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Advice on bumping up a grade
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 8:11 pm
by happyhomeschooling
Thinking about bumbing up a grade wondering if anyone could help me decide! DD is using LHFHG, we are on Unit 27.
She has long since finished the Thinking skills book, and Finding the Answers (we have also done Right into Reading, and Explode the code and is flying through those.)She is almost totaly completed the earlybird math, and is a very very good with her pennminship (she prints almost as good as I do). So really the only thing she has'nt finished is the History, and Science which she is breezing through too.
She is a pretty good reader, ( I would'nt say completly independant, though she can read the #2 readers with little help) We are on lesson 17 of the Reading Lesson, and she is cruising right throught that no problem. She just turned six in Dec.
She seems to be getting a little bored with school, when I say bored I really mean not challenged much, so my question is would it be wise to just jump over to Beyond,(which I already have) or just muddle through till we finish LHFHG?
Any suggestions would be appriciated. Thanks so much, Blessing to you all, Lesley
Re: Advice on bumping up a grade
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 9:13 pm
by Mom2Monkeys
I have one of those kinds of kids too! IMHO, why not just finish the left side of LHFHG and move up to the right side of Beyond once you finish the math and such in LHFHG?? I've learned to hard way to ask "what am I rushing off to?". You don't want her to get TOO far ahead in some things b/c at some point, you're going to hit a brick wall, and the more mature she is before getting to that, the better. Success is good for her at this point...she will love learning when she's good at it! If she's bored/not challegend, you could keep her learning in math with a bit of real life word problems, or extra hands on practice in the lessons without actually moving on to the next thing, to keep her from finishing too fast unless she's REALLY ready for the next level. Add in some more books and have her illustrate and write her own! Challenge her with the history by having her predict and write about what she thinks is going to happen next or how she feels about what just happened/how she would have changed it, etc. Just the kinds of things that make her think and dig deeper-- and uses the skills she enjoys and is strong in.
Soon enough, learning will be hard and not quite so entertaining! If you're a planner, decide on a goal for where you want her in 12th grade and work backwards...that slowed my down quite a bit and I have one (3 really) smart cookies on my hands!
Also, is there any outside interest you could get into? A foreign language, an unreached people group "research", a "home ec" project book for little ladies, nature journaling (great for science!)...
That's just the thoughts of an exausted mom of 3 sick monkeys that's learning to slow down more and take the steering wheel back from the kids!! LOL. We'd be in Preparing by now if it were up to DD7...but we're enjoying every minute of Beyond

Re: Advice on bumping up a grade
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 9:42 pm
by happyhomeschooling
I should mention, that we do extra curricular things also. We do Nature Study, we do Composer study, and Art study also, So we do have a lot of extra, I don't have a problem finishing LHFHG, Just wondering if I would be good for her to jump ahead, I do understand not pushing them to fast also. Wondering if anyone had jumped ahead and if it was benefical.
On a side note, we have been going through LHFHG two days at a time, trying to go a little faster. That is working well.
Re: Advice on bumping up a grade
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 9:50 pm
by netpea
I would say it would be best to finish it. If you are already on Unit 27, then you only have 7 units left. Go at double speed if that works for you, but she will get satisfaction from finishing the program and the overview of history presented in LHFHG is really good.
Re: Advice on bumping up a grade
Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 12:28 am
by Carrie
Lesley,
I agree with the wisdom the ladies have been so good to share in their responses already. It does sound like you could head into the right side of Beyond now (doing Math 1A/1B with the activities once she completes Earlybird, beginning Spelling List 1, and beginning the gentle grammar lessons on Day 5 if you choose to do so also). You'd be surprised how adding those new elements to her day will automatically make her feel more challenged. However, I'd vote for finishing the rest of LHFHG. It will help to have the overview of history in mind when she jumps into the early American history with Beyond next.
Blessings,
Carrie
Re: Advice on bumping up a grade
Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 7:45 am
by Jen in Va
I'm in the same boat with my son who turned 6 in October. We're going to finish LHFHG, but we haven't yet started Singapore 1A/1B as I have found a couple of workbooks to supplement some of the concepts in Earlybird and IA/1B (I looked ahead). Both levels introduce telling time and money, but neither seems to spend a great amount of time on either section. Ds is super interested in both, so I picked up a couple of Kumon workbooks--First Book of Money, and My Book of Telling Time (it's not the first title for working on telling time--this one covers 1/4 hours, 1/2 hours, etc.) So I'm supplementing math with those. For reading I'm still working through our phonics program--he's covering r-controlled vowels now--and we're reading Level 2 readers together. My plan is to start the right side of the Beyond schedule when he's ready to start Singapore 1A (after our little diversion into the money workbook; he's already worked his way through the time one). We're in week 22 of Little Hearts for everything except math and reading/phonics, iirc, and will finish in May. Then I'll start with Beyond since we school part time during the summer to keep his skills sharp--by that time, he'll be further along in Beyond for reading/math, but that's fine with me.
Re: Advice on bumping up a grade
Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:09 am
by Mommamo
What about adding a lot of the books listed in the apendix? We did a little of that and a little of two days of history at a time for a period when I felt my dd was wanting more. We also went mostly into the right side of Beyond. I think just adding most of those boks from the appendix would help a ton! We read quite a few of them. They were easy to get from ILL at the library.
Re: Advice on bumping up a grade
Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 1:05 am
by happyhomeschooling
Well Ladies, I think the verdict is in, I will continue with LHFHG, until we are done, thank you for your
responses and input!
Bless you all!