need advice about choosing curriculum

[amarie]

Hi,

I am looking at curriculum to start in the fall and wondered if anyone could give me advice. We did LHFHG this year with our now seven year old and absolutely loved it! He is a very bright child and excels in what he is interested in. For example, he is the kind of child who gets as excited as a puppy when an Architect Design magazine or a book about bionic arms is placed in front of him. His reading is at a 1st or second grade level, but his fine motor skills and math skills are right at the Beyond level. Its like his brain is three times ahead of his little hands! He needs the right side of the Beyond curriculum, but I am wondering if the left side of the Bigger guide might be a better fit than the left side of Beyond. Does that make sense? I know I can supplement and let him "study" whatever he is interested in after we do school, but I was wondering if any of you have had this experience and whether or not you combined guides or just stuck with one. Do any of you pick and choose and substitute for your child's unique needs? Any advice is welcome.

I have not met anyone in my area who uses HOD, so I'm very thankful for this message board and the advice that can be sought from it!

Amy

[mrsrandolph]

Amy,
I can totally relate to your situation. I have the same thing going on with my son, Will. What I have done is stay with the guides that fit his age. We did LHFHG when he was 5, BLHFHG when he was 6, and we will be doing bigger at half pace when he is 7...so for 2 years we will do bigger. Bigger has a fair amount of copy work, grammar, and notebooking...all which draw upon those fine motor skills. So, I am pacing it more slowly.

Like your son, mine is VERY interested in the science and engineering. To fuel and feed that interest, we do a few things...
1. We record a show called "Modern Marvels". You can also get it via Netflix. It has wonderful episodes about varying scientific and engineering topics.
2. We check out lots of books on these topics to read for pleasure.
3. We are members of a science museum. (we are careful to correct evolutionary principles)
4. We are members of the zoo.
5. We allow the kids to use the recycle bin as art material bins. They are always pulling our boxes and rinsed bottles to build their marvelous creations!

I don't do anything "formal" with his interests right now. But he spends a great deal of time each day apart from "school" reading about and pursuing his scientific interests! HOD allows for lots of that!

[Kathleen]

Hi Amy!

I'm thinking that if your son did well with LHFHG, moving right into Beyond would be a great fit! What I have loved about HOD is that it IS so inspiring for their little minds. The books that have been carefully chosen so that they are given great things to think about. I've found all the years of HOD that we've used to be quite meaty (more than I was anticipating when we jumped in). Beyond is the only guide that I haven't done yet from LHTH to Preparing. (We'll be starting that one with my dd this year, mid-year. Anyway, what I was wanting to encourage you with is that by using HOD, your son's brain will be challenged and inspired with the excellent material you'll cover! If you want to up the listening level in the storytime part, choose the Classic set as they require a higher level of listening.

And...while using Beyond, you'll still have plenty of time in your day to explore his interests with ideas like Shannon shared.

The science that is yet to come in HOD should be right up your alley! We love the way HOD gets us thinking and exploring by their simple experiments and the lab sheets we fill out! Life science is the love here...especially of my husband and oldest. Animals of all kinds, tracks, bird nests, bugs...you name it we love checking it out!

Kathleen

[my3sons]

I too think moving into Beyond would be a good idea, but adding in some of Shannon's great ideas would be fun! Carrie had these ideas for beefing up Beyond for a fourth grader, but some of them could apply to a child with interests such as yours:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3247&p=24196

I would do Beyond because it is a wonderful program, it will cover the first portion of American history beautifully, and most importantly it will prepare your ds for Bigger Hearts so well. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

[Carrie]

Amy,

The ladies have already given you terrific advice, so I'll just pop-in to agree! I fear that if you pushed your son into Bigger Hearts you would quickly find that the fine motor skills required through the daily written work would tire your child before he is ready for that level of writing. The jump from LHFHG to Bigger is quite huge. I think you'll find Beyond to be a wonderful stepping stone to Bigger Hearts, and using Beyond will still allow plenty of time for your child to explore his God-given interests and talents. It's good to have learning to be joyful and bite-sized at this age!

Blessings,
Carrie