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I have felt drawn to HOD for a few years now, and even tried it for a while, but my main problem is that I like to keep my children combined for content subjects. Is there anyone here who combines beyond the recommended ages and just lets youngers tag-along? We have math and LA that we like, so we'd just be using the left side of the guide. I've read Carrie's reasoning for placing each child in the appropriate guide, and it makes a lot of sense to me, but I also like family learning too. With a toddler and new baby, I'm not sure I could handle 2-3 guides anyway!

Anyway, right now my children are the following ages/grades:
dd-9 (in January)- 3rd grade
ds-7-2nd grade
ds-6-Kindergarten
ds-4
dd-2
ds-7 weeks

Would it be a mistake to try to use Bigger with them, starting in January? Would the Kindergartener get anything out of it? Then in early 2012, what about using Preparing with children who are halfway through with 4th, 3rd, and 1st grades? Or given my desire to combine, would it just to easier to use a program that is designed for that?

sharonb,

We do have many families who combine kiddos within HOD, so you can definitely combine them up to a point. We typically find that beyond a 4 year age spread it gets hard to combine with any success. If you did decide to do Bigger Hearts, you could have your younger students listen in to the older students' readings, however the skills for your younger student would be missing. There are quite a few skills that are incorporated into the history and science and much age appropriate discussion, Scripture study, and memorization that goes into the Bible portion which would be over your younger student's head. I fear that in the end, you'd end up with a him/her participating in the read-alouds of Bigger Hearts and not much more.

Depending on where each child places individually on the placement chart, and your desire to combine, you could consider placing all three of your kiddos in Beyond Little Hearts instead. Then, you would beef up for the older student by adding a higher level of Rod and Staff grammar, a higher level of math, Drawn into the Heart of Reading Level 2/3 and higher level books for the student to read with it, and a higher level of spelling or dictation. You could either purchase the Bigger Hearts guide and follow only the 3R's portion to beef these areas up for your student, or you could do it on your own instead. You would also need to add some additional reading in the area of science for your older student. This could be done either by adding a textbook like ABeka's or Bob Jones or by reading science biographies or science books from the library instead. You could have your older student complete a "lab sheet" for the experiments and possibly do a one page notebooking entry for science each week as well to raise the level of science.

This combination would work better than pulling your younger child behind the olders. With HOD it is much easier to beef up than it is to water down. An added benefit is that the following year all 3 kiddos would head into Bigger Hearts together, and your older student could use the extensions. Then, these 3 students could stay together for as long as it is working well. If you ever felt your older needed more, you could easily bump that child up to a higher level program, while not losing any ground with the youngers who would remain where they were. Anyway, these are just a few thoughts to ponder. We do have families doing just what I've shared above who enjoy it very much!

Blessings,
Carrie

Thanks for your thoughts, Carrie!