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I have 3 kids and I'm going to homeschool next year for the first year. I bought bigger for all3. One will be 11and going into 5th grade, one will be 9 going into 4th grade, and one will be 7 going into 1st grade. My 3rd falls into both BHFHG and Beyond, so I just chose to put him with the older two. I bought the lower levels of math and english for him, but mainly plan on including him in the history and science.

My concern is for him for the year after next. Is there a way to go half speed with him this year and then re-do bigger with him the year after going full-speed? If so, how would that work? Would he already know all the history and science so that it would really be pointless? Should I just go ahead and put him in the next guide with his siblings and just keep the core subjects at his level? Would that work?

Saharvey, Welcome to HOD
We are coming to the end of Bigger with my ds8. We started when he was 7 and did it at 1/2 pace about 3/4 of the guide. He is now able to do a full day of Bigger in 1 day! He had to grow into the skills required for science, narration, vocabulary and the level of the questions during Bible time and story time and mostly into the amount of writing that is required in Bigger. I am very glad we did it that way

Since we started with HOD from day 1 with LHTH (I did not know about 1/2 pace at the time) , we had to move on when we were done with Beyond and that is why we decided to do Bigger in 2 school years at age 7. The benefits were great His handwriting has improved, narration skills have matured and he is able to do some of the blocks semi independent or independent. This has been wonderful preparation for Preparing the coming school year!

If you are hesitant and at all doubting how your ds 7 will do, perhaps you might reconsider and place him in Beyond! It will most likely be a blessing to have him thrive at his own level, instead of having to be pulled along with the older ones. With being your first year homeschooling, you want to make sure the kiddo's are placed at their level so all of you enjoy the journey

Repeating a guide is not usually the recommendation for the HOD guides since they build on one another and prepare you for the next guide.
It might be equally difficult to do Bigger at full and half pace at the same time with the 2 older kiddo's and with younger one, than it would be to do 2 guides.Bigger with older and Beyond with the younger
You can always combine story time and DITHOR with the 3 kiddo's.

With all this said, I don't know the reason you have for wanting all 3 kiddo's in the same guide, so prayerfully consider as you plan for the year ahead, the Lord will guide you as you wait on Him!
Success

You could easily do Bigger Hearts full-speed with your olders and half-speed with your younger. You would just do both sides of the plans with your 9 yo and 11 yo, along with the Extensions and appropriate LA/Math for your 11 yo. Then, you would go half-speed with your 7 yo, doing the left side of the guide one day, and the right side the next. You can decide if you want to do daily reading/math with your 7 yo.

A few thoughts on this - if your 9 and 11 yo are able, they could independently do their science readings and follow-up skills, which would leave you only reading the science one time to your 7 yo. I think I'd hold on to reading the history to all of them, as Eggleston lends itself well to being read aloud. You would then be reading the history twice, once for your olders, and again (though spread over 2 years) for your younger. The readings are short, and personally, this wouldn't bother me, but if this is not your cup of tea, than I would consider placing your 7 yo in Beyond instead. Regardless of whether your 7 yo is in Beyond or Bigger (half-speed), you could do 1 daily Storytime session from Bigger Hearts with them all. Your olders should be able to do the follow-up to the history reading semi-independently, while your 7 yo will need your help with that more.

For your 11 yo, if you are doing R & S English 4, some writing instruction is included along with the grammar. You may want to consider adding "Igniting Your Writing", just the start-up level, but you will know best. The extensions and the follow-up assignments will extend history and science nicely. Choosing a higher level of DITHOR and higher level reading books will nicely beef up the reading instruction, and then all that's left to beef up is math - which is relatively easy to do. I do think that it would be easy to do 2 full-speed in Bigger and 1 half-speed as long as you are willing to read the history twice. I think you are wise to think ahead to PHFHG and letting your older 2 move on to that, while making sure you slow your younger one down to really teach the skills needed for PHFHG at a realistic pace. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie