Help with little ones?!

[Sierra1410]

Hello:) this is our first year doing HOD and were really enjoying it! My husband prefers a hands on unschooling approach but with 4 small children I felt I needed some sort of schedule. This was a great balance for us! Lots of hands on activities but still a layed out guide! So here is my question, sorry if it's lengthy! This past year we started our first year of homeschooling. Our children were ds 5.5, dd4, dd2, and ds newborn. We decided on LHFHG for 5.5 using all hod recommended option except for devotion book and phonics. ( we chose all about reading 1) then we chose LHTH for the 4 and 2 year old girls. Dd4 wanted to do the same things as big brother so I wound up getting her kindergarten math, handwriting and the rod and staff books as well. So currently they are all enjoying LHTH and the older two do LHFHG. Dd now 4.5 is following VERY closely behind ds, now 6. She at times is a tiny bit slower getting answers than him, but gets them on her own. She is not quite caught up in phonics to him but is doing well and starting to blend and by the end of the year should be where he is now. My question is for this coming school years 2016/17. My son will be 6/7 for the school year and dd5 given that we still have 6 months I'm sure they will be even further along in their learning. I'm wondering wether to repeat LHFHG with first grade options for them both, move them both to BEYOND or put my ds in BEYOND with first grade options and repeat LHFHG with dd with first grade options. It would be easy to keep them together yet I don't want to keep them together if that's not best. I definitely believe my son could do Beyond, yet he also loves the activities in both LHTH and LHFHG and I'm. It sure he would be ready for less activities. Is BEYOND too much for a 5 year old? My other issue is, I enjoy having activities for math and such layed out in the guide, so keeping them at the low end of the guides helps with that. Where as the older ages are in the appendix with no written activities. Still not a good reason to choose a certain guide. Also if I move both to BEYOND. Which literature do I choose classic? Or both girl and boy interests? I'd love for them to each get gender specific interests but is it too much?? Sorry if I've rambled! And TYIA for any help!!!!

[StephanieU]

Beyond is probably doable for a motivated 5yo, but Bigger would be too much for a 6yo. Also, looking down the road, there would be a year of doing Bigger and Preparing together, which would be a lot of work for you! They are the two most teacher intensive guides. So I would consider two things: repeating LHFHG or letting the older move on to Beyond and let the second tag along for a year before doing LHFHG and then Beyond the following years, putting a guide between them.

[mylittlewomen]

wow! I am in the same boat! I just posted a question about this too my oldest is 5.5 and doing LHFHG, but her younger sis, who is only 3.5, is doing everything right along with her! Eek! Looking forward to seeing what others have to say!

[Sierra1410]

Thank you StephanieU, you mean putting a guide between my 6 and 4.5 year old??

Mylittlewomen- wow your little one is even younger than mine! Im anxious to hear more replies as well. And would love to hear what you decide with your girls!

[MelInKansas]

This happened to me too. I love HOD and started it when my oldest was 4.5 (she did LHTH that year). My second born always followed along with it and with LHFHG and Beyond she basically participated in the whole thing, except for math, phonics, and copywork. I never repeated LHTH with her but basically I let her tag along with my oldest until she was 5.5 and then she started LHFHG on her own. I had to slow my oldest down in Bigger too because the writing was too much for her, and she really needed more time to grow. We just pulled back to half speed. But basically the idea is: if you need to combine you need to be where the younger one fits best. That would be doing LHFHG again, because as Stephanie pointed out, though your 2nd may be able to do Beyond next year, she most certainly wouldn't be ready for Bigger the following year. There's a pretty big jump there in the amount of work, level of the readings, and writing involved. Bigger, to me, is when it starts being serious school with a serious amount of work (which translates to more work for the Mom too, trust me you just don't want to be in a rush to get there).

Usually it's recommended to either combine, if your children are in back-to-back guides, or try to get them about 2 guides apart, because of the intensity of doing a bunch of those younger guides together. Once they get bigger and are doing a lot of work on their own, back-to-back guides isn't such a big deal. But with the number of littles you have, you'll want to consider combining.

There's my 2 cents. I hope you figure it out. For me, separating has worked the best. Each one can go at their own pace and I'm not trying to balance two together in a guide. When a child places squarely in their guide the guides are easy to run, open and go. I'm just now getting to a place where it's tough to balance all I'm doing with each child each day. We make it work, but sometimes things don't all get done. But my children are all 2 years or more apart in age and definitely 2 guides apart. My 3rd born daughter and my son will be 3 guides apart. Yours seem a little closer than that.

[mylittlewomen]

sierra1410--I hope you don't mind me piggy-backing on your post! (I haven't gotten any replies on mine yet
We have actually been going through LHFHG at half-speed. The original plan was to use it for K and 1st. My goal was to get thru K math/phonics/writing this year, but we dont' end up doing it every single day. So it might be plausible for us to continue on another year at this pace, even with the little one!
I know everyone says to combine where the youngest fits best, but truthfully, she is doing so great at this level, I just can't imagine holding her back, even if she is only 3.5! She gets upset when her reading lesson is over "let's keep going!" she says. The only way to keep her back would be to not let her even see what her older sis is doing without her....but there will come a point, I am sure, where she is to young to keep going like this. So, what does that look like practically? As MeInKansas said, maybe just repeat LHFHG when she's 5.5? Or take a year of to do some FIAR before moving on to the next level? I am curious to hear what Carrie or Julie would say to this too

[Sierra1410]

MelinKansas- thank you for your reply! Makes a lot of sense about bigger. I would actually prefer to hold off on a big workload. These years go so fast and pretty soon the rhymes and such won't be appealing. I prefer to keep schooling fun and short so they can get to exploring and growing just through life experiences. We have plenty of time for formal school that being said and with what I have read and the responses I've gotten, im leaning towards repeating LHFHG with first grade options. Ds will be 6/7 and dd 5 so I think that would work. I've also considered doing the "classic" set from beyond since we will have already done the burgess books. Then when we do beyond for 2nd grade getting both the boy and girl interests sets so they still get that experience. And also maybe the emerging readers set to add if we repeat ? Does that sound like a good plan? Also would it be worth it to order the beyond guide for the 1A math activities? Or is it pretty easy to come Up with activities? Has anyone done LHFHG for 1st and beyond for 2nd?? Experiences? I'd love to hear what you all think as well as any more opinions to help me come to a decision. I'm very indecisive lol!!!

Mylittlewomen- no I don't mind you piggybacking! if it's not holding your oldest back
Maybe keeping the pace you are going will work for K and 1st and then you could move on??

[Sierra1410]

Also how does science work if you do the older end of guides? The experiments are written for the younger end correct? They are loving the science experiments in LHFHG!

[mylittlewomen]

I would say YES it is worth getting a copy of Beyond for the math activities! They're great, and half the time we just do those and skip the worksheets! And doing the different read-aloud sets per round sounds like a great idea!

[acts29stl]

Here's another idea and what I did with my oldest two (ds and dd). My dd followed along with my ds so I kept them together figuring I would just split them up at some point. Well, I never needed to! Bigger and Preparing are completely doable with two kids (and I had a bunch of little ones too!) BUT we spread out Bigger over a year and half. So we went half pace for over half the manual and the full pace for the end. That worked really well and with HOD you have that extra year to play with if you have done LHFHG for kindergarten. My dd will graduate a bit early (if I choose her to) but she just kept going along fine, so I felt no need to slow her down. Also, if you decide to move on I to Beyond next year and then do half pace for Bigger, you will still have the youngest child doing HOD fingerplays that the older ones can participate in.

[Sierra1410]

Thank you all for your help and sharing your experiences!!!