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We are just finishing up our first year of homeschooling and have loved HOD! As I look to next year, I am in a quandry about what to do. Here is the overview of my children.

DD#1 will be 7 in June - just finished 1st grade. We did a mix of LHFHG and BLHFHG. We did the left side, thinking skills and storytime from LHFHG and we did the LA, math and emerging readers from Beyond. I guess the logical next step would be to move into Beyond for everything except LA and Math. We could do the math plans from Bigger, and maybe the LA too? But that is cursive and R&S, right? Isn't that a little much for 2nd grade? DD is a great speller, however, and aced the lists from Beyond every time. So we definitely don't need to do those again.

DD#2 will be 5 at the end of September - going into K and SO ready! She did LHTH and also sat in on most of DD#1's schooling, participating a lot! As a result, she knows how to write all her letters (very neatly, I might add) and is working on phonics. She answered lots of storytime questions right along with DD#1. I could put her in LHFHG, even though she would be at the bottom of the age range. I am nervous about that because I hear that the upper guides get harder and I don't want her to struggle when we get there. I could also just do the right side of LHFHG this year and then do the rest with the right side of Beyond in 1st grade like I did for DD#1.

Now my final crazy thoughts (thanks for reading, really!). I could try to combine the girls, but I'd probably have to have DD#1 repeat the left side of LHFHG to do it. She would obviously move on in LA and Math. What do you think? I have 2 other children, ages 2 1/2 and 3months, so that's why I'm thinking about combining (saving my sanity, if possible!!). I don't want either of them to be bored though. Does anybody who has been doing this longer have any suggestions?

I guess I have 2 questions as I re-read this.
1) what would you do for 2nd grade LA if you'd already done the spelling and day 5 grammar from Beyond?
2) where would you place my two DD's?

Thank you so much!
Blessings,
Erica

I did exactly what you described with your DD#1, with my DS#2 this year. I plan on doing Beyond as written this year except put him in the Singapore 2a and 2b and I plan on doing Rod and Staff English 2 and copy work. (Beyond has the children do copy work each day for handwriting) He will do Bigger for 3rd grade and that is when he will do cursive. (along with Rod and staff English 3)

I actually have your dynamics this coming year with my 2nd and 3rd DS. I already told you what I am doing with my 2nd grader next year. On to my K'er ... I am going to do a modified LHFHG with him. (I will do all the K options with him - as well as the Family Time Bible readings for History) I will also introduce him to the concept of read-alouds to him using shorter books...like "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel" and "The Story of Ping", etc.
For 1st grade, I will take him through LHFHG as written with all the 1st grade options while also using the Beyond guide for the Language Arts and Math. Then in 2nd we will use Beyond just as I will be using with my 2nd grader this year.

I also have a 4th grader that I will be taking through Preparing Hearts this year and I have a 2 yo daughter!! So, I understand wanting to combine. However, I prefer taking them through the guide that fits them perfectly over trying to fit them into a guide in order to combine. It's a very hard decision and the dynamics from one family to the next are very different. A couple of years ago, I had exactly your dynamics, however! I was doing K with my 2nd son, 2nd with my 1st son, and I had a newborn and a 2 year old. It can be done!!! Even with those dynamics ... most days we finished before lunch!

We also did the same path as the pp with my dc when they were in 2nd grade. We had done LHFHG with the math and LA from Beyond for first grade so in second grade we did the left side of Beyond with R&S2 and Singapore 2A and 2B. We didn't do cursive either in 2nd. We just did the poetry and scripture copywork. This year when we did Bigger fully, we did Cheerful Cursive, R&S3, and Singapore 3A/3B.

I'm not for sure about your younger dd. I really don't think I would take your dd1 through LHFHG again though. I would go ahead and move ahead with her as you planned. Have you looked at the placement chart for your dd2? Does she solidly place in LHFHG? Perhaps you could consider taking it 1/2 speed for a while if you are worried about her getting into the older guides too soon. If she is solidly placed though and is able to do the program full-speed, I would do that for now and not worry about the older guides. You can always slow down when the need arises if it does arise later.

Thanks so much for the replies. It helps a lot to hear how others have handled things. Larissa, we do have very similar dynamics in our families! I'm glad to hear you've been able to handle everyone in their own guides, because I'm really not sure I can figure out how to combine my girls at this point. pjdobro, thanks for the encouragement about placing my younger dd. Yes, she places solidly in LHFHG, and I do think she can handle it. I really have to think and pray about this and then decide.

May I ask both of you, what did you do for 2nd grade spelling?

Blessings,
Erica

My oldest did Bigger for the second half of her second grade year and did fantastically. We took the fall and did some unit studies to up her amount of writing. If you don't want to add in cursive you could just have them do copywork and add in the cursive book the next year.

I have 4 girls all two grades apart in school and I cannot imagine having combined my first two. It would have been awful!! 2 and 3 would work better personality wise, but they are far apart in abilities.

We also had enrichment classes with our homeschool group and the teachers who had K-2 were all saying how hard it was to teach to that age range because they are SO SO different not only with academics but in all other areas.

