Please help me decide!

[shaffer96]

My dd who just turned 5 seems to fit very well on the placement chart for LHFHG. However, I am concerned about her being on the younger age of the guides. Is LHFHG designed more for K or 1st grade? If we do LHFHG this year, then next year she will just be 6 going into the PHFHG. Is that guide designed more for 1st or 2nd grade? I am not sure if I should wait to do LHFHG until next year when she is 6, so she can be in the middle age range for the rest of the guides. I don't want to push her too much, but she does place nicely in LHFHG on the placement chart. I do have LH as well which I will be using with my son, but that seems like it may not be enough for my dd. I thought about doing LH with both of them, but then do you just do the Bible stories from LH and do K phonics and Math? Then she won't have any history and only a little science for K. I guess I am wondering if most people try to keep their kids in the middle age for the guides or if there are a lot of people using it in the younger range. My dd's birthday is in June, so she will not turn six until after her K year. She is reading fairly well, but is average in all other areas. I keep going back and forth on this and I would like some advice to help me make my decision.

[countrymom]

We are about to finish LHFHG at the young end and we did fine. I know Little Hands would not have been enough for him and I would have had to majorly tweak it. We started 1/2 speed for awhile, then went up to full speed. Beyond is the next guide after Little Hearts, then Bigger, so it would be awhile before you hit Preparing. I am going to do Beyond at 1/2 speed and I think it will be a perfect fit for us and help us hit Bigger at a little older age. If your daughter is on the edge, then you might consider Little Hands combined with the right side of Little Hearts with kindergarten options. Then next year you could do left side of Little Hearts with right side 1st grade options.

[shaffer96]

Thanks for your advice. I think LH may not be enough for my dd too. Starting half speed is a good idea. How exactly did you do that? Then did you have to keep flipping back and forth in the book each day because you were on different pages?
Thanks for the correction. I thought the next guide was preparing. Oops!

[krismoose]

Hi!
There's several ways to go at half-speed. We started LHFHG doing the left side of the guide one day, then the right the next. When we started doing phonics regularly, we switched to doing the right side minus storytime everyday, and then did half of the left side each day. We'd do the history reading and associated activity one day, then the other activities plus storytime on the next day. I just used these restickable post-it flags to keep track, one for the right page and one for the left. Eventually we did a full day as written, when my ds started asking for more activities I'm sure others will chime in with other variations, as well.

[MamaPajama]

Just wanted to tell you that my son will be starting Beyond this year (the guide after Little Hearts) at 6 1/2. His birthday is in February, so he's not quite as young as your daughter would be, but still on the young end. I felt the same way about LHFHG for him as a 1st grade guide as you do about LHTH for your DD as a K guide. It just wasn't going to be enough for him. I have asked before how many people did Beyond for 1st grade, and quite a few have, so we're not alone. HTH

[countrymom]

The others have given some good ideas on how to go 1/2 speed. I just did the left page one day and the right the next day, but I would not want to do the whole program exactly like that because I believe they need math and phonics everyday once they get into it. For Beyond I am going to do the left one day and the right the next, but do reading and math everyday (plus memory verse review as well). Once you start doing it you can tweak. I found I really don't ever know for sure what works until I start doing it.

[Kathleen]

I think you'd be just fine starting LHFHG with her, too. You can always move slowly if you hit something harder for her. We started LHFHG right when my daughter turned 5, too. She probably could have handled moving full-speed ahead, but I wanted to let her little brother join us for school most of the time (because that was what would work for our family's schedule). So, we went half-speed AND only did school 4 days per week...which put us on Unit 15 at the end of this past year for the main part of the guide. It worked great! Here's how we did half-speed...

Every day: Rhymes in motion & corresponding music (of memory verse)
Day 1: Reading About History & Rotating Box (science, art, thinking game...)
Day 2: Bible Study & Storytime
AND Allison did Fine Motor Skills, Math, & Phonics every day as well. (Garret dropped out for this.) So, we're on unit 26 for those boxes.

