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Hi Ladies!

Well, I'm trying to wrap my brain around next year's programs for the boys and wanted your input on what Preparing at half-speed would look like with my first DS so we can budget for it. We are somehow AHEAD this year as far as required school days go and will only have about 4-5 weeks worth of Bigger to finish up at the beginning of the 2010-11 school year (we have done it half-speed, M-Th with Fridays for "extras"). I originally was thinking that we would finish Bigger up by Christmas break and then start Preparing in January 2011, but DS has really jumped ahead in the pace in the past few months and we will only have 4 units left at the end of May, which is our end date for the school year. We are expecting a new little one August 11, so school will be "off" for at least a few weeks after he or she arrives.

I guess my question is since Preparing is already a 4-day a week program, how would you do it half-speed? I apologize if this question has already been asked, but I tried searching for it with key words and it said they were too common. DS is just turning 8 this week, so he will be on the young side for Preparing (8.5) when we would start and I don't want to overwhelm him or burn him out. Also, I am thinking of doing the History Ext. package for newly independent readers, so maybe that could lengthen it?

Hope this made sense and thanks so much for thoughts and ideas!

3sweeties,

This thread may help you some as you ponder. Link: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5431

Blessings,
Carrie

Hi there! Carrie already gave the link I was going to try to look for, so I'll just say that we are doing something similar to what she described right now with BHFHG. We LOVE it! It is the perfect pace for Riley right now. We'll take a summer break, and then I'll probably do BHFHG full-speed after that. One thing I've liked with the half-speed we're doing, is doing Storytime daily, but only reading one day, and then reading and doing the lesson the next day. We do the same thing for DITHOR. He just reads to me one day, and the next day he reads to me and then we do the lesson. This makes the amount of pages to be read less each day, keeps the reading going each day, but keeps the teaching/lessons half-speed. We also do math flashcards one day, and the math lesson the next day, keeping math half-speed, as this was something I wanted to do with him as well so he didn't get to the older levels of Singapore too quickly. Here's a link where I shared the rotation I typed up for him, in case something may be beneficial to you as you plan how you want half-speed to look in your home :
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5758

In Christ,
Julie

Julie,
Thank you so much for the link. I know I'm not the original poster, but seeing how to do a guide half speed was so helpful. I've tried to come up with a way to slow a guide down and haven't found a good way to do it. Your schedule idea was very helpful for this visual mom!

Thanks, Crystal! I'm so glad something there may help. Half-speed Bigger is so great. We may just keep it that way yet next year - we'll see.

In Christ,
Julie

The links definitely helped! Thanks so much!