Fitting in multiple levels?

[AboveRubiesMama]

This upcoming school year, my 8th grader will be doing M2M, my 6th grader CtC, I'm considering putting my 4th grader into Bigger w/ Extensions.

My 1st grader needs a solid phonics program and has therapy each day. I also have a preschooler, and a toddler--that's 6 children total.

My older two children will be able to do most of their programs independently, but I want to get a firm reality check for the 1st and 4th graders.

When I review the guides and read 4 to 4 1/2 hours a day per guide, that feels very unrealistic. I know there are families who use HOD throughout the years for their whole family, but I'd like to know how you work it all in? Especially if there are interruptions and such, as in therapy schedules.

I remember the last time we attempted to do three guides, and it was overwhelming, but I was trying to do three guides, as written and my children were much younger--no one was able to do anything independently.

My brain is mush from all of the readings I'm doing right now, so I may simply be over-thinking this.

[MomtoJGJE]

Have you looked at the placement chart for the fourth grader? I guess I'm wondering why you picked Bigger with extensions over Preparing?

The way I do multiple guides is I start with my most independent and work down to least. I will add in here that I have worked on training my younger ones to be more independent than their guides require. We also don't do storytime reading during the school day, and DITHOR is separated from the regular guide for us (6 units regular guides and then a genre of DITHOR)

With my most ind child (RtR).... I go over any semi-ind work so she will know what to do for those. That takes 10 minutes. Then I send her off to do her S and I work.

Next ind child (Preparing).... go over semi ind stuff (reading history, poetry and Bible are included in this) and send her off to do her S and I work. This takes another 15 minutes.

Next (Bigger)... Go over math and LA, have her pick either history or science to read, go over any notebooking/narration/timeline work, and send her off to do all this plus cursive and reading over her Bible verse. 15 minutes

Do LHFHG.... this does not take long. Maybe 30 minutes. I read everything and ask the questions/ do activities it says. Math and FMS take maybe 5 minutes. I don't do phonics. We do not go off on rabbit trails during school time. Occasionally it might be 45 minutes if there is art. But I don't have to be there for all of that.

Bigger child is done and comes back to finish up. I check her work, read whichever she didn't pick between science and history, and discuss anything left to discuss (reading the poem if she didn't do that already, etc) (10-15 minutes)

Preparing child is done and comes back to finish... I check work and go over anything she has questions about (5-10 minutes)

RtR child is done... I check work and make sure she did everything (5-10 minutes)

So max teaching time for me is 2 hours and that's if everyone has questions or doesn't understand something or everyone has new math concepts on the same day or whatever.

Generally I try to schedule appointments all on one day so that we can just take that day off. Or I schedule them for afternoon and do school before.

[AboveRubiesMama]

Thanks for your ideas.

I'm going with Bigger w/ extensions, because I already have the guide and most of the package. I have LHTH, LHFHG, Beyond, Bigger, and CTC. I'm trying to watch our budget, and if we go with Bigger, I only need to purchase the extension books. Also, she needs more instruction in writing and grammar. She's still working on cursive writing, just starting to do dictation, and only recently completed the Emerging Readers set (she was a late reader), and I'm not sure if she's ready for Preparing. We just started working through R&S 2 and it's just the right level for her right now. In 3rd grade's 2nd semester, she's only now in Singapore 1B.

She's my free-spirited, wants-to-do-art-all-day, ultra-creative child, and up until this year, trying to get her to sit still for work has been like pulling teeth. I wouldn't be surprised if she would've been diagnosed with ADHD if we put her in school.

[queenireneof3]

I just wanted to say thank you to Lora Beth for that helpful breakdown of scheduling so many guides!

And also wanted to comment that I am also planning on having a 4th grader in Bigger next year. He is combined with his sister two years younger. It will be a big jump up in work from Beyond!

[Nealewill]

