So many questions.......high school..CTC..etc.

[SMiles]

Would you believe that just last week I was looking around trying to at least think about what I was going to do for high school? I was pretty excited, along with the rest of you, when I saw the "teaser" about an announcement coming on Monday. The problem with living overseas is that I had to wait til Monday night to see the surprise!

But with the excitement comes many questions and I am sure I am not the only one. So here are my questions/comments/observations in no particular order plus a little background.

Due to life, we have taken two years to do CTC with ds (started at 11/now 12) and dd (started at 9/now 10). In hindsight, I wish that we had been more consistent when we had time, but I can't change that now, can I? Since the beginning of 2011, we have been on a great schedule and I am feeling really good about how things are going. When I chose to come back to HOD it was because I LOVED the look of CTC and the idea of learning together. As we have gone through the past 2 years, I have seen a "laid backness" (not a word, but I am sure so many of you are nodding as you read it ) in my ds and I have read more on the forums about HOD working toward independence and I have seen that need in my dc. My dd has a different personality and she has done fine keeping up on the work in CTC. She is very artistic and loves the notebook pages, but is only now getting to where she likes to read. But back to the independence thing....I am thinking to separate them into their own guides, but since my dd has done CTC, my option is to put her back in Preparing (10/11 year old 5th grader) and I am fine with that. DS would do Rev. to Ref. in the 2011/2012 school year as a 13 year old 7th grader. So what would be the suggestion for dd the year after Preparing? I could just move her to Rev. to Ref. Any ideas?

One other question....DH and I strongly feel, unless the Lord shows us differently in a BIG way, that we are going to finish our homeschooling journey with HOD, but I have a tendency to be a collector of curriculum. I would really love to get rid of a lot of this material (and I have gotten stuff for high school~Apologia etc.) that I don't feel like I will use, but what if Carrie decides to use a program I have on hand? I really don't want to have to buy it again as we are on a tight budget and we live overseas so it is hard to get stuff over here. I am not looking to make profits, but I wonder about what to keep. I know that Carrie makes choices as she prepares a guide and those choices change, but I wonder if there is ANY list that can be given now on materials for future guides?

Thanks for your input. I appreciate the care and thought that go into the responses.

Sherry

[Carrie]

Sherry,

I am so glad that you are excited about our high school plan! We are too. As far as your kiddos go, I have a few thoughts. First of all, if your daughter is doing fine in CTC, then going back to Preparing would be quite a step back. It would also be a large jump to go from Preparing Hearts to RTR. So, with that in mind, it really depends on how well your daughter is doing in CTC, whether she's doing her own readings, is needing quite a bit of modifying etc. That will make a difference in the best plan for her. Potentially, if she is able to do the readings and is completing the work required within CTC, you could head into RTR with her, possibly doing it at a slower pace? Once you get to share a bit more about her, we can help advise better as far as she goes.

As far as your older child goes, I'd be inclined to move him into RTR, rather than jumping up to Rev2Rev, unless CTC seems to be way too easy overall. I wasn't sure which guide you were thinking of for him, either RTR or Rev2Rev? As the guides go up, they get more and more rigorous. So, jumping a year would feel fairly big during these building years of the guides from CTC to Modern Times.

With our plans for high school coming together bit by bit, I will say that it would be surprising for us to use Apologia for science for high school. However, we are not 100% sure on our science choices right now, so I cannot say for sure. We will likely lean in a less traditional path for science, as we always have.

Blessings,
Carrie

[SMiles]

Thanks Carrie, for taking time to respond.

At this time, I am doing the reading because we are doing CTC together. The writing is not too much for either child although I would have to say that the "like" factor on written narrations is not high. I think that is just a thing for them because of writing and it takes a bit longer. My ds is better able to look at the text after our reading and answer questions and put the material into a written form. DD is doing fine in understanding what is going on in the stories, readings, etc. I guess my reason for thinking to put her back in Preparing is because it would be the logical place to separate them at this point. From what I understand, Preparing does not have notebooking pages so her day would be drastically cut down in hands on (but with more reading) while my older ds would be upping his hours with more reading and responsibility. He is a reader so I do not see that being an issue.

I could, as you mentioned, do RTR half pace with her doing the reading or just make sure she is doing all the required reading in Preparing and use the extensions for extra reading time for her. She has a tendency to be one who will do a bunch of work on her own (writing letters, preparing science pages from internet research, making math and other lessons for her stuffed animals, etc.), but if she is not interested in a subject, she will lag and say it is too hard. I would say the same about reading. She will take off on a book or series that she enjoys (has animals in it ) and limp through other books that do not have an interest for her. So I know the ability is there.

I don't know if that gives you any more idea of her abilities and personality. I could work on getting them to read the readings individually and see how they do for the next few weeks. I think the Ancient Greece book is a bit more difficult to understand than History of the Ancient World so I am not sure how that will go.

