Combining my two children? Repeating history...

[queenireneof3]

Hello...

I am in the process of figuring out our curriculum for next year, like many moms, I suppose! Next school year i will have a 5yo (K) and 7 yo (2nd). We are in our first year of homeschooling now. I am basically schooling my first grader (now 6yo) son with SimplyCharlotteMason's curriculum guide. My prek (now 4yo) daughter joins us as she wants to. I have gotten her some of her own books (Handwriting Without Tears, and Explode the Code) as she has been learning very quickly.

I love combining them for as much as possible as it make our lives more connected, coherent, and gives me time for my third son and all the other chores we have to get done during the day. I love SCM's curriculum, but my children LOVE activities and crafts and I do not have the time/capacity to connect all those dots myself. I have an HOD catalog from the convention I went to last year and have been skimming it trying to figure out if we could make Little Hearts or Beyond Little Hearts work for us.I love the idea of the activites planned out for me.

After looking at the placement chart, my will-be 7yo 2nd grader would fit better with the Beyond (i think!). I don't know if putting him in Little Hearts combined with my daughter would be enough for him. But I don't know if i can stretch my will be 5yo (K) to do Beyond.

My other concern about Beyond is that we have been using Truth Quest's early American history guide for young explorers this year, and it looks like we would be repeating the same/similar time period with BEYOND. Would that be too repetitive? We are using Beautiful Feet's time line and reading living books about the people on that timeline. We've honestly only made it to the Pilgrims just now (March!) after starting with Leif Erickson last fall...we linger a long time on people I guess! We haven't read the books listed in Beyond's history yet.

Would I be better trying Beyond for my son and however much my daughter is interested and supplementing with something else for my daughter (like Five in a Row or SCM ideas)?

One other question: We are using Right Start Math, but I am starting to hit walls with my son. It is not clicking for him. The Singapore Math looks right up his alley and similar to the Asian way of doing math (like Right Start). I've heard that the Standards editions do not have "gaps" like the US version. I'm wondering what you all think of that?

Thank you in advance!
Sara

[Kalle]

I am also pretty new to the boards. You will get an answer to many of your questions if you post them on the main board. These other boards are not looked at as often. I hope that you get some answers.