I just used 2 moveable tabs in our guide. 1 for where we were on the main part, 1 for FMS & Math. It really wasn't confusing as I moved one every other day when we were done with the majority of the things, and I moved one every day as we did FMS & Math.

I LOVE how flexible HOD is to use in your home! We can move at whatever pace works for our family!
Kathleen

[Mommamo]

Just wanted to chime in that I have one who's at the younger end of the guides. We started LHFHG when she was just over 4.5 because that's where she placed. We did it full speed and she did just fine. Beyond we took slower. We started it in March '09 and are nearly done. We'll finish up this September. We're going to also do Bigger at 4 days/week so she'll be somewhere around 8 1/2-9 when we start on Preparing, which will put her closer to the middle of that guide. At this point we're not slowing down so much for ability or to put her into the middle of the guide, but more for our schedule. Each guide builds nicely on the previous guide and teaches the skills necessary to do well as they progress. So if your child places well in LHFHG then go ahead and do it, knowing that you'll be just fine slowing down eventually if you need to.

[water2wine]

Another vote for I think you will be fine. I am almost finished with Beyond with a just turned six year old. We did LHFHG last year. I slowed it down a bit because she started at 4 years old. There is a lot in the appendix for extra reading if you want to have more to do to make it last longer. We are starting Bigger this coming year and she will turn 7 at the end of Bigger. Having done Beyond I can tell she is more than ready for Bigger. But I know again if we need to slow down we can do that if need be again. The programs are very flexible, especially LHFHG, Beyond and Bigger. I think you will find as long as she is placed right on the chart she will be fine if she is a little on the younger side. I have found the same thing to be true on the other end as well.

Enjoy LHFHG! That is such a great program. Sad I will not be doing that one again.

[shaffer96]

Thanks so much for all the votes of confidence to start my dd with LHFHG. I feel much better about my decision now. Sometimes it just helps to hear from others who have done the program. I don't know anyone in my town who uses HOD, so this message board has been amazing! We have a co-op that we will be going to three times a month, so I was thinking of doing a 4 day schedule. So, I guess we would be taking LHFHG a little slower anyway as we wouldn't finish in May most likely. I am so excited to begin, but we are going to wait until the end of August!

[moedertje]

A little at the late side of the thread, but I did LHFHG with ds at age 5 (did not know about 1/2 speed) than Beyond at age 6, with the 1st grade fine motor option from LHFHG and he did great. Than we arrived at Bigger at age 7 and found out that we could have done all the other guides at 1/2 pace for a while. Well, we are doing Bigger at 1/2 speed all the way, so we are doing the 2nd half this coming year, to get him more mature, more independent and he will get more out of the guides. He will than be in the middle age range of the guides starting with Preparing, because it is a jump from Bigger in independence and it adds written narration. With my next son we are doing everything at 1/2 pace in the beginning so he gets to the middle end range of the guides, before we get to Bigger. I believe that most girls will probably do fine at the lower to mid age range and the boys middle to upper.
You will love LHFHG, I am looking forward to starting it in January for the second time around
If you do it at half pace you could always do the K fine motor at full pace and than when she finishes go to the 1st grade fine motor option and finish it in Beyond. The kids love them!
Success and see you around on the board.

[sw1ssm1ss]

We JUST TODAY finished LHFHG with my dd who turned 6 in June. We started last August, but we had a co-op one day a week and sometimes two, so we weren't even close to done in June. I knew about the option of going "half-speed" but I wasn't sure how that would work for my daughter. For one thing, she totally loved the storytime box. From the top of her head to the tips of her toes! I think she would have felt really cheated if there'd only been storytime a couple times a week.

I have mulled over the possibility of going half-speed and/or finagling things to get my daughter to be an older age within the suggested age range. But I think I'm mostly considering it because I see other people talk about it on this messageboard. Looking at my daughter, I think she places perfectly in Beyond. So at this point I'm not planning any *major* slowdown unless she starts struggling with the program.

I do plan to go half-speed for a bit when we start Beyond in August. We will be getting in the swing of things after a 3+ week break, and so taking it slow will make it feel less stressful and more fun and exciting to be in first grade at long last!