More ?? about this upcoming year

[Mom4Him]

I have come to a peace with doing LHTH with our girls (3, 4 1/2, 4 1/2) this year- along with phonics & handwriting from LHFHG for the twins(as we are already doing these). I have been so excited looking through all of our HOD materials & can hardly wait for September/October (once we are ready after baby arrives)! God is good & I am so glad He led us to HOD!
My main question(s) concern the other K material from LHFHG for my twins... I went ahead and purchased the Rod & Staff books, so I could take a look at them, & they seem like they would be a perfect fit for my girls come Fall... so I am thinking I will add those in also- which means the only 2 things left from the right side of LHFHG are storytime & math. I would like to wait on the storytime until we are doing LHFHG the following year, but I am wondering about if I should add the math in. From viewing samples of it, I feel like they are ready, but I'm not sure what is best...
Would it be good to go through K math this year, so that the following year, when we begin going through LHFHG 1/2 pace, I can simply go through the "1st grade options" from Beyond at the same pace we go through LHFHG? And when finished go slowly through Beyond with right side of Bigger at the same pace? (This seems like then, I would just open up the guides to the same "day" & follow easily that way!?)
OR-
Should we wait on the K math until we start LHFHG, and do the right side of LHFHG (K math included & options we do not use this year) at that point at full pace, & then I'm not really sure how the next couple years look after that?? I'm thinking we will take three years to go through LHFHG & Beyond (& right side of Bigger)- so I could take one year to go through the right side of each of the guides- while going more slowly through the left side.
Is this making sense?? It's all a bit jumbled in my head...
Any suggestions/comments would be great.
Thank-you so much!

[sharonb]

If your girls are ready for the K math, then I'd do it. Math is one of those subjects where my children are not lined up with the guide, and they are each working at their own level, regardless of where it falls with the guides. I'm trying to do some of the math activities from beyond with the children just for fun, but at this point I'm not going to be able to get my oldest 2 lined up with what day we are on (ds is about halfway through Singapore 1A, and dd is in 1B, and we just started Beyond).

Now, with my 3rd child, who will have the benefit of starting his schooling with HOD instead of jumping in, maybe I can keep his math lined up with the HOD guides. But, we'll see!

[WigglesMom]

You could actually go through LHFHG again on the right side with the 1st grade options using the LHFHG guidebook. The LHFHG has all the schedules for the 1st grade options in it as well as the kindergarten options.
Val

[Kathleen]

Jessica,

I think that if your girls are ready for the K math, go for it! As I'm thinking about where you'll be with the guides, I really think that long term you'll only be off for math which won't be hard to manage at all.

When you do LHFHG, you can do the 1st grade Thinking Skills book rather than the R&S books. You could just do this at the pace you do LHFHG. You can also use whichever handwriting book is apprpriate for them. And, do Math with the hands-on plans in Beyond. (I love the hands-on plans Carrie has! But there is a schedule to use the Singapore textbooks and workbooks in the appendix of LHFHG, in case you or anyone else was wondering.) Personally, I would wait to do the grammar in Beyond until you get to that guide, and then you'll be ready to start R&S Grammar when you hit Bigger. (Unless of course it looks like your girls really need to move on with grammar before you get to those guides...but I really think you'll be fine waiting even going at a slower pace through the guides.)

You will need to use the Bigger guide for Singapore 2A and 2B if you want the hands-on activities, whenever they're ready for that level. From level 3A and up, you just follow a schedule that uses the textbooks and workbooks, and I'm guessing that you won't need a different guide to have that. Bigger has 3A and 3B. I believe Preparing has at least 2 if not 3 different levels. (Like 3A and B, 4A and B, not sure about 5A and B.)

Maybe since you won't be right on the same page with the math schedule anyway, you could wait a bit in your year to get started with math. You could wait until Jauary or something and do part of the K work this year, part of it next.

For phonics and reading, the guides just remind you to do it. Kids are all working at their own levels for reading in all the HOD guides, so no page-flipping there.

You post made perfect sense to me...and I'm hoping mine made sense to you. Just a few more months before your school fun begins!
Kathleen

[Mom4Him]

I'm so glad my post made sense- as I write out what I'm thinking, I realize how confused I really am . (Kathleen- your post made perfect sense to me too !)
Thank-you, ladies, for the advice! I like the idea of maybe waiting until a little bit later in the year to start math, as looking through LHTH, there really is quite a lot, & I could just expand on it a bit for my twins if need be. But, if I think they need more & that they really are ready, I could start K math whenever the time comes.

I just have been trying to figure out how to do the least amount of page flipping- as I love the way Julie (my3sons) says her preperation for the day is moving the post-it note to the next page. I realize, with my situation, that might not be possible as I try to combine children, but would like to keep my confusion of switching back & forth between pages, etc. to a minimum... (maybe only having to move 2 or 3 post-it notes to the next page )
so, I have a couple of thoughts that really go along with my earlier post...