I wouldn't be able to do the guides and the levels that my kids were at if they weren't placed correctly. My oldest does CTC and really only work with her about 1 hour a day. I use 100% of the HOD resources and that to me is key. With my middle child, he is doing Bigger. He is on until 24 at this point. I know some parents state that their kids pick up one of the reads a day at some point throughout the year. He will read some of the science sometimes but we are in the Pioneer Sampler book at this point and it is just too long for him read. He still tuckers out a bit. I have found that I do have him complete some stuff independently though. With your dd who is going into 4th grade, if she can't read the extension alone, then I wouldn't do them. The extensions are written at a 5th-6th grade level. I am not sure how old your 4th grader is but I am guessing that she is 9 at the oldest? Since she is still in the 7-9 year old age range, I would drop the extensions. This will also help you get your day done more quickly. For my youngest, she is actually under placed this year - she completed Beyond when she was 5 and I didn't want to move her to Bigger at 6. So put in her in Little Hearts this year. Next year my kids will be in R2R, Preparing and Bigger. I work form home and quite a bit. I chose HOD because my kids can work independently fairly well with this program as they get older but I also know that the lower levels are not overwhelming in time either. For you 1st grader, I would consider Little Hearts. It has been a beautiful program this year. With all of these levels, I would expect that you could probably get your teaching time done in 1 hour Little Hearts, 2 hours Bigger, 1 hour CTC and 1 hour M2MM. That is 5 hours a day. For the older kids, you will pretty much only be teaching the 3Rs to them. So with HOD, you are saving time. With the younger kids you are still helping with everything. One thing I have done with my younger kids is they each have a notebook with their independent assignments in it each day. I list in there everything they need to do so that they can get it done independently. So I list cursive, practice piano, practice AWANA verse, listen to music, read (whatever they are reading - the sit by me and read it out loud for 1/2 of the pages), math pages - they come to me so I can go over lessons for 5 min and then they do the math, copywork, and then for my son's notebook in Bigger, I make him read the manual for the notebooking pages and timeline that he does with Bigger. This helps to get their day moving and for me to not need to be involved. You could probably print up a template from word or excel and have it ready for the kids to do alone. I have also in the past done 1 bin where I put all their independent things in it and said here you go. So they would know that that they needed to do reading, they needed to do cursive, they needed to practice AWANA, they needed to work on the next lesson in math. They seem to like the notebook best and it does help to keep them moving. For me, they need to be as independent as possible because I really don't have time to direct their days 100%. HOD makes that very easy in their manuals once the children reach the level Preparing but HOD does encourage parents to help their kids become as independent as possible in lower levels where appropriate.

[AboveRubiesMama]

Thanks again for the feedback, this is all very, very helpful.

My rising 4th grader will be 10 on Sept. 2nd, and in our state, the age cut-off for the school year (even for homeschoolers), is August 1st. It was Sept. 15 when she was born and honestly, she needed the extra year to mature.

Yes, I'm strongly considering Little Hearts for my 1st grader. I have The Reading Lesson, which I used before, but I may use Reading Made Easy this go round. I can do school for everyone now in about 4 hours a day. I think I can fit in an extra hour for sure.

[MomtoJGJE]

That makes sense with the Bigger vs Preparing choice I would totally do that too!

I think I'd start with Bigger as is, see how it is handled, and then only add in extensions if necessary.

[AboveRubiesMama]

I think I will do that! And the really cool part is that then I don't have to buy anything. I can even go ahead and have her start the guide now to see how she does.

Thanks again for the feedback, everyone.

[Rice]

Starting her now is a great idea. I'm running 4 guides and it's going well, now that they are well placed (as Daneale mentioned), even if I often still feel overwhelmed with things to remember to check on and finding enough time each day for each of them. (I have 3 in back-to-back guides, as that's where they placed best, which Carrie said they never intended, especially for Bigger/Preparing, lol, so I'm actually fairly pleased with how things are going.)

That said, I'm looking forward to only starting 2 new guides in September, since we made a mid-year switch for 2, leaving those kids to switch at different times, too, since one is doing a 4day/unit guide and the other a 5 day/unit guide, so she'll take a bit longer. I was always one to start everything fresh in September but I'm starting to learn it's better to stagger things and go with the flow a little more (ahem, ie. be flexible). For my 2 mid-year switches it will be nice to go back to something familiar in September.


FWIW, I work with my most independent (CTC) one at 8:00 for 1/2 hr (while the oldest does math on the computer), then we meet as a family for 1 chapter from the Bible @ 8:30.

From there, during the winter when DH is actually helping with my LHFHG boy ( this is the first time he's regularly helped with teaching. I don't think I want spring field work to start!) he goes with Daddy to do all but math (which I do with him later) and I work with my Bigger DD (story time, reading about history, grammar, etc.). She does more independently than the guide suggests since she's older than the age range, but has weak reading skills yet - a late bloomer.

Around 10/10:30 I start with my oldest and work with him till I've done all the things he needs help with.

At the end of the morning I try to fit in (in varying order depending on the day and the kids' needs and how well we've gotten through things the earlier in the morning) math with LHFHG, all remaining T and S boxes with my CTC and TRY to check the I and S boxes for my Bigger and CTC. But in reality those checks don't happen as consistently as I'd like and every 2 units or so we need a "catch up" day to go over, correct and finish all the balls that have dropped. We were doing one unit every 5 days and now we're usually getting 2 units done in 9, so I figure that's pretty good for us and consistent 4-day units may not be realistic for us at this point. Maybe once they're more independent? (but then again, I'll have more in school by then. . . )

Blessings as you consider all that will be on your plate and what will be best for each of your DC. (darling children)

[MomtoJGJE]

We also have a catch up day.... every Thursday we have basically a coop.. those days our school consists of coop, music, and Greek. My oldest goes through her student notebook pages and makes sure that she's put something in every box. Even if it's an explanation of why she couldn't complete an assignment (ie Mom has forgotten for weeks on end to buy supplies needed)