Placement advice...Coming back to HOD 11 and 13 yr old

[Megan]

I would love some help in finding the right place for my two children. The only absolute is that I need to combine both of my kids in whatever Guide we chose.

My daughter just turned 13 and will be in 8th. She has dyslexia, but reads only slightly bellow grade level. Too much writing can be difficult for her and spelling is very hard, though she is getting better just by reading and writing.
My son just turned 11 and is entering the 5th grade. He catches on pretty quickly to things and is an advanced reader.

I was looking at having them in Creation to Christ and going through the 4 guides, starting with CTC and ending with MTM (if we did this, my daughter would be through with these in her 11th grade year)...but that was before I realized that there is a new high school curriculum! Now I don't know.

Another possibility is to start with MTM now and jump into high school next year...then she would get to do all 4 of the high school guides. But what to do with my son who is 11...

What have families done for high school before the high school guides were available?
If you add extensions to a guide such as CTC, is it just history extensions and all else is the same? Is it still "enough" if you skip the extensions?

Thank you for any advice you can give! Last year was a mess for us. In the end, I just need this year to be simple and fun (and rich with learning, which I know it will be, regardless of which guide we pick!)
*Edited to say that I did see the thread about beefing up programs...I guess I will look into this depending on what we do. (If we use CTC I may need to beef up, although she wouldn't be in high school, so I don't know. If we use MTM, probably no need to beef up)

Megan

[StephanieU]

Have you looked at the placement chart? That would be my first step in correct placement. Figure out where each one places and then come back and let us know.
The normal file of thumb is to place the lower level child and beef up for the older.

[Megan]

Yes, and I went back to look again...I feel like my daughter (13) would fit well in either Resurrection to Reformation or Revival to Revolution...as far as ability goes. (with the exception of math...we will continue with our own math curriculum)

My son (11) would be fine in either CTC or Resurrection to Reformation.

I feel like if we did CTC for both of them, it would be a great year for them both...but here are my questions/concerns about that..
1. Is my daughter really missing out by not getting to do the high school curriculum?
2. Is CTC with DITHR ok for an eighth grader without using extensions...is it "enough", considering I need her to feel like she is smart, capable and I want her to really enjoy school again. (Last year she took some private school courses that were difficult and she got pretty discouraged and has decided she is not smart)

I'm leaning toward CTC for both...someone please stop me if I'm about to make a mistake!!

[Jennymommy]

Hi Megan, I hear you I think you could do CTC successfully with both. The books for history are a bit challenging, so you might have her read some of the the read alouds instead. The history texts in RestoRef are a bit easier, I thought. What if you order the girl read alouds for her, and the boy read alouds for him? That would give them a bit of time alone with you, while not eating up your whole day. Also, she might be encouraged knowing that some of the books are just for her.

[Megan]

Thank you, Jenny! That sounds like a great idea! Looking at it further, I'm actually thinking I might go with RestoRef for both of them...that way she can still do the first of the two high school guides.

[MelInKansas]

I know you want to combine them now, and that's understandable. But as they grow in the guides, it really won't matter that much whether or not you combine. You are not reading history or science to them anymore, they read it themselves (so different guides might actually work better - no conflict over when they need the books). You basically do things like the growing into womanhood/manhood study, Bible discussion, listen to their narrations (which you would not want them to do together), read and respond to their written narrations, DITHOR worksheets, and science questions, some math and English teaching and grading, look at their student notebooking assignments, etc. Read-alouds are the only thing you have to sit down and do, and again there are some that since you have a son and a daughter you wouldn't do them together anyway, and I think you could probably combine their Bible portion from one of their guides if you wanted to. I hope this is making sense. I think for CTC on up combining isn't that much of a time savings. I get that maybe you want them to be learning the same things. But you could also consider that you could have her do CTC with extensions, Res to Ref with extensions, and then she could start the HS guides after that. You wouldn't even need to make the decision now. You could see how you like having them together and keep reading about the HS programs and make the decision after a year or 1 1/2 years.

I have heard that the HS guides are a big jump up in workload and skill from MTMM even. So maybe you would be concerned about jumping her from Res to Ref to WG like that. But I know others have done it, and maybe they just had to ease into WG a bit more. Also for her dyslexia or struggles in writing, you could definitely adapt WG. The extensions for CTC and up offer more reading for the history and science topics and I believe there are some activities/narrations and things to do as well - I haven't looked at them in a while. If you want it to be high school credit worthy you definitely have to add more than extensions.

[Megan]

Thank you, Melissa! After much deliberation, I had come to the same conclusion about it not really making much of a time difference by combining. Plus, I think they will really like not having to share all of those books with each other! When she gets to HS I will probably just keep going in order and eventually she'll get to the actual HS guides. I'm not too worried about that...yet. Haha Thank you so much for your help!