Hi,

I have the same quandry as you. Well, this fall (or in July) I will be doing 1st grade, BLHFHG, and my Pre-K will just do some workbook work and the "learn to read" program because I believe she is ready for that. Otherwise, I think she could do SOME LHFHG but I'm going to save it. I was hoping to combine my girls by the time they were K and 2nd but now I've decided I just don't think I can do it. I don't think I would be able to balance their individual needs so that the younger gets the time and attention from me and I make sure she's moving along in all the skills. She's been "riding along" for K in LHFHG but I know she didn't get a lot of it so I just want to wait. I have decided that my dream of combining my kiddos can wait until they are older, because I think their skills will be a lot closer when they get a little older. I just can't expect my poor little 4 1/2 year old DD to have fine motor skills enough, attention span enough, or comprehension to keep up and I feel I'd be doing her a disservice to expect that.

Yours might be a little bit closer, and my DD4 might surprise me with her readiness, but I don't want to push her that hard.

Maybe if the thought of doing 2 whole guides overwhelms you (as it certainly does me) you can do part of LHFHG as someone suggested or do it 1/2 speed for a while until you get in a good rhythm. I hope you can find a good balance with your littles (toddler and baby) to make the whole thing workable. Steve & Teri Maxwell's "Managers of their homes" was a big help to me in figuring out how to balance caring for littles while doing school.

Blessings,

May I ask both of you, what did you do for 2nd grade spelling?

We did list 1 for first grade and list 2 for second grade. List 2 is the spelling list in Bigger. Then for 3rd grade, we used the dictation in Bigger.

I think I'd do Beyond with your turning 6 yo, along with Bigger Hearts Spelling List 2 and 2A/2B Math plans. I think I'd do R & S English half-speed, 2 days a week, and then the following year finish it up 2-3 days a week. For cursive, if she is ready, you could do it, if not, I'd have her do "A Reason for Handwriting A" or "Italic B" or something comparable.

For your 5 yo, I'd do LHFHG half-speed, and let her grow into it. Here is a link where different ladies explained how they went about going half-speed:

How does half-speed look in your home?
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5600&p=41232#p41232

I think this would be a plan that would fit both your dc well, and would be easy to implement! It often seems like the oldest child just takes off, and it is easier to combine littler children. Here is a post that Carrie discussed this...
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6155

HTH!
In Christ,
Julie

Thanks for the additional replies everyone! I so appreciate it! I am taking everything in and starting to form a plan, I think

About spelling for my almost-7-year-old, we did Beyond's List 2 this year for 1st grade and she had no trouble. So...would you do the dictation from Bigger or some other spelling program until we're actually fully in Bigger for 3rd grade? Or, is there another "list 2" in Bigger that would be different from the one we already did?

Julie, thanks for the links about going half-speed. I read through the ideas and they are very helpful. I love how flexible HOD is. Even if I start out one way, we can change how we're doing things if we need to slow down or speed up part way through. Here's a half-speed question. I think my 5 year old is ready for LHFHG, but I worry about getting to the upper guides too young. Do you think it would be easier to go half-speed now or later, if the need were to arise? She may be fine later, but I'm not familiar with how challenging the guides get.

Again, thanks for all the help!

Erica

Spelling list 2 is the same in Bigger as Beyond. The next step would be to use the dictation in Bigger as her spelling instruction. Whenever she finishes the dictation 2 in Bigger, you would need the Preparing guide. Preparing has dictation 3 and 4 as well, so you will still be fresh for the year after that

I'm glad the links helped! It sounds like you have a good plan coming together for your dd. In regard to spelling, just to double-check, has she done all of the plans for spelling list 2, or just a pretest/post-test of the words? I think doing all of HOD's spelling plans prepares dc to be ready for dictation, and if your dd was able to do all the plans (including writing 3 sentences each week with 3 of the spelling words), then she should be ready for dictation. If she did it more as a pre-test/post-test, and didn't do all the plans with it, then you will probably want her to go through the list one more time doing all of the plans to get her ready for dictation. Here are a few threads that explain this further...
Spelling retention – by Carrie:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7415&p=54282#p54282
Purpose of the way HOD teaches spelling:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5645&p=41357#p41357

As far as whether to go half-speed or not, if your dd can do absolutely everything in LHFHG's plans well right now, then she should definitely go full-speed with it. If she needs to grow into parts of it, then she should go half-speed. You can easily go 4 days a week if she goes full-speed, which will slow things down a tad in a nice way since she is younger. As far as future guides, all I can say is it becomes obvious if a child needs to go half-speed with a guide. Tweaking should not be necessary with HOD, so if that is happening on a daily basis, then either a child is misplaced in a guide or a child needs to go half-speed to grow in the skills needed to do the guide. I would guess many young dc go half-speed when they get to Bigger Hearts, at least for awhile. That has been our experience at least. Here's a thread that may be helpful...
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9000&p=65878#p65878

I hope that helps, and I think it sounds like your dd will have a wonderful year with HOD!
In Christ,
Julie