To combine or not to combine? Please share insights.

[my3sons]

I'm combining my children for this and that this year. As our little one grows and I have 3 to homeschool, I'm curious what others have to say about combining their children. What works? What doesn't? How are you (or aren't you) choosing to combine Heart of Dakota's curriculums? Etc.!

[Melanie]

I can't remember how old your kiddos are and I guess that would come into play. I don't know how helpful I'll be, nobody has kids as close in age as I!

I don't know how the new curriculum Carrie has in the works will line up, but I would think as long as you are in the same "time period" you could make the curriculums line up. You could also use Drawn... by just keeping them in the same genre, just different books (I'm grasping here since I've not used this yet).


I combine everything I possibly can just to make our day go faster and more smooth. But, my kids are so close this is pretty easy to do.

[jamieswife]

I haven't used more then one of Carrie's books at the same time but I am using one book for two students in different grades. I am doing BLH with my first and second graders (almost 6 and 7). It is working beautifully. I have reading and math for each of them on their own level but they both do everything in the BLH book. They both love it! They love learning together too. I never had much success trying to school the children who are farther apart in age but I know many who do.

[Ronda]

Melanie's post (above) got me to wondering.....will the new program, Preparing Hearts, in any way line up with Little Hearts? It would be wonderful to be able to use PH for my then 5th & 3rd graders and LH for my K'er and have it somewhat mesh.
Ronda

[Carrie]

Ronda,

Both "Little Hearts..." and "Preparing Hearts..." are 1 year overviews of Bible history intertwined with world history, so some of the beginning parts of both will match. However, the last chunk of "Little Hearts..." has a strong American history focus and "Preparing Hearts..." will instead have more of a world history focus, with American history being only a small part of that. So, the overall emphasis of the two programs is somewhat different.

At our house, next year we are planning to do LHFHG with our 5 year old and "Preparing Hearts..." with our 9 year old.

Blessings,
Carrie

[6timeboymom]

I haven't combined the younger guides, but Heart of Reading worked very well for my multi-level boys. I would think, given the wonderful flexibility of the curriculum that you could adjust as needed to combine more then one child.
I have found the more I can combine, the better! When I try to keep each on a separate curriculum or schedule, it does nothing but make me crazy!

[Carrie]

To give another view on combining, I'm going to borrow from an older post that I responded to awhile back ...

We are using "Bigger Hearts..." this year with my second son and "Little Hearts..." with my just turned 5 year old. We're stretching "Little Hearts..." out over 2 years, due to having a young 5 year old. We're also using "Drawn into the Heart..." with my older kiddos.

My oldest, who is in 6th grade, after having my attention for many years, has eased into working quite independently. This helps me have time to work with my younger kiddos. I find it is very doable to do several Heart of Dakota programs at once. So, if you have an age or ability gap of more than 3 years between each kiddo, take heart that even though you may have to use more than one of our programs, you can still enjoy schooling and be done each day in a timely fashion. If you have kiddos a year or two apart in age or ability, our programs are written for you to be able to combine those children easily in one program. Also, our extension packs for "Bigger Hearts..." and now "Preparing Hearts..." will allow for combining children up to 4 years apart for the areas of history and Bible.

In the past, we found the age gap at our house between our boys to be too large to combine them well, although we did try. Our boys are 11 (almost 12), 8, 5, and 18 months. It's actually became easier to have our kids each have their own programs and only come together for things that combine easily across a large span of ages, such as literature, poetry, music, art, composer study, general read-alouds, and some Bible study. We are able to use "Drawn into the Heart..." and combine well for literature study.

After "Bigger Hearts...", our upcoming new program "Preparing Hearts for His Glory", will work to move the kids toward more independence. This will help balance out the teaching time required for our programs for the younger ages. We will essentially be preparing students for more independent work, while still keeping some teaching time for valuable discussions and readings.

Many of us have the "combining" versus "teaching students individually" issue and finding what works is different for each family.

This is a good question and one that gets asked often. I hope you'll get even more responses from the other helpful moms on this board.

Blessings,
Carrie

[dougnrachel2000]

I did LHTH with my daughter last year at age 3, and my son wanted to do her school. He was growing tired of the publisher I was using. This year we are using LHFHG with both my 4yr. old daughter and my 6yr. old son. He is using a second grade math, reading the emerging reader books, and using God's Wonderful Works for science. We still do all the other subjects together. It has really been a blessing. I plan on keeping them together and adjusting the math and language arts each year.

[my3sons]

Thanks to everyone who responded! This is a tricky thing always. I agree with what was said. Drawn into the Heart of Reading is a great way to combine different levels, in an especially easy way since it was written for that purpose. I've found it easy so far to balance several Heart of Dakota curriculums at once, and I think my children are far enough apart that I will continue to do that. They are all 3-4 years apart, and it seems like things that I can combine are read-alouds, music, Bible, nature journaling, and composer study. Otherwise, I think I'll be sticking with doing separate spines from Heart of Dakota with them. I can see how those of you with children closer together certainly have been able to combine things and choose a few different resources from what Heart of Dakota suggests to stretch, etc. as necessary - a great plus to their curriculums.