As far as my older ds goes, I misspoke (mistyped ). He will follow the CTC guide with Resurrection to Reformation. Sorry about that. I see him blooming although the hands on stuff is not really his cup of tea. He is more factual and like other folks have posted, Julie included, I see a progression on his work that is coming along as it should in the guide. My plan is for him to follow the rest of the sequence and have my daughter come along behind him in that as well.

Thanks for the heads up on what might be used. I think I saw a post once about your personal plans for high school (pre-Monday announcement ), but I have never found it again. Could some of those choices be involved in the future guides? Is that link available from someone who is more computer savvy than me?

Thanks again for taking the time to help me out. I have recommended HOD to so many of my co-workers on the different fields because of the ministries we have outside the home. Their dc are younger and they will be able to follow the guides better than me as far as order/grade/age. I am thankful for that for them.

Sherry

[LynnH]

Sherry,
Just wanted to clarify for you about Preparing. It doesn't have the pre-printed notebooking pages, but they still do many of the same activities. There is still cursive copywork, written narrations, they do writing original poems with the Poetry box, draw and write through History (the drawings and the cursive portions), and Science notebooking. You just do it in your own notebooks and in a common place book. There also is the history project that is very hands on. The length of assignments is greater in CTC than Preparing, but there are still many written assignments.
Lynn

[SMiles]

Thanks Lynn,
I do live overseas, but I am going to get my hands on Preparing in April or May. I appreciate you taking the time to go into a little bit more detail of how the program is the same as CTC.

Sherry

[8arrows]

"I don't know if that gives you any more idea of her abilities and personality. I could work on getting them to read the readings individually and see how they do for the next few weeks."

I like your thought from above. I would work on this so that you can just keep them together, but I like to combine. In RTR there are a couple of books that you could get audios for and your daughter could read the text while following along with the audio if you thought that would help.

[blessedmomof4]

At this time, I am doing the reading because we are doing CTC together. The writing is not too much for either child although I would have to say that the "like" factor on written narrations is not high. I think that is just a thing for them because of writing and it takes a bit longer. My ds is better able to look at the text after our reading and answer questions and put the material into a written form. DD is doing fine in understanding what is going on in the stories, readings, etc. I guess my reason for thinking to put her back in Preparing is because it would be the logical place to separate them at this point. From what I understand, Preparing does not have notebooking pages so her day would be drastically cut down in hands on (but with more reading) while my older ds would be upping his hours with more reading and responsibility. He is a reader so I do not see that being an issue.

Considering the fact you are reading aloud to them rather than them reading the history spines themselves, I would suggest letting them alternate the "Independent" boxes and let them try to complete the work on their own and see how they do. The readings only get longer in Resurreection to Reformation, and are intended to be done by the student. If either of them cannot complete those assignments in a reasonable amount of time, perhaps doing Resurrection to Reformation half-speed at first would be an option until they grow into the necessary skills. They will need these skills in order to be successful in the guides that follow. I would not suggest putting your daughter in Preparing nor skipping your son to Revival to Reformation after completing CTC, but that is only my opinion

[SMiles]

Hi,
I know that the conference schedule has kept Carrie and Julie busy, but I wanted to bump this up so that Carrie could see the specifics on my dd that she asked about before.

As we have moved into the Streams of History books, I don't think that my dd could follow the line of what is being presented without a lot of work. I think that I have been explaining a lot during our reading times.

As I have read other posts, I realize more and more that the skills are what needs to be developed so I am leaning more heavily toward putting my dd back into Preparing.

Thanks again for any and all input,
~Sherry

[Gwenny]

Are you thinking to stop her in CtC right now and start her in Preparing, or were you going to finish the guide? How far are you? It's sounds to me like it would be good to switch her now instead of waiting and then go back to CtC starting from where you left off? After all of the reading I have done on here, I keep hearing the same theme: each of the guides prepares them for the next, if they are not able to do the guides the way they are written, such as doing them independently when asked, then the next guide will be that much harder. That won't be "fun" for either parent or child. Just my 2 cents.

Nancy

[Carrie]

Sherry,

Thanks so much for taking time to share a bit more about your kiddos. The ladies are doing an amazing job of talking through your options with you. The more I'm reading through what you're sharing and your thinking over the past weeks, the more I'm thinking that your daughter really would do well in Preparing Hearts and will actually need the skills from that guide to truly move into doing CTC as written.

I like Gwenny's idea of possibly separating the kiddos now, if possible, and starting your daughter on Preparing Hearts now and letting your son take over his own readings and any boxes labeled 'I' in CTC from here on out, in order to truly prepare him for RTR and its level of independence. This may or may not be a possiblity right now but is definitely something to ponder, if your daughter fits better in Preparing Hearts (which I'm thinking she likely does from what you've shared). If you get a chance to pop back and share your thinking whenever you get a chance that would be great! We'd be glad to visit more until you find the option that suits your family best.

Blessings,
Carrie