heartofdakota.com

I should be getting my HOD preschool books any time now. My kids are 2.5 and 3.5. I want to keep them as close together as I can. I was going to do preschool with them over the next year and a half, and then start the Kindergarten book. Well, when we start that, Meeah will be 5 and Migel 4. Since its for 5-7 years, should I wait and start the preschool a litle later? Then when we start Kindergarten, Meeah will be 6 and Migel 5.... Any thoughts on this??? TIA!!

I would wait longer. Your little guy might not be ready for Little Hearts at 4.

I would either wait or space the preschool out further. My 3 yo likes "doing school" which right now is just sitting and listening to her older sister's school. I was thinking fall I would start working through Little Hands with her only 2 or 3 times a week. That way she has her own school but it's not overwhelming.

So would it be better TO wait so we can do them both together, or would it be better to start Meeah now, and then Migel later? And then they will be in seperate "grades"? They are a little over a year apart. I know obviously in some areas they will be in different "grades", I just don't know how I should approach it. Together or at their current learning levels. Am I asking the right question? I don't know if I am phrasing it right or not....

I would think if they are interested in starting than start now but take it slowly. My 3 yr old is asking for school and when she does we pull some stuff out then it may be 3 days before she wants to do it again. There may be a big difference in their readiness for school. My ds was not nearly as ready for school as one of his friends (who is a girl and 3 days older than him). For my ds I have to make it fun. His friend just sits down and does Abeka. My point is at this stage it is going to be hard to tell how easy it will be to combine. If your younger picks up on things quickly or your older takes longer then in should be easy to combine the two. You have plenty of time to see how all of this is going to sort itself out.

Enjoy your little ones.

Sarah

Ok I will be the other side. I think it completely depends on your kids. I started my littlest at 3 and my other doing some things about 4. I have not done LHTH so keep that in mind. But I could see just taking it really slow and doing a half day like we are for the most part with LHFHG. It think the key to staring them early is wait until they really want it. And if they want it early just take it slow and make it very fun and light hearted.

I put one of mine off and let one of mine start early. I don't see that it really benefited her to be put off and I do see it has benefited the one I let start early because she wanted to start. So that is just my experience. The other day I let her sit on some reading I did from science we are finishing up (because we started HOD mid year). She learned what a P wave and an S wave were in earthquakes and how they knew there was liquid in the center of the earth because s waves turn into P waves when they hit liquid. She went and spontaneously told my dh and still remembers the information days after and she has hand motions to match. I am big on letting them learn when they want to learn. Why not as long as you are very careful not to stress them and it is their hearts desire.

Disclaimer- I tend to have the hey why not mentality rather than the wise well thought out. And honestly when I think about things I still end up saying hey why not!

I would think it would depend on the child. My DS is 2yrs (in Jan) and is no where near ready to do LHTH. He does like the songs and thinks the activities are funny. But he is not getting anything out of it. Which is ok, since it's meant for my DD who is 4.5 yrs. My teo are polar opposites. DD very artsy and more than ready to learn at an early age. My DS is happy playing with his wooden trains all day. And every color is pink or blue in his brain. So really, I think it depends on the child. Could you hold off until the fall when they're a little older and use it for next school year?

I've been trying to think this out for my 2 younger ones, too. (I know it's early looking at K when they're only almost 2 & 4 ) It seems to me that there's a bigger gap in what they're ready for when they're young. If I were new to HOD and my younger 2 were 6 & 8 yrs old, I'm guessing that it wouldn't be a problem at all to combine them in a program.

At least right now, I'm thinking that I may not keep them together at the beginning, but plan on combining them down the road. But, of course we'll just take it as it comes.

This probably isn't much help to you since I have not experienced it...only been thinking.

FYI...LHTH only takes 20, maybe 30 min to complete. There isn't much splitting up to do. Everything goes with the Bible story for the day. If you want to stretch it, don't do it daily. (I think LHFHG on up you can do one side of the plans one day and then the other...)

Kathleen wrote: FYI...LHTH only takes 20, maybe 30 min to complete. There isn't much splitting up to do. Everything goes with the Bible story for the day. If you want to stretch it, don't do it daily. (I think LHFHG on up you can do one side of the plans one day and then the other...)

Well I guess that would make a bit of a problem splitting things up hehehe! But I agree the gap thing when they are learning to read seems to be different than later on when they can all read. I am still going back and forth in my head for my own kids on the next step but I think this is the time where you may not get to know what comes next and when you have to just feel it out. I only know I want them all in HOD so I will just work around it by speeding up, slowing down or adding more books to read if I need having it slowed down. So maybe that would be a good thing read stories one day or do fun art stuff and take the program every other day OR you can just wait if it seems they are not ready. Either way it will be good.

Erin,

If your older little one is a girl, then odds are that at 3.5 she is ready for some sort of gentle preschool (that still feels like play). I do realize not all little girls are more ready for school than boys, but many have better fine motor skills earlier (which is why I mentioned it).

I started my third son at age 3 in "Little Hands...", because he was begging for school (and it was easier to pick up and do "Little Hands..." part - time than to come up with something else "school-like" for him to do). If that is the case with your little girl, I would just start out doing "Little Hands..." a couple of days each week and taking 2 years to complete it. One other option would be to do "Little Hands.." daily, but divide each day of plans over 2 days (reading the same Bible story aloud and doing the fingerplay 2 days in a row and then doing the other boxes in the plans over 2 days instead of all on 1 day).

Your 2.5 year old will just ride along and probably take off in it next year. But, you probably don't want to hold your older one back to let your younger catch up. It's not hard to run more than one of our programs at the same time, so I'd just worry about where your oldest is at right now. Your little one's time to shine is coming.

However, if your little girl doesn't feel quite ready for "Little Hands.." either, you could certainly wait until next fall to start.

Blessings,
Carrie

Thanks everyone!! I think I decided to just go for it!! We are going to start in the Fall though. Then we can start and see where my son will be at. Right now Meeah could probebly even handle the kindergarten book, so I don't want to hold her back at all. Thanks so much for advice!!!