Option #1 that I wrote out earlier...
Would it be good to go through K math this year, so that the following year, when we begin going through LHFHG 1/2 pace, I can simply go through the "1st grade options" from Beyond at the same pace we go through LHFHG? And when finished go slowly through Beyond with right side of Bigger at the same pace? (This seems like then, I would just open up the guides to the same "day" & follow easily that way!?)
-If we are going through the guides like this, I would really like to do the right side of Beyond for my twins while going through the left side of LHFHG with all- that way they would have the fun activities for math from Carrie and would be able to go slowly through the spelling & grammar which I think will be needed if we are only going through it every other day or so. This puts me at 2 post-it notes- one in the LHFHG guide for the left side & my younger daughter & one in Beyond for the right side for my twins...
Yet, I am struggling to know if I did math every day this coming year- then I'm not sure I would want to slow it down for the following 3 years (as my hope is to only have one guide once we get to Bigger & follow it as is) Do you think it is good to have kids doing math every day?
OR-
Option #2 was...
Should we wait on the K math until we start LHFHG, and do the right side of LHFHG (K math included & options we do not use this year) at that point at full pace, & then I'm not really sure how the next couple years look after that?? I'm thinking we will take three years to go through LHFHG & Beyond (& right side of Bigger)- so I could take one year to go through the right side of each of the guides- while going more slowly through the left side.
-Part of me really likes this option (although I would have 3 post-it notes- one for left side of LHFHG, one for right side for younger daughter when she is ready -probably a year after we start LHFHG-, & one for right side for twins) because I already hoped to do reading & math(& possibly language arts etc.) every day with each at the level they will most likely be at. I could then do the story time from LHFHG the first year & go through the storytime from Beyond twice for the next two years (as all the books look like so much fun!!)But, would this work?? Could I split up the left side of Little Hearts (& then Beyond) in order to give my younger daughter time to grow up a little as we go? I've heard it's good to keep the "Learning through History" side together, so how would that look to split it up??
I'm sorry this has gotten to be a bit long... Once again I am wondering if this is making any sense. I am just so very excited to get started with HOD- I want to have it all ready!

[Kathleen]

Jessica,

I really think either of your ideas would work well - or even a combination of them. It will be so much easier to see how it works once you get started. (At least I know it was for me.) If I were you, I'd start the year using LHTH and phonics for the twins. Give it a few weeks, and then add math or anything else for LHFHG right page that you want to. Moving 2 or 3 post-it notes or those moveable tabs is right up there in the 5 second category still.

I think your option 2 where you move more steadily with the basics is what I'm going to try with my younger 2. Allison is ready for phonics and math. Garret not at all. And, we're going to try combining and moving slowly with them at this point. I'm planning to take reading and math out of the picture, split the rest to go half pace so that LHFHG takes 2 years to complete. I figured, like you, that I'll do phonics and math more regularly like 4 days a week with Allison for now. Garret will do none now...probably starting a year of year and a half into LHFHG when he's pushing 5.

Happy planning!
Kathleen

[Mommamo]

I just wanted to let you know that I'm only doing it with one right now, and she's still at various places in the guide (she's doing Beyond). She's on Unit 6 for almost everything, Unit 18 for math, and she's still doing phonics. So when she starts the Emerging Readers she'll be in another spot for that. But truly, it's no big deal. Even when she was in LHFHG and doing the math out of Beyond, it was still very simple.

I also will be in a similar situation as you are currently before too long. I'm going to do LHTH with my little boy as his kindergarten and at the same time with his little sister as her preschool. So while he's doing LHTH he'll do everything with his sister and also phonics, the R&S books, and possibly handwriting and math. So when we go on to LHFHG which we'll probably do over 1 1/2 years with the two of them, we'll do the first grade options with him (except that we'll still do the K science book since it's so good!) and my little one probably won't even do the math or handwriting at first. Then in Beyond my boy will probably be way ahead on the math, with my little one still doing the math on LHFHG. My plan is to take that over 1 1/2 years too. So all that's to say.... I think you have a great plan since it's what I plan to do myself! It can be a little tricky to combine, but I think it's doable.

[my3sons]

Hi Jessica! The ladies are doing such a great job of helping out here - thanks! I think I'd go with Kathleen's suggestion and start the LHTH guide first as is. Then, a few weeks in, add the LHFHG math. You can see at that point how it is going. You can either do it daily, and then whenever you finish it, start the Beyond 1A/1B math plans. This would put your sticky notes' moving at about 10 seconds - still a very happy thought!

We are currently on summer break. When we start school again, my 6 yo will start with Unit 19 in Beyond, because that's where we left off. My older ds will start CTC, but he'll be starting with the last portion of Singapore math 3B, using the PHFHG manual's Appendix because that's where we left off. This works just great, and once you have become very experienced with the sticky notes' moving, you can cut that 10 seconds down to 5 - I'm certain!

As long as you keep the left side of the plans together, the right side can easily be customized such as this. We've done the same with the Emerging Reader's Set. One of my ds's started it in the middle of LHFHG, and that worked great too. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie