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So we had our first day of LHTH yesterday! We were very excited!!! I thought the day went well. My only concern is that it may be a little easy for my daughter. She already knows her letters and sounds. She is 3 almost 4. I didn't put her in LHFHG because I thought it might be too old. Can some one reasure me that this will still challenge her. Does anyone add supplements to it or do you all just do it exactly as is?

It's great that your dd already knows her letters and sounds at such an early age! I don't think it will hurt at all to use LHTH and review those letters and sounds for her though...it should help to cement them even more. Plus, the activities and Bible readings, fingerplays, etc. are so much fun. I think you'll both have a blast. I am using it with my 5 yo (June) and he is loving it. We had not done any formal schooling before now, so I thought this gentle introduction would be good. He is having such a great time with the fingerplays and he LOVES the Bible stories. You could add things if you wanted but I think it would be great to just have a relaxed year and have fun with your dd. Something else you could do if you wanted to 'speed' it up a bit, is to do 2 lesson plans a day and finish in half the amount of time. Then you could move into LHFHG when you're done. However, I still say have a fun, relaxed year...you have plenty of time for more challenging work next year and beyond!

I'm glad your having fun with LHTH. I wouldn't recommend jumping into LHFHG either, though. LHFHG requires daily fine motor work (handwriting, etc) and literature study using chapter books with few pictures.
If you wanted to add a few activities to round out your lessons, you could try a few reading readiness activities a week, such as teaching left to right tracking, etc and of course, read, read, read!
From there you could do some hands on math and science activities - letting her weigh the fruit at the grocery store, measuring and helping you cook. Just keeping the mindset of a learning lifestyle - "We're going to have sandwiches for lunch. How many pieces of bread do we need?" Nature walks and lots of imaginative play are best for this age!


Kathy

Thanks for your help. Day 2 went really well. The patterns were a challenge so we spent some extra time on it. I brought out our pattern blocks and stamps and we created many, many patterns. I appreciate the advice about taking our time and enjoying our year. There will be plenty of time for the more challenging things. Tonight we are going on a family field trip in search of Monarch Caterpillars!!!!

At your daughter's age, she'd be too young to bump up to LHFHG mainly because she isn't wired to sit still that long at nearly 4. That is why I didn't move Emma up. But be alert. If your daughter starts to act bored with the letters section of the workbook, supplement with something else or change it up. My daughter LOVES the Bible stories and reenactments. She enjoys cutting and glueing in her number book and finger plays but she was really bored with the letter section. Since she has been begging me to teach her to read, we have decided to do that in place of the letter recognition section. She loves it. We are also supplementing with a simple math workbook (K-1). She is almost 4.5. Just watch your own children and take cues from them. LHTH is great but when we took a two week break because of some transitions going on at our house she started complaining about doing it. I asked her what was wrong and she said she was bored with it. She wanted to read and do more math...so that is what we did. But the nice thing is that since she is only 4.5- if she doesn't want to read or do math on any given day, it isn't a big deal to leave it alone. My husband wanted me to just purchase LHFHG and start it this fall but we don't have the money to do it so we are chugging along!

I am however looking forward to using LHTH with my 2 year old son in a year or so as a way to start introducing letters. I think he'll get much more out of it in that way than sis has. If I can just get that little rascal to sit still long enough to learn them that is!

Good luck!

My second son knew all of his letters and sounds as we were going through LHTH too, yet I look back now on the time we did LHTH so fondly as we had a wonderful year of hiding God's word in his little heart. He remembers that year as being alot of "fun", and it was a low-key way to cover all needed skills in a readiness way so he could sail into LHFHG. I was actually surprised whenever a skill came up that he didn't know, which then made me very glad that we were covering all of our bases.

So, my advice would be to enjoy your journey with LHTH. The ladies have given you wonderful advice on things you could add if you desire. We did add a gentle introduction to phonics because my son was 4, but only you can know if that is needed for your sweet little girl. Believe me when I say that the school skills will get hard soon enough, and you'll long for this time back again!

Blessings,
Carrie

Ditto - enjoy LHTH and relish the memories! "Heavier" school will be necessary later on, but for now, bask in the happy moments of LHTH! They go by way too fast. Just keep in mind that it's easy to expand any of the lessons you'd like to, just like you did with the patterning. You're a natural teacher, Mom, so keep up the good work and keep loving the journey!

In Christ,
Julie