Need Help Selecting Next Guide SOON

[mrsrandolph]

My 2 oldest (12 & 11) are finishing preparing. Though they are only a year apart, they are 2 grades apart.

I am at a loss as to which guide they need to do next. My son (the 11 year old) has some mild learning needs, and cannot do independently all that is required independently in the upper guides. However, my daughter could.

CTC would be next, but feel we need more American History. It seems we have Biblical History fairly well covered.

Do I need to be looking at it from the end and working my way back. Like, where do I want them as seniors?

I am confused and really have no idea what to do. They do Teaching Textbooks for math and I am happy with that. They both are great readers.

My son's main deficit is in writing and math.

Any help you could give would be great.

[Mumkins]

HOD is skill based. If you're looking to uncombine, you could go to the placement chart and see where they fit. But, you can't just choose the time period you want to cover. As for looking ahead to where you want them to be, if you want them to finish the last guide in 12th, CTC would be grade 5. But many people use Rev to Rev and MTMM as highschool guides too. Where do they place on the placement chart?

[LynnH]

As Mumkins said you can't pick the HOD guide based on the history you want to study. The skills build on each other way too much for that. How did you dd do in Preparing? Was it too easy for her or did it seem just right? Was she able to do everything in the guide as directed and do all independent boxes independently? If it seemed just right then you should move her into CTC. It is much more than just bible history. It deals with Greece, Rome and Egypt also. The biblical history that is there is much more in depth than in Preparing. As she moves along up into the guides in the later grades she will get plenty of American History in Rev to Rev and MTMM. If things were very easy for her in Preparing you might be able to jump her up to RTR, but that is only if you look at the placement chart and she places solidly there.

For your 11 year old ds how much of Preparing has he been able to do as written. Can he do the written narrations in Preparing? How about the other writing activities? If he can do those then I would move him to CTC and just realize that he doesn't have to be independent with all the I boxes at the beginning of the year. You just want him there by the end of the guide. If it is the physical act of writing that is difficult for him you can always let him type things like the written narrations.

[Nealewill]

I also think checking the placement chart is going to give you your best bet. With the way that HOD is set up, you do not have to do every level for your child to receive a complete education. That is one thing I absolutely love about it! You meet a child where they are and each year they grow in skills and knowledge While HOD does have "High School" levels (ie World Geography & World History with 2 more levels coming in the future), you can easily modify RevtoRev and MTMM to be high school worthy.

HOD also recommends not skipping more than 1 guide in most cases. So with your kids, I would look at bumping the younger child to CTC (since that is where it sounds like he placed) and then other child to R2R. Even though your oldest child may be able to read a lot, you may find that the volume of writing is going to be a challenge for that child. And from what I have heard, Rev2Rev and MTMM are very similar in amount of work load. You could easily just do only one of those guides as well, skipping the other one. I am not sure about your plans for when you want your children to graduate but here are some of my thoughts:

12 Year old Boy
age 12 R2R
age 13 Rev2Rev or MTMM (pick one)
age 14 World Geography
age 15 World History
age 16 3rd High School Guide
age 17 4th High School Guide

If you feel like he won't be ready for the high school guide at 14, then just do MTMM and modify it for high school credit and then skip the last guide. And you may want to add in a econ class or personal finance class that year so that you don't have to add it in with the high school guides and since that is probably the only that will be missed with the final guide.

With your other son, I think he would just skip the last guide:

11 Year old Boy
age 11 CTC
age 12 R2R
age 13 Rev2Rev
age 14 MTMM (modify to make High School worthy)
age 15 WG
age 16 WH
age 17 3rd High School Guide

And when I say modify for High School credit, on the HOD message board there is a whole forum dedicated to this topic. They have lots of suggestions on how to increase science by adding something like the Chem 101 DVDs. You can increase lit study by changing the books they are reading to higher level books but still completing DITHOR as the lit analysis for those books. With history, you would just make sure to add in the extensions. The whole reason for the additions to each subject to make it "high school" worthy is to increase the amount of time spent on that subject. I think I read that for each high school course a student should spend approximately 120-150 hours that year on it. So you are adding a few things in to make the time spent on the subject to meet that parameter.

But I wouldn't worry too much. Sounds like with your older son skipping 1 guide, that will probably put him right on target to have the least amount of modifications.