Doing two studies: CTC and Bigger

[caealday]

I have seen on other threads people talking about doing two studies at the same time and how they schedule their day to get everything accomplished. However, they are always combining the lower level guides (Little, Beyond, Bigger). Does anyone have any experience or suggestions on combining with C2C? Especially a functional schedule? I am getting ready to do that with Bigger this year and it's my first year with HOD. Thanks.

[StephanieU]

Have you searched the "Share Your Schedules" for CTC Bigger? I think there are at least a few there. Julie also has some with like R2R and Bigger or CTC with Beyond. These probably would be worth looking at too.

[countrymom]

We are in Preparing and Little Hearts, but the concept would be the same. CTC has both independent and semi-independent boxes. Put your CTC child in independent boxes while doing one-on-one work with your Bigger child. I wouldn't try to do much in Bigger independently, but there are a few things you could probably run simultaneously with your Bigger child while your CTC child is working on semi-independent work (cursive, copywork, memory verse, and maybe math for example). Give your Bigger child a recess or chore time somewhere in the middle of the schedule if necessary.

[mom23]

We're also running CTC and Bigger at our house this year, along with finishing up LHFHG. Sorry, no schedule help, yet-that's on my list to work out either today or tomorrow! Let me know what you come up with.

[caealday]

One big issue I'm seeing is that C2C is written as a 4-day schedule, but Bigger is a 5-day schedule. It doesn't seem fair to have one child doing an extra day of school than the other. And since the printed schedule in the book can't be easily re-arranged to spread out the C2C for an extra day, I'm stumped.

[mom23]

Last year when we ran Preparing with Beyond we had the same situation. We just let go of the Day [no.] labels and everyone did school the same days. You'll also notice there are a few more weeks in the Ctc guide than in the Bigger one, they ended up pretty close together. One thing that did often happen was that we weren't always able to get to the full weeks' activities done in the 4 days of Preparing, and we'd save those things for Fridays. That makes a lighter day, which was nice. There were also weeks that we could only school 4 days, and we either doubled up on the Beyond work, or often we just ended up doing Day 5's work on Monday. Just keep steadily progressing through the guide, and don't worry too much about which day you're doing which page.

There are also some families that like to run the younger guides all 4 days per week, and that spreads them out a little longer, if you have a child who will be on the younger end of the age range/skill range for Preparing.

[MelInKansas]

Yeah you have two choices as far as the 4 day/5 day thing. Either do school with all kiddos on the same days, meaning that your CTC kiddo will progress through their guide (as far as units/weeks) faster than the Bigger kiddo, or schedule for one day of school for Bigger when CTC is not doing school, but giving the CTC kid a "make up" day, or maybe a "life skills" day or "earn money" day or whatever. Chores are what we like to call life skills around here. With as much school work as CTC is, maybe there isn't enough time for those other pursuits. When we are in Preparing - maybe by Christmas - my plan is to do school on the same days for everyone. The younger(s) will move through their guides more slowly, but that is OK with me. And there are many who have taken long breaks in the middle of a guide and had no problem picking it back up (meaning summer break, or at least a few weeks off). I try to finish a unit before a long break.

God has inspired me with schedule planning, I am convinced, when I have asked Him for wisdom. I try to balance a number of things. What will keep everyone moving and doing things, meaning I need to check in with everyone from time to time. What are harder subjects or things we're more likely to drop because we don't like them - let's do those early in the day and get them over with. On the other hand, what will get us jump started into our day, some excitement for the day ahead. I put a lot of the reading to one child in a row, then try as hard as I can to have 20-30 minutes to snuggle with that one on the couch and read to them. Precious times! Though there are often others who also want in on the fun.

I tend to save activities, science experiments, art, things that we love and that can take a widely varying amount of time, for the end. If we want to linger, no problem, we aren't rushed to move on to something else. The downside is often we are rushing to get it done before lunch or something else we are doing. But generally this works out well.

[MomtoJGJE]

We have CTC and Bigger going right now I school year round, taking breaks whenever we take breaks, so I really don't care so much about keeping them on the same schedule... meaning, I don't care if everyone is on the same unit/day. Which is good because they aren't

But as far as how we do it...

We also just do school on the days we do school. It doesn't really matter how many days we cover per week. The only time I'll squish days together is pretty much in LHFHG or Beyond. And that's only if we are going to be taking a longer break (a week or more) and I want to end a unit before we go. Anyone else just does a day of school when we do school. So one might be in unit 20 day 4, one in unit 7 day 2 and one just starting a new guide for instance. I have tabs marking the spot in the guide.

As far as day to day....

I go over semi-ind. and ind work with the CTC child, and send them to work on that work. Then I do everything I'm required to be there for in Bigger. Then I go over the other work that they could possibly do without me there.... math, copywork, cursive, vocab, notebooking, etc. Then they practice being independent in those areas. At that point *I* do the work with another child or do the painting from CTC (I'm doing it with my dd), but you would be able to make a snack or load the dishwasher, switch laundry, whatever. Then I check the Bigger child's work, go over any corrections, and have them go play or read or chores or computer work or whatever. By this time the CTC child is done with her independent work. We go over it, make any corrections, and then do the teacher work.

Doing it in chunks like that as opposed to time really works well and cuts out any unused time for me. Everyone is doing something at the same time, so MY work is limited to about a 2-3 hour span. If I only had the two older ones, it would really allow more time for rabbit trails and/or chores during that time.