What exactly is half speed??

[momof3kids]

I see this term used a lot, and I know it is not just doing school on a 3 or 4 day/week schedule....so, what exactly is half speed?...just curious as I am thinking of my second son, turning 5 on Thursday ( looking to start his K yr in May or June)...so how do you do it?....left side on day, right side the next??
thanks for any clarification!

[Tidbits of Learning]

For us with PHFHG, yes, we are doing the left side one day and the right side the next.

[Samuel'sMommy]

Most people use it to mean left side, right side. When my son did LHFHG I did it a little differently. My son loves to be read to so this worked great for us. Anyway, this was our schedule:

Day 1:
Rhyme in Motion - did this daily
Reading About History
Handwriting/Fine Motor Skills box - we did this daily. If you are taking 2 years, use the K options and then when you finish them go back and redo the boxes using the 1st grade options
Review Bible verse/Listen to CD
Phonics - daily, moving on to emerging readers when ready
Math Activity from the guide
Rotating Box

Day 2:
Rhyme in Motion
Supplemental History Reading - books from Carrie's list in the back of the guide that went along with the topic. When we were doing Biblical history some of them were hard to find, but we had other children's bible's and I would just read him the same story from a different Bible and he liked that.
Handwriting/Fine Motor Skills
Bible Study Box
Phonics
Math page from Earlybird
Storytime

This kept our days pretty even as far as workload and amount of time it took. Also, once you get to the last half of the year, I found almost all of Carrie's recommended books in our library and didn't have near enough time to read all of them. I would also check out books on whatever the science topic was for the week

[momof3kids]

Thanks so much for the breakdown of your day!..that looks great!....if I can ask, how long each day did this take, less than the hour to hour and half suggested? Did you take 2 yrs to do Little Hearts?...and also, you mentioned you did handwriting and fine motor skills daily....was this out of the guide everyday?...or what other program did you use, I know she suggest a couple...did you just work straight through them?

Sorry, so many questions!....this looks interesting to me though and it would "slow" him down a bit, but not hold him back. I can tell you have put a lot of thought into the structure of your day thanks for giving the time to share

[Mommamo]

Here is my thought on half speed, and you can take it our leave it. I've tried half speed several times, and after a while it just makes the guide feel long. I think that's one of the (myriad of) reasons we ended up taking our break from HOD.

BUT! I have also done the 5 days/week guides over 4 days/week, and that was perfect for us. It never made the guide feel endless because we were still progressing at a decent rate. Also, the pacing of the guides is right. It really builds as you go, and I truly, truly believe now that each guide prepares you for the next. So a kiddo ending LHFHG should be prepared for Beyond.

I have to say, the schedule posted looks fantastic. *I* just have never had luck with it.

[Samuel'sMommy]

Thanks so much for the breakdown of your day!..that looks great!....if I can ask, how long each day did this take, less than the hour to hour and half suggested? Did you take 2 yrs to do Little Hearts?...and also, you mentioned you did handwriting and fine motor skills daily....was this out of the guide everyday?...or what other program did you use, I know she suggest a couple...did you just work straight through them?

Sorry, so many questions!....this looks interesting to me though and it would "slow" him down a bit, but not hold him back. I can tell you have put a lot of thought into the structure of your day thanks for giving the time to share

It was a couple of years ago when we did this (we took a break from HOD for awhile and have just come back). I think it was a little less time but not much because we didn't really not do any subjects each day we just did them differently - read Carrie's assigned history one day and then the supplemental the next, math activity one day and workbook the next, etc. The handwriting and fine motor skills we did daily because we followed the guide and did all the K resources for those and then went back through and used the 1st grade resources. So basically we were in 2 different places in the guide. If your kiddo is good at math, you could probably even do the math daily and use both resources but my son was only 4 when we started LHFHG so I didn't push that.

We did this for about a year and half and never actually finished LHFHG. I was new to homeschooling and began second guessing myself and feeling like I needed to add a ton of extras to his day and we ended up switching to something else. Now looking back I wish we had stuck with it because as I've seen the new guides that Carrie comes out with I can tell that she has put alot of thought into the progression and many of the things I felt I needed to supplement are in future guides I just wasn't very patient at the time. If we have another child, I will definitely follow this schedule for them. You could start out with this schedule and then just speed him up to full speed whenever you are ready and that would be fine too.