Beyond and Bigger

[Living4Him]

Hello! I am so excited about this program. This will be my first year and I am still trying to decide which program to use and I hope someone can help.
I plan on doing Bigger Hearts for His Glory with my 8 year old boy, with the extension for my two older girls. I know that Beyond is also American History and I have a soon to be 6 year old and I was thinking about using Beyond with her. However, my question is do you think I need both? I would like to use both because I like that Beyond is a little more specific and it seems that Bigger might be more broad in the American History. I could be completely wrong here in my thinking. My 6 year old is right there with her 8 year old brother in their learning (pretty interesting as he gets mad when she always answers questions before him )
I am trying to simplify this year as it is hard enough teaching 4 different levels of math and english. I really appreciate your honest thoughts and opinions. I guess I feel like we will be missing something if I don't do Beyond even though I know they can stand alone. I also don't want to push my youngest one if she is not ready to keep up with Bigger. So, if anyone has used both of these programs either together or separate, are some of the readers the same? Could I get the readers for my younger one and we would still be kind of on the same topic with Bigger? Also, we are in Virginia and I am so excited about being able to go see some of the things we will be learning about! Thank you in advance for your help!

[lissiejo]

I did Beyond with my daughter last year and have just started Bigger with her this week. She'll be 7 in August. Beyond was a perfect fit for her last year. That being said, even though she is advanced academically, I would not choose to do Bigger with her this year except that she completed Beyond last year so successfully. The skills as I see them in Bigger were too advanced for her and Beyond was an excellent stepping stone to prep her well since she is on the young side.

You could consider combining the younger two in Beyond, but I understand if that would frustrate your son. I have trouble with my older daughter answering for my middle girl and I've had to train her not to do this because it takes away from her sister's learning. You may just have to come up with a system for asking and answering questions so that he does not feel like his sister is always getting it right before him.

The History in Beyond focuses a lot on early American history, which my daughter really loved. Bigger reviews some of that, but not with the same books and it does extend more broadly into American History. I think your youngest would enjoy Beyond and the activities that coordinate with art, science, and Bible. It all flows so beautifully together that doing just the history would really make it feel lacking to me.

I hope this was somewhat helpful info for your decision
Melissa

[farmfamily]

I just wondered how your students place with regard to the placement chart on the website? For HOD to be a success, it seems to be more important that your kids are well placed skill-wise than which history topics they are covering. A thought that popped into my mind was whether your older girls fit better in a higher level than Bigger with the regard to their age & skills? Then perhaps you could combine the 6 and 8 year-olds in Beyond. I will have a 6 and 8 year-old in Beyond this year. It works very well - we beef things up a bit for my older one. On the other hand, Bigger would be too hard for a 6-year-old (we tried it for 10 weeks with our 7-year-old last year - and it was too much for her). If you think the best placement for the older three is Bigger, then the 6 year-old should be in Beyond (or LHFHG depending on her skills). Bigger and Beyond do not line up well with regard to topics (except that they are both American history!). Beyond has a strong emphasis on the Pilgrims. Bigger is broader and more biographical. They are both great programs, though! HTH

[my3sons]

Welcome to the HOD Board! I am wondering the ages of your girls? Like the pps, I would love to know about each of your dc in regard to the first page of the program placement chart. Could you please share a bit about each of their reading, writing, math, and grammar in regard to placement, for the 6 and 8 yo and the girls too? That would be soooo helpful, and then we will all pitch in with more solid advice. HOD is just an incredible way to go about homeschooling! I am so glad you are here and look forward to getting to know you!

In Christ,
Julie