My name is Erin Kate and this is my first post to this board. I currently home school my oldest in first grade and my middle in preschool ... my youngest is only 2 and tags along for the fun. We have our fourth on the way, a 4ish-year-old little boy from Ethiopia, and he will be here before our next school year begins this July.
I'm sorry if my questions overlap with others ... I've read and reread so many wonderful posts! I hope that I can glean some of the same pearls of wisdom from more experienced HOD lovers.
What I'm trying to do is place my oldest, Gracie, who currently is midway through My Father's World First Grade, in HOD. She is reading well, though I'd still say she is an emerging reader. In a month's time she will have a thorough foundation in phonics, so by the time second grade rolls around this summer she will be "finished" with phonics ... but is anyone ever really finished?
Math and science are her passions and she is happily working through multiplication and math facts right now. She has amazing penmanship and is more than ready for cursive. She does quite a bit of copywork, such as copying Proverbs and short poems, and we spend time daily with narration and simple dictation. I believe that she is ready for Bigger, but after reading the boards I sort of feel like maybe she needs to start with Beyond? Is Bigger geared more toward an above-average second grader or third grader? I don't want to extinguish her desire to learn, learn, learn since she loves school so much right now ... so I wonder if it is more realistic to slow down Bigger if I need to versus supplement Beyond if we went that route. Anyone in or been in a similar boat?The other thing I'm considering are my two middle children, one of whom will be with us from Ethiopia in the next few months. They are very close in age and Ellie is mostly ready for Kinder, though her fine motor skills need a lot of work. She is reading short words and has had two full years of preschool and LOVES her lessons. She is dysgraphic so penmanship will always be a little more difficult for her. Shaw won't really know English, but he will likely pick it up pretty fast, yet and I'm sure that most of our first months will be about English, life, and culture, but I would like to include him with Ellie to give him even more of a sense of belonging since homeschooling is a huge part of our life. That said, could I add more handwriting practice for Ellie and ease things enough for Shaw so that he can listen to the stories at storytime, learn the rhymes, find wonder in the science, hear God's word with the Bible study, and I can tweak phonics and math to more of a preschool level? Or, does Shaw really need Little Hands?
I just don't think that I can realistically 1) afford to buy or 2) give enough time to teach three different programs (if I put Shaw in Little Hands). I wonder how I can eventually get Ellie and Shaw on the same-ish level down the road ... hmm.
Thank you for listening. I'm eager to learn from you!
Erin
) ... the materials Gracie is using right now and has used ... and give us her thoughts, too, but it looks like with she will do well in Bigger. From now until summer I will work on spelling with her following the scope and sequence of the spelling patterns in list 1 of Beyond.