't, then pray about how important it is to keep them together. Also - with stretching it out, a lot of times we find ourselves in a position where we start tweaking things and adding things. Then we aren't doing the plans as written and that can sometimes destroy the feeling of the program. Plus, my kids would mad it if stretched it out and they didn't need it. I get begged every day now to read the next chapter LOL. They love all of the activities so much. In the lower levels especially my kids would pretty much wake up and beg me to start school.

One thing I have noticed about HOD is that it is very easy to run multiple levels and is set up so that mom can do multiple levels with kids. Once the kids make it to the level Preparing, they are reading 1/2 of their history to themselves and all of the science alone. There is a weekly history project that is written directly to them to complete. Even their science projects are written to them to complete. And once your child reaches CTC, they are doing even more on their own. They now are reading all of their history on their own along with several other boxes they complete alone. My oldest is in RtR and I don't spend more than 1-1.5 hours working with her on teaching her school. My son does have some special needs and I work with him for about 2 hours. But my youngest, I work with her for about 1.5 hours max. That includes doing all the math teaching, storytimes, dictations, poetry studies, and with my youngest, I have her doing some of the readings on her own to help with time. I don't want to teach more than 4 hours in a day. Currently because of my son special needs, I am spending about 5 hours but I anticipate making it back down to 4 in the next few weeks hopefully. For me - with having 3 kids all in different levels, I feel good about the amount time spent on teaching. But LHFHG is mean to take about 1-1.25 hours per day. Beyond takes around 1.5-2 hours per day. And Bigger takes 2.5-3 hours per day. With having two kids, you can easily keep your school time to mornings only for a long time to come and still keep them separate if you found that keeping them together wasn't going as well as you though.

[inHistiming]

Thanks so much for all of your thoughts. You've definitely pointed out some important things!

I just realized that I neglected to mention that I also homeschool my 3 older children. While they are much more independent, with the oldest being completely independent at almost 18, there are a few things I still must do with them. This was one of the reasons I wanted to keep my younger two together. The other main reason is just that my little one will want to tag along at least sometimes anyway. I don't expect her to keep up. She is high functioning but I know we will have accommodations to make when it is time to get her started more formally. I may just not try to do anything formal with her every day, doing more play activities instead, and then consider what she needs next fall when it's officially time for kindergarten. I do agree that LHFHG will be perfect for my 6 yo.

Thanks, again! And if anyone has any further thoughts please do share them!