Strange solution?

[blessedmomof4]

When my youngest daughter was 8, I had used Bigger Hearts but left 13 units undone, due to some life upheavals, and sent her to ps. She came back to hs, halfway through grade 5. I had Preparing and Bigger on my shelf and decided to start Preparing while lending Bigger to a friend who needed something quickly and had absolutely no money. We have again 13 units left of Preparing, and right now I cannot afford to buy CTC. My friend is done borrowing Bigger and found something she prefers and can afford now. I wondered if I started the next school year with what is left of Bigger plus extensions for those units (which I CAN afford), and continuing the appropriate levels of Language Arts and math and adding written narrations, then finished off the rest of Preparing, would that be a good solution while I save up for CTC? My daughter is 10 now and will soon be 11, so she is still in the range for all of these. Plus, with the baby due in January and me on bed rest now (I had some bleeding but it stopped, praise God, and baby looks great on the sonogram), I figure a gentle year might be best for all concerned...plus it would relieve the stress on my husband about expenses!

[inHistiming]

I think you could certainly do this if it won't bother you to be back to American History then back to the World History covered in Preparing...all in one year. I understand the need to have an 'easy' year...we have dc #5 due in October and that has been on my mind a LOT. Trying to plan for ease of use and still cover all that is needed is a challenge. I think the main thing is covering your 3 R's and the rest is really preference. $$$ has also been an issue for us in the past, so I understand that too. Both are great programs, as you know, so I think you can tailor them to fit what you need....and the extension books in both programs are awesome! Praying you'll have some peace in your decision, whatever it is. I'm sure others will be along soon to offer their words of encouragement and advice as well.

[8arrows]

Are you against the idea of finishing the 13 weeks of Preparing and then buying CTC? That would give you more time to save and you wouldn't have to buy all of CTC at once.

[mamanlait]

I think your dd would enjoy a lighter year but you might have an adjustment after you finish Bigger and jump suddenly up to the CTC level of narration and writing in general. That would be my only concern but you wouldn't have to deal with it until next year. There might be some easy fixes, however.

My dd9 read most of the Adv. Readers last year with Bigger (some were more advanced than she could handle and she goes through several "fun" chapter books a week, so they will be amply challenging for your dd). She enjoyed them very much for the most part and I found it incredibly easy to add other books when desired since there are a plethora of American History books written for children at the library. I would say that you might need or want to do some adding in place of the Handwriting Box in Bigger, you could pencil in some titles and give her a notebook to write a little synopsis of the book when she's finished to help with the writing level differences in guides. My dd illustrates her "book notebook" either with her own drawings or photocopied ones from the cover of the books. I believe good literature is an excellent substitution and it's meaningful independent work. I think that would be a pretty simple "fix".

Enjoy some down time!

Amy

[blessedmomof4]

8 arrows, not opposed at all, but our budget is extremely limited. We have absolutely nothing for the new baby yet. I would not have enough for all of CTC in 13 weeks, and I would eventually want all the books I could get But 26 or 30 weeks, I'm sure it would be doable.
Amy, that is what I was thinking. The Preparing guide gives me great ideas of what to add to the Bigger units to make them "equivalent", so that the change to CTC wouldn't be so big.