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My oldest are in beyond together. My 3rd is in LHTH and is 3, 4 in Dec. The baby is 1 next month. Even if I did combing the in little hearts when she's 7 and she's 4, what would I do with her for the next 3 years? I really like the idea of combining. TBH, I wish I could put all 4 together. But there's a 7 year span.

Any suggestions?

Mumkins wrote:My oldest are in beyond together. My 3rd is in LHTH and is 3, 4 in Dec. The baby is 1 next month. Even if I did combing the in little hearts when she's 7 and she's 4, what would I do with her for the next 3 years? I really like the idea of combining. TBH, I wish I could put all 4 together. But there's a 7 year span.

Any suggestions?

Oh Mumkins - I do believe you are the ultimate planner, looking that far ahead - you deserve an award! From one planner to another though, I think it is too hard to combine all 4 together when they're 7 years apart, and meet everyone's needs adequately. I do think you will love that the HOD guides get more and more independent, and by moving through them sequentially, you'll ensure that your dc actually can be independent in the areas they are supposed to be because they will have learned the skills necessary each year to do so.

So, when your younger ones get to Little Hearts, your older ones should be well on their way to being quite independent, giving you time to teach your younger dc. We've found that with our dc. I think it's tough to plan quite that far in advance, but if I were to give any advice it would be this - there are 3 very important things to do.
1) Teach your older dc to use the HOD guide. Read it, check off the boxes as they go - still teach the parts you're supposed to teach, but let them get comfortable using the guides. This will make it possible for them to be very independent in the future.
2) Do all of the HOD plans as they are written. Each guide builds upon the last, and if you do this, your dc will be able to be very independent in the upper guides.
3) Get your younger dc writing and reading as soon as you can. Once dc have their basic 3 R's down, combining becomes much easier, and more combining options are available.

HTH!
In Christ,
Julie

I am new to this whole thing- I am just preparing to start my kids next year, so this is more speculation than anything.

Are you saying your dd who is 3 is just finishing Little Hands? My suggestion would be to slow down and do 2 yrs of little Hands. Your dd would be 4 going on 5, the younger would be 2. (if you haven't started yet, and can slow that down even a little more, you might get your older dd at almost 6 and the littlier one at just turned 3- and then spend 2 yr doing Little hearts. You can add additional math and language skills/phonics for the older dd who will be ready for those by then, and you can have hte younger color a picture or do an alphabet puzzle etc since she won't be ready to learn handwriting quite yet. If your older starts LHFHG at 6 going on 7, and hte little is 3, and you do 2 yrs, your older then is 7 going on 8 and the little is 4...

Now doing things in this way will always take WAY more planning on your part. I am trying to combine my 2 older girls, and thinking of starting with Beyond instead of Bigger- but my oldest will be 10 and in 4th grade. I am looking at coming up with my own 'extension pack' for her- extra readers, more in depth science and history, plus additonal/more on grade level reading... I am noticing that even in the Bigger manual the spelling words are too easy for her- so probably her own spelling list- plus doing her own seperate math on her level, and her own Rod and Staff ENglish on her level.

If you really want to keep them together, the only option is to supplement the older dd UP to her level while using a younger program. While you might be able to adapt LHFHG down to the youngers level for some things (I don't know i haven't seen it)- it will certainly get harder and harder to do that in the upper levels.

The other option might be to slow down the older girls in Beyond- and see if you can incorporate the youngest in with them for storytime, history, science and Bible study, but realize she will always be seperate for phonics, handwriting, and math, LA.... This would also take some doing. You could give the older girls some 'additional' readings- which you would have to come up with on your own. I am thinking of combining my 2 girls in Beyond and have thought of having my older read about George Washington Carver, Harritet TUbman, WIlliam Bradford, I looked at the sonlight curriculum on line to get ideas for science readers- could do the same for history readers- to add for them. Only you will be able to tell if your younger is mature enough to sit and listen well enough for this.

Last suggestion from me- (I am very wordy)- my 2 olders are 2nd and 4th grade. I am going to have them do most of the program for my 4 going on 5 yr old twins and will be 3 in Nov little boy. I will be there of course, but for instance, any storytime I give my littles, the older girls will be reading their readers to them. THe girls will read the Bible story to the littles.... I believe a lot of learning comes from teaching, and it will free me up if the girls are doing 'most' of the work, and I am supervising. (my girls are THRILLED! I actually had thought about changing my mind due to lack of funds, but the girls are so excited) 1 is definately young, but your older girls could likely do fingerplays and sing the Bible songs at least to the little one. Now, I personally don't mind starting them late- they will all be doing LHTH- our state would not allow them to start Kindgergarten until they were 5 going to be 6 anyway. I don't relish teaching 2 curriculms, but I don't think I can have the 4 yr olds join the almost 10 yr old effectively, and I know the will be 3 yr old can't do it. Hopefully I will manage to combine the older 2 and the younger 3. Not sure what I will do with the new baby- but I guess considering she isn't even born yet, we will worry about that later LOL.

Brenda