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I'm looking at the guides, and as I said before my DD, Abby, would fit into either Preparing or RTR for 5th grade. She LOVES doing independant work and is a strong reader ex... My 7-almost 8 year old, Joshua, fits into Bigger and my 5-6 before fall-year old, James, fits into Beyond, but I'm not going to put them into 3 differant guides! LOL! So I thought if I do HOD, (I'm praying on it! ) I'd put Abby into RTR (bc she loves independant work and it would give me more time to work with youngers and babies), Joshua and James into Beyond with math and LAs for Joshua's age. Now I could see spending over a year doing one guide if we need to slow things down at first or during busy times. Does anyone take longer then 1 year per guide? We like to start Sept and end mid May for a summer break. But this might be a bad idea since Joshua fits better into bigger-it might hold him back too much??? I don't know! I think Joshua and James should stay together since they are closer in skills then Joshua and Abby. Then I thought I could start my next two youngest together-Toby 4, and Levi 2-they are 16 months apart and Levi seems to want to learn new things and Toby just turned 4 and is a super active boy who's only intrest in learning revolves around animals! LOL! Maybe the Lord will bless me with anouther one someday to stick baby Emma with! LOL!

I think your plan sounds good You might have to slow down some at some points and go faster at others. Sometimes starting out half speed for a month or two is enough to get a younger one ready for the skills. The thing I'd pay close attention to is whether your soon to be 6yo is really ready for Beyond or does he just fit in the age range? Have you checked the placement chart?

Another thing I've found is that it is easier and takes less time doing three separate guides than it did when I was trying to combine my middle two into LHTH. I have them separated now, and I"m running three guides in less time that I was doing two guides. I don't have whining about something being too easy or someone answering when they weren't supposed to or someone said what someone else was going to say, etc. So the short of that is that if everyone is placed correctly 3 guides is not a bad thing

I'm just popping in to say that our current plan is for ds to do 3 guides in 4 years for LHFHG, Beyond, and Bigger since he is at the younger end of the guides. This year we've liked doing the guide for 4 days and leaving the 5th for field trips and other activities. I figure when we get to Preparing, then the guide is a 4-day guide anyway. I also have my dd doing LHTH for 2 years, since she started at 2.5 (since she really wanted to do school like big brother).

It sounds like many people here on the board slow down or speed up doing the guides depending on their child's needs.

I think James does fit into Beyond. He finished K work in Jan and has been doing first grade work since-adding, subtracting, reading first grade readers, got introduced to nouns, verbs and adj and even understood them. He finished the summer doing about 3 sentences a day of copy work...does this sound like he is ready for Beyond? I wish I have made it to the confreance and flip through the books! LOL!

Yes, James is ready for Beyond, and I think your 2 dc will love Beyond - have fun with it! I am confused about Abby though - PHFHG or RTR? What about CTC? Maybe I missed something - but for your oldest it will be especially important she is properly placed, or all those "I" boxes that are supposed to be independent become dependent on mom, and that leaves both mom and child frustrated. I'd print out the first week of plans and carefully read through the "I" boxes to see which guide fits Abby's needs the best. I'm so sorry if I misunderstood though!

In Christ,
Julie

LOL! That was my mistake! I ment CTC! LOL! I'm going to print off the week plans. I had Abby look through the one day plan and she really liked it. I know she can do independant work for next year, it's Joshua that I'm not sure if he will be able to do much independant work by 5th grade! LOL! He will progress nicely over the next few years, but he is an active-low attention span boy-we just finished him up with 2nd grade in MFW ECC and with math, reading and LA's I was constantly helping him with words and directing him back to his school work! LOL! Where his younger brother, James, can sit at a table and work, and work and work and then ask for more school! LOL! James has a hard time being active-he has some neromuscular disorder that he is being tested for-but he makes up for that in his love for school work! Although by spring even James was ready for a break! LOL!