Using LHFHG for 2 different children?

[amethyst rain]

We are working through LHTH right now with our 3yo. He will be 4 in June. I plan on starting LHFHG with our soon to be 6yo with the grade 1 option. I know he is ready. My question is this; Can I do LHFHG with our soon to be 4yo with the kindy option? If we do that, what happens for grade 1? Do we just go through it again?

[mariaw]

I have done this with my 4-5yo ds as I taught my 6-7yo ds. It has worked pretty well, but my older has definitely gotten a lot more out of it then my younger. The way I handle it is, since my 5yo would not yet be in ps kindy, I don't "require" school of him. So, if I can tell that he's going to be a disruption that day, or if he's resistant, I just let him go off and play. I also haven't done much of the reading and writing with him--we're just now starting to get into that now that he's showing interest (and fine motor skills) at the end of the year.

I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do with the future! I really don't think my younger has gotten that much out of it, other than listening to the stories. I really don't think he understands nearly as much of the devotional book as my older, and it's such a gem of a book. I just might go through it again with him. I do know for sure that he won't be ready to move on to the next book yet, unless he just did it "halfway" and I don't want him to miss anything!! I'm leaning toward taking next year to just do the 3Rs, then maybe do LHFHG with him with the 1st grade option (so I'm not doing it 2 years back to back). I know he won't mind listening to the Burgess books again--they beg me to reread them all the time!

[MomtoJGJE]

Fast forward about 6 months and I'll be at the exact same place. What I'm going to do is go half speed 4 days a week for 10-12 units or so... so basically I'll get two days worth of school done a week. I'll do 1st grade options with my just turned 6 yo (at that time) and K options with my just turned 4yo (at that time) So basically all of next school year will be half of LHFHG, then at that time I'll re-evaluate how each of them are doing and I'll either move to full speed or keep going half speed with an extra day or two per week or mix and match depending on how each child is doing. The way I have it planned they'll move on to Beyond when they are roughly 6 and 8... I'd much rather have to make it harder for my older one than lose the younger one in the process.

[Kathleen]

I just wanted to pop in here & welcome you, too!

I'm thinking that moving slowly at least to start with would be a good option for you. You could try it just like MomtoJGJE said and move half-speed 4 days a week. I have done that this year with my little ones. My plan at the beginning of the year was to keep the 3 & 5 yo together for a while and see how it went. I put our half-speed plan in this thread... viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5600 One thing I wanted to mention is that I think you'll want to do math, phonics, & fine motor skills every day with your 1st grader. I did that by using 2 different tabs in the manual. I moved that one ahead every day & the other one for the rest of the plans ahead every other day. Super-easy planning method, if you ask me! (And it wasn't confusing. )

This spring I've decided that it will work better for my kids to split for school now. We've had a fabulous year, but I could see some benefits for splitting them up after praying about it. So, now Allison is moving ahead in LHFHG full-speed and Garret has started LHTH. That is perfect for us now. I say this just so you know that with HOD it really is easy to change your "plan" whenever you need to. Moms here work it to get their kids combined when they've been seperate. Some also choose to split kids that have been together. I like to have a plan in place...but things just change so much as you move along and I love that I can opt to change my original plan and do what works best for my kids at that given time. I'm sure that when you start using HOD, all this will make much more sense. The guide can be used in a traditional school year...or over a year-and-a half...or... You'll want to keep your child moving ahead quite steadily in math & reading, and then as long as you're continuing to build skills and keep moving forward the pace can be individually set to your kid(s) in the guide.

Kathleen

[Samuel'sMommy]

I think if you're wanting to keep the 2 of them together, your best bet would be to go through LHFHG at half speed, but do the phonics, math, and fine motor skills daily. So you could do the K options with your 4 year old this year (if he's ready) and then do the 1st grade options next year. With your 6 year old, you could do the 1st grade options this year and then move on to emerging readers, and the next math and handwriting books for next year. Then you would probably be able to keep them together for most of the guides. When you get to Bigger you could even add extensions for the older one if you are wanting them to stay together.

[amethyst rain]

Thank you all for your input. I'm still torn as to what I want to do. I don't want to push my soon to be 4yo too fast, but I don't want my soon to be 6yo to fall behind either. We are working through LHTH right now. I started it for my soon to be 4yo because he seemed to need more than just the occational activity. My soon to be 6yo jumped in and is loving it. That's what gave me the idea to work through LHTH and move them both to LHFHG together. In order to do start LHFHG at the begining of "school year" in August, I'd have to move through LHTH at a rate of 2 pages per day. I don't know if that's a good idea or not. Now I'm thinking that just continuing on with LHTH at the rate it's supposed to be at and starting my soon to be 6yo with the 1st grade LHFHG in August, and keeping my soon to be 4yo in LHTH is a good idea. I have been doing my own curriculum for K with my soon to be 6yo this year anyway. He is right on target to start 1st grade.

[Mom4Him]

It is so hard to decide what is best for our children at times- isn't it! I have battled with the same question(s) with my soon to be 4-year old & her 5 1/2 year-old sisters! I, too, was worried about the older ones being slowed down by little sis- or little sis being pushed too hard. For now, we have decided the best thing for our family is to seperate them- & I/we feel completely at peace with this decision & are really looking forward to the year ahead of us. Praying that you will have a peaceful decision!
Jessica