Young 5:Which program would be better?

[playschool]

I have a daughter who turned 5 in the latter part of Sept. After looking at the placement requirements for both Little Hands and Little Hearts, I am not sure which one would best suit her. She knows all of her letters and sounds. She can write some letters (in capitals), and her own name. I am caught up with the part of Little Hearts that deals with history and science, which seems like it might go straight over her head. Little Hands looks fun for her, but she already knows her letters, sounds, and numbers. If I were to send her to school, particularly our church's Christian school which uses Abeka I would put her in K4 rather than K5, because of maturity issues, but we have chosen to homeschool her along with my other children. My daughter is begging to "do school," but time is a factor ,too, because I have 2 other children homeschooling using different programs, and a toddler. How long would each of these programs take? Is it possible to do the program every other day? Thank you for your help!

[Kathleen]

Hi! First I want to say, welcome to the HOD board!

I'm currently using LHTH with my 4 yo (and a tag-along 2 yo). I described what we love about it and how it works for us in this past thread. viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2055&p=15792#p15792 Hopefully that "sneak peek" can give you a feel for the program. It takes us 20-30 min a day to do LHTH. Now, with my 4 1/2 yo, I think I may start to do some phonics. She has picked up all her letters and sounds and is interested in "spelling" all words she sees on anything and wants to know what they say. She also likes to "write" stories and letters and names all the time. So I think I'm going to get The Reading Lesson soon and start that with her. It suggests lessons that are about 15 min a day. I'm saying this because maybe LHTH with a little phonics added in would be something you could try with your 5 yo. You wouldn't have to add phonics every day either...I know it won't be daily at our house right now.

You could definitely do LHFHG going at half-speed, too. This would mean that you do the left page (Learning Through History) on one day and then the right page (Learning the Basics) the next day. LHFHG is supposed to take 90 min....so if you cut it in half that would be about 45 min a day. I know that lots of moms have started out this program this way - including Carrie herself! I've not used LHFHG yet, but from what I've read about it and on the Weekly-Check-In thread, it looks like loads of fun and something I'm looking forward to getting to!

HTH!
Kathleen

[Samuel'sMommy]

I would think you could go with either program. Even though your daughter already knows the letter names and sounds, there is so much more to Little Hands that she could probably benefit from -- the bible stories, the art projects, math, science, etc. For most of the activities, Carrie has different suggestions for younger and older children so you could pick which one would be at her level. Also, it usually only takes us about 30 minutes to complete a day of LHTH so you could easily add a phonics/reading program to it if she's ready for that.

[Mom2Monkeys]

Another thought is to do Little Hearts at half pace. Just do one side of the plans per day. My 4yo (5 in Dec.) knows all his letters and sounds and can count to 20 (sometimes) and is more than ready for phonics. His handwriting could use some maturing, but overall, I think even though he knows all those things, we are totally LOVING Little Hands! It makes it easy and nothing to "heavy" for him to have to try to "get" this year. I have added MFW Phonics to the mix as well since he is very ready to read. So you could do LHTH and still not feel like you are going too easy or you could do Little Hearts at regular or half pace. If you want to land yourself into the new upcoming guides at a certain grade (like completing those in 5th-8th) just see where you need to start to do that. I plan to do half pace with Little hearts for K and then finish it in 1st, then a guide a year after that. We'll finish HOD's history cycle in 8th, just in time to start the high school history cycle in 9th. I guess to best sum up what it has taken me 20 minutes to type (thanks to my little monkeys) is work backwards...what's your end goal, and work back from there to see where to start, IMHO.
Maybe that's a little more than just 'two cents' but I hope its helpful!

[Jessi]

What does your daughter like to do to learn? Does she like to sit still for lessons or move around a lot more? If she is a mover I'd say stick with LHTH and maybe beef up with phonics. If she likes to sit and do workbooks and has the ability to sit still for awhile, you could try to do LHFHG at half speed. LHTH is a great program but if your daughter is 5 and knows her letters and sounds and some writing, you'll probably want to add to it so she feels challenged. Walmart has good workbooks to let her work in that won't add lots of time to your schedule. If time is a major factor- stick with LHTH. It is about an hour shorter than LHFHG. I have heard that several moms use BFIAR along with LHTH to beef up literature but that it does not add too much to the planning. Good luck.

[playschool]

My daughter loves workbooks-always asking me for more to do. She also loves to move around, and listen to reading as well. I really thought that those little read aloud animal books from Little hearts she would like but like I said, the science/history I do not think she would sit down and listen to. I believe that she is ready to learn to read but at a very slow pace. It's funny, my oldest daughter was learning to read at this age and was ready for some more advanced things that I would throw at her. I know that I pushed my oldest way too much when she was little and did not want to make the same mistake with our younger daughter. Thanks for all of your helpful responses!

[Lori_in_Austin]

Hi "Playschool",

I know exactly how you feel about trying to decide. I have a 5yo ds who turned five in June and another ds who turned 2 in March 2008. I was trying to decide if I should do LHTH for both and then "add on" the math, reading, phonics, myself which is what the "right side" of the day is for LHFHG. In the end I did choose to go with LHFHG for my 5yo ds, but I also bought LHTH for my 2 yo which I have not started with him yet. I think I will start LHTH with him in January when he is almost 3yo. Since I did BFIAR (Before Five in a Row) with my older son, I will do that with my younger, too. (Do you see piles of laundry and dishes in the sink ?!!!)

So now that I have given a little background, I think you could do either guide for your 5yo and be fine. I had the same concern you did with the left side of the page for Little Hearts and whether or not it would be over his head. The first two or three units (weeks) we did in LHFHG I thought it might be over his head, but we stuck with it and now I can see he is getting much more than I thought he was. On the other hand, since I have the LHTH book and have been able to look at it more closely, I think we would have been just as fine doing LHTH and then adding on the phonics, math, etc. If you are leaning toward LHTH, your toddler could join you for that and feel like s/he is getting school, too. Then you could do something like the Explode the Code (ETC) Primers A,B,& C with your new 5yo. The primers will give you enough of the handwriting you need and go into depth a little more about each letter. I would not let the fact that your 5yo already knows her letter names and sounds stop you from doing LHTH. Oh, I forgot to mention that doing LHFHG at a slower pace is definitely fine. Especially the first 3 units as you get comfortable with using it.

I am sorry if I rambled too much.

Let us know what you decide.

[Mommamo]

Just to give you something else to think about , my oldest just turned 5 in Sept. and she's in week 20 now of LHFHG and I'm amazed at how much she has retained from it so far! So I certainly think that it's possible to use LHFHG with a younger 5 yo. However, I think she also would have really enjoyed LHTH with a little bit of beefing up. We decided to go with LHFHG because she loves reading books about history, has been listening to longer chapter books since she was 3, and has been reading CVC words since she was 3.5. I'm happy with our choice, but I do firmly believe she would have enjoyed LHTH. We are going to school year 'round, so at some point I'm going to need to slow her down, so I'm probably going to do Beyond with the left side one day, right the next, at least for a while, so I think you could definitely do that with LHFHG in order to ease into it.