Juggling? Beyond and Bigger

[Debbie]

Hi,
I am new to these boards. My name is Debbie and I am a Mom of 9. My children are dd 25, dd 20, ds 18, ds 15, dd 12, dd9, dd7, ds 5, and ds 3. My 3 oldest have graduated. My 15yo is enrolled with Christain Liberty Press (CLASS) to get his diploma, he is following an engineering schedule. My 12 yod prefers to work independently she will be doing MOH, Apologia for Science, Saxon and Life of Fred for Math and we are still working on LA Now onto my HOD users I have Little Hearts(on the way), Beyond, Bigger(on the way), and Preparing This is my plan and I hope someone can give me suggestions or any kind of help. I want to use Beyond and Bigger with my 9, 7 and 5 yos(9 will be 10 end of July, 7 will be 8 in Aug. and 5 just turned 5 in May) this year and use Little Hearts and Preparing next year. I will not expect much if anything from my (newly turned) 5yo He can just listen to the stories. He is already using HOP and playing math games everyday. Then next year the 5 yo(then 6) can do Little Hearts and the 2 girls (10/11 and 8/9) can do Preparing. Does this sound doable so far? Now for my need help question, has anyone done (I'm sure someone has ) Beyond and Bigger together? Can you tell me how you scheduled your days or weeks? It seems like they would blend together nicely. I am thinking about using mostly the Science in Beyond and beefing it up for my 9yo. My 9 and 7 yos are late readers. They are starting to catch on, but they still need quite a bit of guidance, I do not think they are at grade level.

I really can't go in any more directions and could use help in streamlining, there is always something else that needs attention. Last year my oldest got married, this year my next oldest is getting married, my hubby has been out of work for 7 months.... you get the picture Sorry for the long intro, ramble, confusing, vent, post. If you made it through thank you.

(This would all be starting right away, not in the fall. We did day 1 of Beyond today and it went very well.)

Debbie

[Debbie]

After reading a few more posts, I am thinking maybe I should just stick to doing Beyond with all of them, which was the first thought I had. That's why my Bigger is on the way and I don't already have it! I am really driving my self crazy about this, I am responding to my own thread and not even in response to something someone else posted

[Cindie2dds]

My hat is off to you, mom! I am just beginning my journey, but I agree with your response. I would keep them together since you have so many close in age. If I had more children, I would have combine my two girls also. I even tossed the possibility around before deciding to split them up. There are some amazing, helpful women on here homeschooling a lot more children than I am who could help you more, Debbie.

God Bless!

[GinainMD]

I don't really have any advice but I did want to say hello and welcome to the HoD boards.

[mskogen]

Debbie,

Welcome! I understand wanting to combine your children whenever possible. However I would recommend you look at the placement chart http://www.heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php
if you haven't already to see where individually your children place. I combined my oldest 2 thinking it would make my life easier. I was wrong. I am getting more done and my boys are growing more by being were they should be individually. If you have already looked at the placement chart could you share with us their placements. This will give us information to help you with placement.

Again welcome to HOD, you will love it!

[Debbie]

Thank you ladies for your kind words. My 5 year old places in Little Hearts, my 7 yo places in Beyond and my 9yo places in Bigger. Here are some things that I did not make clear before. I am not using the Math in HOD at all. If I combine them, I would only use everything in Beyond(except math) for the 7yo, and the 9y0 and 5yo would be doing the left side and storytime. 9yo is doing Math Mammoth, ETC for Spelling(6,7,8), Queen Lang. Lessons and Elson Readers, and 5yo is doing HOP and math games. So would I still need to add in Bigger? Would it work out OK for the girls to skip Bigger and go from Beyond to Preparing?

[pjdobro]

One thing I see that might be missing from your plan for your younger and older is the science. The younger could easily do the science exploration from Beyond with your middle child, but you might want to consider another science option, like the science from Bigger, for your older child.

I too have thought about skipping Bigger and going straight to Preparing since my dc fit both with math and LA in Preparing now, and we've already done the American History in Beyond. We've always been a bit ahead in LA and math, but for various reasons we chose to do LHFHG in 1st grade and Beyond in second. I have thought about just going directly to Preparing, but it seems that Bigger is a really good primer for so many things that I hesitate to skip it. From what I see, it really sets the stage for more detailed narrations, more independent learning activities like notebooking and vocabulary study, and more in depth science studies. I'm afraid if we did skip it, we might not have as solid of a background in these skills going into Preparing. I'm looking forward to smoothly making the transition from teacher directed activities to independent activities and looking it over, I feel like Bigger really helps to make that a smooth transition. That's just what I'm thinking here for myself and thought I would share. It might make a difference in how you decide to place your dc this year as you think ahead to next year.

Welcome