Can we do Bigger without doing activities (due to pregnancy)

[babybryte]

Can HOD (Bigger, specifically) be done when Mom is having health problems?

This is my situation: I am pregnant with my 3rd child. I am 15 weeks pregnant. My youngest child will be 9 when the baby is born. This baby is definitely a miracle after experiencing infertility for 8 years! In addition, I have a bad back. I had back surgery for a ruptured disc 3 years ago, and it didn't go right. I now have bone-on-bone at the surgical site. Since I am pregnant, I am having to cut back and cut out my back medicines. I am experiencing increasing pain and know that as I get bigger, then pain will get a lot worse.

So....I am wanting to get a curriculum to start now that is easy to do. I want something that I can do with them if I am having to lay down in bed or something I can give to DH to do with them. I have the Bigger manual, which we started a while back and stopped. But I don't think I can do all of the fun activities and maybe not even the writing activities. I just don't know how everything is going to play out.

Could we do Bigger and mainly do the history, Bible, and poetry readings without all of the activities? Well, I know we could do it, but would it be complete?

Thanks for any advice you can give me!

Blessings,
Jacquelyn

[babybryte]

edited to change Subject so hopefully someone can answer!

[water2wine]

I was sick a lot when we did Bigger, I mean a lot. One thing that I did was to really have them do a lot of the activities independently. That worked wonderfully. I would read it with them and then they did the activity and reported back to me. That worked very well for us. Another thing is that you could go at a half paced schedule if that helps. I think the activities really cement the learning and they are really pretty easy to pull off for the kids alone if need be. You could certainly just do the portion of the program that is you reading and take it for what it is. I think there would be a lot of the joy of the program gone though. Maybe there are others that have done this and hoping if so they will answer you.

The writing I am not sure what writing you mean. Are you talking about writing that happens in R&S or science? There is not a writing program associated with Bigger.

Congratulations on your little miracle!

[babybryte]

Thanks, WTW! By writing, I guess I meant like the Vocabulary cards and any copywork that needs to be done. But we could probably pull off the Vocab and copywork. I guess I am just trying to prepare for the worst, you know?

[water2wine]

Oh Ok. Well those we did independently as well. We used the suggested words. They looked them up and put the definitions with a picture on the cards and filed them. They showed me the finished work. With copywork they do that too. Have them do the copywork. They let me know when they are done. I watch them check their own work then they correct their mistakes. In all honesty the reading aloud I sometimes slowed down. The rest of the program was easy to pull off no matter how I felt. On days I felt well we would sometimes double the read alouds and that worked for us ultimately to get things done.

I would just take a few days or one day to get things set up. It really does not take a whole day but just to give yourself some time. Have the books where you can easily find them. Have a system for copywork (we use a composition book), get the timeline ready to go, have a system for vocabulary (we use index cards in an index card binder) and a binder for history/geography, science, and art to go. Once you have that done your days will flow very easily and you can work it however you need to do based on how you are feeling.

There may be days when half is all you can get done and that is OK, it is still a good day. Just try to get things set up and then do your best when you feel your best. In the end it will even out to a very good year even if you personally have your worst year. I had physically and energy wise my worst year ever hsing or really in my life when we did Bigger and LHFHG but because we used them I would say definitely to that date it was our best year ever hsing. This year I feel better so I think we are doing even better. But last year was not a loss and my kids were not lacking in any way even though I was ill a lot and had more doctor appointments than I have ever had in my life.

Hope some of this helps!

[babybryte]

Thanks so much for the advice and encouragement! I love your ideas, and hopefully I can set everything up this weekend.

[water2wine]

Oh Good! I have to tell you my worst year doing HOD is better than anything else. I think you will find the same thing. You will be amazed at how much your kids learn and how easy it really is to convert to survival mode when you need to do that. And it's just life sometimes we all need to do it so don't feel bad if you have some slow weeks, you will make it up when you feel good.

Julie (my3sons) had a great thread on set up for Bigger. I tried to search for it but the word Bigger is too common go figure. Maybe she will post on that or you could pm her on that. She did such a great job on laying out getting setup for Bigger. I think you might find that helpful as well.

Happy getting ready!

[sharonb]

Here's the thread about getting set up for Bigger.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5531&p=40571#p40571

(When I click on this link, it takes me straight to my reply to Julie because I found it by going through all my old posts. If it takes you straight to my reply too, just scroll up to see Julie's post!)

[babybryte]

Thanks SO much for that link! It helps to see pictures!