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I just wanted to share that our first day of school (yes, on July 4th!) went very well! We started the day with LHTH for the 2yo and 4yo (during that time my olders did their reading from their Bibles and R&S Readers). My dc loved everything about LHTH! My 4yo and 2yo are the most challenging to me as far as their behavior goes, and I really think that starting the day focusing on them really made a difference for the rest of the day. My oldest 3 enjoyed Beyond, commenting frequently that they remembered some of it from 2 years ago (but we only made it to Unit 9 or so back then, so most of it will be new to them). I ended up keeping MOH vol 1 to use as "extensions" for my oldest 2 for this year. We read the first lesson and they did simple notebook pages (drawing and a sentence or two). We are also doing Apologia Botany so they worked on their notebooks for that. For my 1st grader, Beyond is plenty, so I'm not worried about having him sit in on MOH and Botany (he can if he wants to though).

My biggest challenge is going to be the routine. I have a beautiful routine all typed up, and it quickly became apparent that it needs to be totally reworked! With this many children all working at different levels and different speeds, it's hard to figure out what is going to work for us. But the good news is that we started school at about 8:30 this morning, and were done by about 1:30 (with a 30 minute break for lunch).

Tomorrow is a field trip day- we get to see an alligator at the library!

Not how I would have spent the 4th, but glad y'all had a good day! Hope the rest of your year is as blessed!

I'm glad you enjoyed your first day, and even noticed what went well & what you'd change. I like how you were able to combine into the two guides!

I know my DD asked to do school tonight. Mommy was too tired after a great holiday, but I'm glad she asked. I just pray that's one day of great attitude we get again.

I pray tomorrow's just as great!

I thought I was the only one who would celebrate the 4th by doing school in the morning! We started LHTH and LHFHG yesterday. The children were all very excited for our afternoon guests to arrive, so I decided to keep them busy in the morning by doing school.

I guess I was celebrating my independence from the other curricula that wasn't quite right for us, too.

Have a wonderful time!

Sharon,

I'm excited that you're underway and that you were finished with your first day in a reasonable amount of time! It sounds like it went well! I know you'll be schedule-tweaking but it is good to get that trial run out of the way. We pray you'll have a good year, and we'll be here to share the journey with you!

Thanks for sharing an update!

Blessings,
Carrie

Way to go, Sharon! Why not kick the July 4th holiday off with some great learning about American heros in Beyond, and some foundational Biblical learning in LHTH? I am so glad your first day went well, and I truly would call that a success to finish by 1:30 with a half an hour break. You do have a beloved bunch of kiddos there - hooray for you and for them!

In Christ,
Julie

I made some changes with our schedule, and today went much more smoothly (and faster!). I color-coded my oldest two's checklists so they can see at a glance which subjects are independent. So, while I am doing LHTH with the youngers, they get to work on independent subjects (like cursive, personal Bible reading, etc). After I'm done with LHTH, I get the oldest three together and do the left side of Beyond, plus storytime. Then they work on their 3R's. It's easier to do it in this order since they all do their 3R's at a different pace and would be waiting for each other. I had tried to schedule out when they work on each subject, but it really works much better if they have a checklist. They choose which order to do the subjects in, and I bounce around as needed. They know that if I'm working with a sibling, they need to wait until I'm available. My oldest two have plenty of work that can be done independently (or semi-independently), and if that is done, they can take a break if they need me and I'm already working with someone else. After we got the 3R's done today, my oldest two worked on Botany and Mystery of History (I'm really looking forward to next year with Bigger and its extensions so I won't feel the need to add extra science and history programs for my oldest 2!). Then we had lunch, and then after that we worked on our "extras"- piano theory and penny whistle. My oldest two practiced their piano and had 30 minutes of free reading. All together, we spent about 3 hours on school before lunch, and then about 75 minutes after lunch. I think that's pretty good! I'm sure there will be some longer days for my oldest two as we get into harder material in math and English, but I'm greatly encouraged that we got so much done in a relatively small amount of time today.

Sounds like you're settling right in !
We have started some up this week but not everyone. But so far, all is well
Angie