left side of Beyond? Right side of Bigger?

[grandsophy]

I was reading the thread about copywork, and I saw that some families are using two curriculum guides and doing the left side of one and the right side of the other.

Please tell me about this. Is this how you combine different ages or grades?

[mom24boys]

This year my oldest (1st grade) is doing the left side of LHFHG and the right side of Beyond. (At least most of the right side of Beyond.) This allows us to keep my two oldest (K & 1st) together for some of their subjects and simplifies school for us.

So this year, ds#2 is doing straight LHFHG as written. Ds#1(7.25 yr old) is doing the following for 1st grade:
LHFHG left + storytime + handwriting/thinking skills (1st grade options)
Beyond right (only LA spelling and grammar, ERs, Math)
***NOTE: I would have done more of Beyond LA, but wanted to save the copywork for when we read the poetry. Could have just copied the Bible verse instead, but I decided to use handwriting so that my kids would both be using similar resources. Definitely want them in the same storytime story.

Next year, ds#2 will do straight Beyond as written for 1st grade. Ds#1will do the following for 2nd grade:
Beyond left + storytime + copywork
Bigger right (LA dictation 1, LA R&S2, LA Cheerful Cursive, DITHOR2, Math, and add in a new science that is daily)
***NOTE: Science moves over to the right side for Bigger and becomes daily so I'm going to save it for the following year so my two boys can do it together. They will get some science from Beyond left side but I am going to add in something extra for him for the year.

The following year, ds#2 will do straight Bigger for 2nd grade. Ds#1 will do the following for 3rd grade:
Bigger with R&S3 & DITHOR 3
Preparing (dictation 2 & Math)

As you can see it starts to phase out as the options for extensions are available and as various schedules are provided in the back of Preparing for different levels.

It kind of seems a little confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's really rather simple. It has worked really well for us and allows my oldest to stay on level for his 3Rs. HTH. Let me know if I left something out.