

In case any of your recongnize my screen name, yes, several months ago I said that I wasn't going to be able to use HOD afterall because my dh really wants me to keep my oldest three combined for content subjects. They will be in 4th, 3rd, and 1st grade. I am planning on using MOH Vol 1 for history, Apologia Botany for science, and Apologia Who is God? for Bible/worldview. But, as I look through MOH, I can tell that my 1st grader won't get a whole lot out of it unless we do most of the projects/activities geared towards younger elementary children. I started scheduling all of that, plus notebooking, mapping, quizzes, tests, etc, and it's almost overwhelming. My 4th grader can definitely handle the pace. My 3rd grader may or may not be able to. Anyway, I had already decided that I would get LHTH for my 4.5yo and 2.5yo. Then I remembered that Carrie had recommended that I use Beyond if I really want to keep my 3 oldest combined. They will all have their own levels of CLE math and R&S English/spelling (phonics for the 1st grader). At the time I didn't really like the idea of combining them in Beyond because of having to beef it up so much for my oldest. I figured I just couldn't do HOD, yet I've been regularly lurking on this board for a few months. Last night it occurred to me that my oldest would probably LOVE to use Beyond with her younger brothers, and that instead of creating "extensions" related to American history (since that's all we have ever done), my 4th grader's "extensions" could be MOH (who says that her extra work has to be from the same period of history as Beyond? Plus, didn't CM have two different histories going simultaneously?). We are still going to do Botany regardless (we have the notebooks and kit and are very excited about this!) We would shelve Who is God? until we get to the HOD guide that schedules it. We tried to use Beyond 2 years ago and dropped it because my boys were just too young for it. I can finally really understand HOD's philosophy that it's better to beef up than to water down.
Sorry about being so long-winded. Here's where the title of this post comes in. Is it completely crazy to try to do Beyond with my 3 oldest AND also read aloud MOH (and have 4th grader and possibly 3rd grader do mapping and other written work)??? I'm debating whether or not to use the quizzes and tests in MOH too. Next year we'd do Bigger with extensions for the 2 oldest, and maybe add MOH Vol 2. But by the time we get to Preparing we would not add anything.
Thanks!