Placement help- 3 guides???

[shoresmom]

Hi all,
I'm new:) We are switching from AO (years 2 and 6) to HOD for next school year . My 2nd and 3rd grader place mostly in Bigger- so I ordered the guide. I had planned on (and have already ordered the guide) Rev to Rev for my upcoming 6th and 8th graders. My 11 yo has a late birthday so they are 17 months apart but 2 grades apart except in math.
However after looking over the placement guide with my husband it became more clear that they are actually in 2 separate guides and my plan would push my younger one more than need be. My husband thinks it would be good for my dd 8th grader to have her work completely separate to help build accountability and feel more responsible. I tend to agree but I am nervous to run 3 guides.
It wouldn't be a huge stretch for my 6th grader to do Rev to Rev except in the writing. He loathes it. But then looking ahead he would be pushed into the high school guides in 8th grade. If feels like all our school decisions have been based on my oldest... : Any advice on pushing ahead or on running 3 guides? Thank you!

In Christ,
Terri

[LynnH]

I can't speak to running multiple guides, but I wouldn't put your 6th grader in Rev to Rev since he hasn't come up through the HOD guides and he is a reluctant writer. RTR will be a gentler start for him. There is still quite a bit of writing in RTR, but less than Rev to Rev. You definitely don't want a reluctant writer hitting the WG high school guide early. It is a very challenging guide as far as the amount of writing as well as the amount of reading and the length of the day. If your 2 older ones are placed properly they really should be able to do a large amount of the work independently with your teaching time fairly short and you can do it in blocks.

[Nealewill]

All I can say is that I am running 3 guides and my kids are all 18 months apart. I love it! I wouldn't do it any other way.

For me, I have found that once you get into Preparing, you spend about 1.5 hours with your child each day. But then every guide after that you are look at spending 1 hour a day of your time with the child. With the guides Little Hearts, Beyond and Bigger, the guide is set up for the parent to read the material to the kids. My younger 2 kids are actually really good readers now so they read all of the books to themselves each day. I spend about 1 to 1.5 hours between the two of them (they also do grammar, spelling and cursive together) and I read my son his story time book (my youngest reads her own storytime book) plus I help my younger two kids with their art projects and their science experiments. Finally I have to do DITHOR with kids. I just started it with younger 2 and all of my kids reading the same genre. So I start my day with DITHOR on the days we do it and that can take me between 20 and 40 minutes of my time. Obviously because they all read a lot of their books to themselves it saves me a tremendous amount of time. In a typical day, I spend on average between 3 and 4 hours a teaching time.

I have done other programs in the past and have gone from traditional to eclectic to another curriculum meant to combine and none were a great fit. I never even thought of separating my kids. It was the best decision that I ever made. Everyone is so much happier. And they love HOD. They love the hands on activities and interesting books. I love how Godly the material is and how much they learn and retain.

One thing that is helpful when starting multiple guides is to stagger start them. So don't start everyone at the same time. Also, many people start off half speed. For me, I do usually start everyone at the same time but then I go half speed. I also make sure that each of my kids is actually placed in the guide they will thrive. When you listed that you placed your 2nd grader and 3rd grader in bigger but they fit well enough, what did you mean? Are you going to be pushing your youngest because they don't quite place? One thing I have learned is that HOD does best when you don't have to modify it. Once you have to start modifying the guide, you then lose the beauty of the system of the curriculum. My first year I put my younger two together in Beyond. My youngest was 5 and my middle was 7. My youngest wasn't in the age range. I wish I hadn't of done that. My youngest actually did Beyond well but then I knew I didn't want to put her Bigger for this year because it would just a lot of work for a 6 year old. That is why my youngest is doing Little Hearts this year (and mostly independent) and my middle child when to Bigger. Next year my kids will do RtR (oldest), Preparing (middle) and Bigger (youngest). They are close in age definitely do best being their own guide.

[Jennymommy]

It looks as if the 2nd grader would also hit the high school guides early, and you may want to check that as well. Running multiple guides is doable, and even preferable as the kids who are placed in too challenging a guide will drag and complain and fight the school day. Properly placed, the schooling becomes interesting and manageable, even fun I made the mistake of pushing my ds too quickly in order to keep up with older siblings, and it became a nightmare. Now that he is properly placed and can understand what is expected of him, the day goes much more quickly and smoothly.

[shoresmom]

Thank you ladies. It sounds like my husband is right:) I ordered the 3rd guide. I'm thinking I will combine my older two in the rev to rev science since we already did Apologia astronomy. Perhaps that will simplify things a bit. I appreciate your help.

Terri
soon to be using Bigger, R to R and Rev to Rev !

[Rice]

HiTerri,
We came to HOD from AO last year. My oldest 3: completed Year 5 (@ 12yo) and went into CTC, completed Year 3.5 (then 10yo) and went into Preparing (turned 9 in Sept) and completed Year 2 and went into CTC as well. It is kind of a strange mix, but my oldest was really weak in writing - I obviously had not assigned enough (due to dysgraphia tendencies) in AO - my second still hadn't really caught on to reading (had her tested for LDs but none showed) and my third taught himself to read and after Year 2 (at age could read at a Grade 7/8 level!

Well, our intro to HOD was definitely not the honeymoon period I'd been expecting. My oldest had an extremely difficult fall, with some Executive Functioning deficits (trouble with transitions, filtering distractions, managing time, etc.) showing up with the major switch in curricula and expectations, and my second found the amount and level of reading expected in Preparing beyond her abilities. After 10 Units we made 2 switches: then-12yo down to Preparing with Extensions and then-10yo down to Bigger, with all LA dropped in favour of Dianne Craft's Brain Training, but my 9yo stayed in CTC.

While none of that applies to your kids specifically, I share it all because I want to share how much easier things are going now that each child is properly placed by skill in their guides. I am now running 4 guides (our fourth is in LHFHG as well) and it is WAY easier than doing 3 was when they were in over their heads! To be honest, my time is often stretched to the limit (I barely have time to work with all 4 each morning, even if things go smoothly and nothing takes longer than average), but the days are still much smoother. We sometimes need "catch up days" where I go back to look over completed work and make them pull up their bootstraps on things they've let slide, but despite working 1/2 speed for much of the fall while we sorted things out we'll still finish before the PS kids around here!

So, it's definitely wise for you to split them to the guides where they place now, before needing a mid-year switch!

Blessings and welcome to HOD!