Guide Advice :-)

[marybeth33]

So many of us get hung up with finishing a guide in a Sept-May year. But let me tell you how heavenly it is to be starting our year with 2 of my 3 HODer's being mid-guide. So glad they each get to face the challenge of a new guide one at a time!!! God's timing is so much better than mine

[Kristen]

Yes! I agree! I am starting this school year with 2 in HOD. My DS9 is starting Bigger, but my DD6 is continuing with Little Hearts, just moving up to the 1st grade options. I feel the same way...It's nice to be able to come back to that guide and just continue in our comfortable groove as it will take some time to get settled into a new guide. We're so excited...starting Monday! My daughter keeps asking how many days until school starts. She calls it her "fun school." What a blessing!

[my3sons]

You are so right - God's timing is always best! I've tried to have more general guidelines I'm shooting for with each of our kiddos through the years. This is far different from how I began homeschooling, which was to try to always stay on track with Day 1 being a Monday every week, and with each Unit number matching the week number public schools were on. One bout with the flu and all was lost. Now, I first start planning my school year with our family's personal preferences in mind, and I mark the days/weeks I know we need off (i.e. for my mom's knee surgery/recovery, for my kiddos deer hunting trip with my dh, for Christmas, for our family vacation, for holidays, etc. Then, I start highlighting the days I know we'll homeschool, trying to get to 140 days of school within a school year. Our weather really affects this! For example, we do 4 day a week guides 5 days a week through our not so lovely winter months (which can stretch out to 5-6 months sometimes). This gets us 'ahead' so we take lots of time off in the spring, summer, and fall. If we have needed to slow a guide down for some of our children on the younger side of the target age range, we do for a period of 3-4 months (usually not more than this, as it stretches too long and the kiddos aren't ever working up to the next guide's daily expectations), and whoever is on a 140 day school year for a guide, we follow that child's schedule. I have more general guidelines (i.e. by PHFHG or CTC, try to look ahead to finish MTMM by the end of 8th grade). So, our kiddos may be on different days and units and in different portions of their guides, but there is still consistent forward progress and general guidelines I plan to meet. This year Emmett will do PHFHG from start to finish, Riley will do MTMM from start to finish, and Wyatt is in the middle of his US1 guide and will finish that and begin his US2 guide, taking a day off each week to work and earn funds for college. Thanks for this thread about Guide Advice! I am just like you - really looking forward to coming back to US1, as we know what we're doing! It is quite lovely having one or more kiddos already used to a guide at the 'start' of a school year! Thanks for sharing!!!

In Christ,
Julie