Rethinking placement...please help?

[Sue G in PA]

Quick recap...I placed dd4 (will be 5 in Aug.) and ds7 into LHFHG and am confident that is a good fit for both. Ds7 is a bit "behind" with reading and writing...I'm trying to keep it gentle for him right now. Dd4 can read as well or better than ds7 and her writing is about the same as well. Next we have ds9, ds10 and ds12 (4th, 5th and 7 gr. respectively). I placed all 3 into Preparing (extensions for ds10 and 12). Ds12 can certainly handle Preparing and I will need to "beef up" the science or add in something for him. He loves science. Ds10 can also handle Preparing w/out any problems. Both are good readers, writers, can take dictation and do cursive copywork, etc. Math is right on target. Ds9 is my challenge. I've been very easy on him for the past few years. He is a great reader...learned to read on his own. He can read independently w/out problem. He can copy in cursive and take simple dictation. He is a bright child but not really very motivated academically. He'd rather not do school at all. His original writing is so-so. He is capable of writing original sentences, but doesn't have the confidence that he can. Does that make sense? I place him in Preparing so I could keep all the boys together and make my life easier next year. Now, I'm rethinking that decision. Why? Well...I don't want him to miss all the great stuff in Bigger! He could use Bigger w/ Extensions with no problem what-so-ever. Ds10 could as well for that matter! Neither have had a comprehensive American History course. If I did Bigger with them and Preparing with ds12...that would have me doing LHFHG, Bigger AND Preparing at one time...not to mention doing LHTH with my ds2 who already knows his letters and sounds and is "itching" to be involved with our school day! Would I be setting myself up for a disaster? Please advise! I just don't want to "push" ds9 too far beyond his comfort level. I'm all for challenging my dc...but this kid doesn't rise to the challenge so easily...he shuts down. Problem is? I already bought Preparing! I'm hopeless! LOL.

[juliekay]

Just some thoughts..... We did Preparing this year. My youngest in Preparing is 8. He loved it! We loved it! Not that a girl wouldn't love this, but Preparing was 100% boy friendly & boy motivating! I was thrilled, amazed and thankful with the depth of thought and discussion my boys & I had! All that said - we loved Bigger too when they were 7,10.5, 11.5! My ds8 had trouble keeping up with all the writing this year - huge increase from Bigger to Preparing, but with some simple tweaking I was able to keep him writing, but not at rate of the other boys. I simply just didn't have him do a book or two from Ind. History & Science and allowed him to catch up during that period of time. From what you did share about ds9 - honestly I think he will do just fine! He does NOT need to do an original sentence in writing. When my ds8 started written narration he orally narrated to me while I wrote it out on a whiteboard. He then would copy the 3-5 sentences into his written narration notebook. Since you already have Preparing why not just do a "test" week with all 3 & then make your decision? BUT - you da Mama & you can do whatever you want!

[LynnH]

Your ds sounds like mine where the writing is concerned. My ds could write, but had zero confidence that he could, so he would just stare at me and say "I don't know what to write". One of the many things I loved about Preparing is how it slowly guides them to do the written narration. If you haven't already, look at the written narration activities on Day 4 of each week and just follow that all the way through the guide and see how gently it leads them to do longer narrations and more on their own. This worked wonders for my ds. The Poetry writing is the same way. At first they only have to come up with a few original lines and then by the end they are writing a full poem. My ds who hated to write due to horrible ps experiences ended up thinking that the Poetry writing was his favorite part. Also just one other thing we did was since we didn't use Rod and Staff I added Igniting Your Writing per Carrie's suggestion and did the easiest levels of that just to give my ds confidence and it worked well. If you are doing Rod and Staff you wouldn't need to do that.

The one other thing that Carrie and Julie had to remind me of is that my ds would grow into more of the independent things and it was ok if he wasn't totally there yet, if that makes sense. So if he seems ready for Preparing in most of the areas then I would think you would be ok going with that.

[Sue G in PA]

That helps very much. Thank you both. The other problem is still: I don't want them to miss all the "goodies" in Bigger! I might have to get it "just in case".

[my3sons]

Oh Sue, you have such a good heart - how blessed your dc are that you are in such thought about what will be best for each of them! It is just too dangerous for you to be looking at other HOD guides right now because they are all so full of goodies, and you are just going to be goodied out! I think doing LHTH, LHFHG, BHFHG, and PHFHG first shot out of the barrel would be too much to start with at once. Your 9 yo is going to do just fine with PHFHG. My ds was 8 when he did PHFHG, and writing was not his thing. He did very well with the gentle guiding of written narrations in the plans. He also bloomed with PHFHG's creative writing lesson modeled after RLS's poetry. Every child can be successful writing with the lovely creative writing lessons planned in PHFHG, and no matter whether a child is not a writer or is a writer, they will help each child grow. Juliekay and Lynnh gave some practical advice to keep in mind as well. Sometimes a few months of growth does wonders! HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

[Sue G in PA]

Thanks Julie. It is rather overwhelming to even think about doing 4 guides! I'll stick with Preparing and see how it goes!