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I just wanted to jump in and introduce myself. I'm the mother to 4 children son(7), daughter(4.5), daughter(2.5), and son(8 months). Our kids have always been homeschooled, and it is our plan that they will continue to be long term. The last few years we have been pretty eclectic with our schooling, and I discovered Charlotte Mason last summer. For this coming school year my plans have been to study US history, and I was planning it on my own. I kept being drawn back to Beyond, and finally decided to buy it about a month ago. We have completed 2 units so far, and are loving it. I'm combining my two oldest right now ds1 is in 2nd grade, and dd1(who is very bright) I'm calling her in K. According to our state she'd be in K in 2011 because her birthday is October 31st. Right now she is keeping up with Beyond just fine the only thing she is not doing is copywork. She is left handed and hates to write. Dd is doing SM 1a right now and doing well with it, and ds is doing 2a. My hope is that I could combine the older two and then the younger two. Ds would fit right in the middle of the age range for the guides but dd would be 1 year to young. Any tips on how this might work out?

Hi!
I'm quite new here, too, and we've just started Beyond this past week. Loving it so far!
I don't have experience with your question. I have read of people making a program last more than one school year to stretch it out and give the younger child time to mature. For example: taking 3 years to cover Beyond and Bigger would put your dd in the age range for Preparing when it is time to start it.

Welcome to the boards! Glad to hear that you're already enjoying HOD.
I understand what your situation is about combining as my dc are similar to yours.
In order to have my second child be able to be in the right age/skill range for the older guides I have "slowed down" the younger guides.
I am taking a year and a half to do each Little Hearts (we started Jan '08- June '09) then Beyond (Aug '09 - Dec. '10).
We'll start Bigger in January of 2011 and I plan on doing it four days a week so as to stretch it out until June of '12.
By the time we get to Preparing we'll be able to go "regular speed".
You could start your younger two along the same path when they are ready.
HTH!

Hi and welcome. We'll be starting Beyond next week with my almost 7 yr old dd and will do LHTH with my 4 yr old son.

Welcome to the HOD Board! I'm glad you are enjoying Beyond with your dc. You are so wise to consider this now, as this is the perfect time to set up a long-term plan for combining down the road. If you would like to combine your 4.5 yo with your 7 yo long-term, I'd start to slow down Beyond to half-speed. Many moms do this and enjoy it because it makes combining feasible for both dc. I know that doing full-speed Beyond is working now, but when your 2 dc get to Bigger Hearts, your dd's lack of writing maturity (which is 100% normal for her young age) will catch up with her, and it will make doing Bigger Hearts on up difficult. Writing becomes more of a key component in Bigger Hearts (and on up), and Charlotte Mason skills are tied to it, so you don't want little pumpkin being stretched way too far and missing those introductory teaching lessons needed for those skills.

My middle ds was reading long chapter books by the time he was 4.5 yo, and when he got to Bigger Hearts at 6 1/2 yo he was writing quite well, but I still slowed it down to half-speed for him because it would have been way too much otherwise. I think the youngest age suggested to do Bigger Hearts (7 yo) is very accurate - a child doing it younger than that would more than likely be headed for overload. So, I tell you all that just so the advice I'm about to give makes some sense. I would start doing a portion of Beyond half-speed with your dc right away. The easiest way to do this would be to alternate the left and right side of the plans, doing the left side of the plans one day, and the right side of the plans the next day. You could continue to do full-speed math, reading, LA, with your ds, but slow down to half-speed with your dd. So, he would probably complete Spelling List 1 this year and his 1 x a week grammar lesson (on Day 5 always). Then the next year, he could do R & S English 2 and Spelling List 2.

You could decide what you want to do with math - either full or half-speed. I wouldn't rush to the upper levels of Singapore myself, as it gets very challenging - but you will know what you want to do there. For Storytime, you could go full-speed, and then next year when you are finishing out the rest of Beyond, you could just choose a different Storytime set to read aloud. I'd also work toward getting dd to write, as that will be the biggest hurdle to getting to Bigger Hearts too early. You could always slow to half-speed for Bigger Hearts too, but I don't see any way that a 5 1/2 yo could get what is intended to be learned from Bigger Hearts, even if she is incredibly advanced, I just think she'd miss so much due to maturity and lack of writing skills, so it seems to make the best sense to slow Beyond down. Here's a post that explains the difference in writing between Beyond and Bigger that may be explain this better too:
Amount of writing in BHFHG:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3005
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1516&p=11829

As far as your younger 2, yes, I do think that makes good sense to combine them as they are quite close in age.

These are just some ideas for you to ponder, but keep asking questions here until you come to a peace about a placement plan for your sweeties. HOD has blessed our home so much, and I pray the same for yours! I look forward to getting to know you here - I think you'll find this board to be full of encouragers.

In Christ,
Julie

Thanks for all the input it is a lot to think about. For now we will just keep plugging along and re-evaluate next year after I view the Bigger guide.