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My son started with HOD in first grade with Little Hearts. We did bigger for 3rd grade and that is when we noticed he was having some issues that needed to be worked on. We decide to take this year off, piece together subjects and work on his weak areas. It has been great for him! Now we are starting to prepare for the next year. Should I just pick up with Preparing?? He will be in 5th grade. I know it is a good fit for him and is what should come next. Here is my concern....if he starts back with preparing that will leave him graduating with one guide not being completed. What do you do to make sure state High School requirements are met? Should we skip a guide along the way or skip the last one??

My son will skip the final guide. I have some ideas of how I will meet my state graduation requirements. But someone on here posted that state requirements change regularly. That is definitely true! So once we get to high school, I will then revisit my state's requirements. The only thing I anticipate needing specifically is the economics, finance and possibly wanted to incorporate the science from the final guide. But I wouldn't stress about it now. It MUCH better to have your child placed correctly rather than to worry about whether or not they will miss the final guide.

Good advice already! If your son fits squarely placement-wise in PHFHG, I'd do that. The end of 8th grade is a time to take a second look at placement, as high school is ahead. That may be a time to recheck placement and is typically the only time we may, if appropriate, suggest skipping one guide (MTMM). Until then, I'd just keep doing a guide a year unless placement ever feels off. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

Hi! I don't know if anyone will see this but I'll try here anyway. We are finishing up our second year with HOD and I LOVE it. My second grader and fourth grader are doing Bigger together (4th grader with the extension). So I was planning on doing Preparing next year. They both have done well with placement together so far. So going along with this post (and thinking WAY ahead)... at this rate, my fourth grader will have to skip a guide and my second grader will run out of guides a year early! I was thinking for the younger one that I might do either an 8th grade weird year (where she basically does the basics plus...unit study? or life skills? plus helping me "teach" her younger brother and sister?) or possibly do the same sort of thing in her senior year? Or is there a better way, like going half speed with her on one of the guides? And for my fourth grader, I see Julie said some people possibly skip MTMM...ugh I hate to skip anything because every guide seems to have so much good stuff! But I really don't want to skip any of the high school because I know there's so much life prep/ apologetics/ High School credits, etc...advice? Thank you so much (I'm a bit of an overplanner)
Marina