Those that use 2-3 guides, what does your day look like?

[sharonb]

If you have children in different HOD programs, how do you schedule your day? Do you do one child's complete day start to finish and then move to another child? Or do you do bits and pieces of each until everyone is done?

If it matters, I am considering Beyond for a 2nd grader. I'll also have a very young 1st grader who can't read yet but is good in math. It has been suggested that he join the preschoolers in LHTH but do math/phonics at his level. I really think LHFHG would be perfect for him actually. But I've read all the recommendations to not repeat the programs year after year, and try to have a year break from them if possible. So, I'm still debating all the different scenarios. While I debate, I was wondering how everyone does it! I figured doing the LHTH first thing would probably be best. But from there, I'm not sure. I'm having trouble juggling what we are doing now because everyone's work takes different amounts of time (for example, today during "phonics time", my oldest kept getting distracted, so her lesson took her almost an hour. My 5 year old was done with his ETC lesson in about 5 minutes, and then we played a Happy Phonics game for a few minutes. Then I had to send him to play until dd was done because I wanted them to do math at the same time. Then it was harder getting him back on task.)

[netpea]

I try to give both my kids their seatwork assignments at one time, then I will read the storytime and history and bible portions one after the other so they often listen in on each other's readings. Then we work in the rest however it fits. If my oldest is having a bad day and doesn't want to do his work, then I work straight through with the youngest and send her out of the room to work with the oldest by himself.

[sharonb]

I keep looking at the placement guide and I really DO think my oldest could handle Bigger. Then I could use Little Hearts for my 5 1/2 year old. I really don't think putting him in LHTH for a year would be good for him. Technically he'll be a 1st grader (he'll be 6 in Aug but we start our new school years in the spring; though this time I might hold off for a couple of months and do some other stuff (like our Apologia Zoology). The main issue then would be possibly repeating Little Hearts the following year with my now 4 year old. But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. He might be ready to jump into Beyond with his brother at that point.

So, now my cart contains LHTH, Little Hearts, and Bigger. Over $300 worth of books. Which I totally cannot afford. I REALLY wish I hadn't already purchased so much for this coming year. I've been trying to sell a few things that I'm not going to use and no one is interested. And I'm pretty sure dh will say NO to using the tax refund money that's coming. As far as he's concerned, we were all set a while ago since I was so sure that 100% R&S would be fine. But now that's not what I want!

Ok, whine over...

[Kathleen]

Sharon,

Here's another idea...

Could you put your oldest in Beyond like you had said and start LHFHG with the 4 and 5 yo? You could plan on going half speed and doing the left side of the page one day and the right side the next. You could do it this way for this school year and then if you felt it was necessary you could speed it up to full speed the next year. Then you could keep those 2 together and not quite be repeating guides year after year...you'd get a little break. Then, I'd suggest just taking time to read with your 2 yo. I did this with my little guy during our last school year and he loved the 20 min that I gave him mid-morning. It ended up that he wanted the same 4 books, and then he hid in his room in the same 3 places and I found him and tickled him. But, he LOVED the attention!

I know there are extra books suggested in the appendix of LHFHG, too, that might help you in stretching out the time you'd use it. I believe that I've heard other moms say though that most of these are hard to find at a library, so if money is tight you probably wouldn't want to add those this year.

I'm using Bigger and LHTH this year. I do the left page of Bigger with Grant, and then get him started on something independent. I take the little 2 and go do all of LHTH with them. Then I jump back to Grant and we do some more that he needs me for. Since LHTH is only 20-30 min, it's really easy to fit in. Next year I'm going to need a better schedule when I'm doing Preparing and LHFHG and making a little time for Garret. I just love the set-up of the HOD guides! They really make it easy for me to see where we're at and jump back and forth between kids. I like that the time for every day is predictable and pretty much the same.

Kathleen

[sharonb]

Yes, it might be possible to combine the 4 and 5 year old in LHFHG now, except they would each be on their own level for math and phonics.

But I'm still leaning towards Bigger instead of Beyond for my 7 year old. She'll be in 2nd grade and is ready for grammar instruction, ready for cursive, etc.

I took LHTH out of my cart, plus several books. We own several books that I've been wanting to use for read-alouds anyway, plus the library should have some of them. I suppose getting the guides would be the most important think initially, and then see what can be borrowed or purchased used.