Placement for Sonlight user

[aprilmd]

I have a few questions about placement. I have three girls that in the next school year will be 8, 10 and 11. I have used Sonlight for the past 3 years and love most of the books. By next year we will have completed Core 1, Core 3 and Core 4. Cores 3 and 4 are American History, and Core 1 is the first half of World History. This is my dilemma: In the current year my two older girls will complete Core 4, which is the second half of American History. My youngest is finishing Core 1, which is the first half of World History. I don't want to do two cores next year. If I was to continue at Sonlight, Core 5 is the study of the Eastern Hemisphere. Many of the topics concern me, especially with my two youngest children. I don't know if we could use "Preparing" because the main book is also the one we are using this year in Core 1. Please note that my two oldest children love to listen in on "A Child's History of the World." If we do "Preparing," we would be using the same book. I am interested in "CTC," but is my eight-year-old too young? All three of my girls love to read!!! In fact, they felt that even Sonlight does not provide enough books to read. What placement would you suggest if we did make the move from Sonlight this year? Will there be enough for them to satisfy their reading itch?

[Rebecca]

Hi there!
I am home from church with sick children (again) and thought I would chime in here!
The first thought I had when reading your post was to put your eight year old in Bigger next year and put your two older children in the new ancients program.
This would give your eight year old a wonderful, biographical overview of american history and move your other two from american history into the chronological history cycle.

As far as HOD offering enough books to read for book lovers... HOD books are WONDERFUL. We are a family of book lovers too. We love ALL HOD recommendations and purchase more than the selected sets require. For example-purchasing from boy, girl, classics sets instead of just one... However, I also provide my sons with other books too that I find on different reading lists. This is their personal reading- aka at bedtime or other free time. You might have "hit" some of the HOD books in the younger years with your sonlight cores... I am thinking you might avoid this so much by using Bigger and CTC. We have also discoverd the joy of audio books through HOD and have listened to many wonderful ones this year! Come On, Sea Biscuit is NOT to be missed!!!!

HOD offers wonderful structure- then freeing you to pursue interests of your own in the "off time"- this includes books of your own choosing!!!

I hope this makes sense. We are using Bigger this year- and it is a very full program. It is very well- balanced. Although my signature says that my seven year old is in Beyond- I have, at this point, completely combined him in Bigger with his brother. I use the math lessons from Beyond and the poetry copy work. He is using the emerging reader set which is in both guides...It is going so well.

The other thing I would say is- after you receive all your advice from this wonderful forum and look at the placement chart and carefully think through your options- I would go with your "mother's gut" on which program(s) to use. HOD is designed to be flexible (praise God!) and designed to put YOU in the driver's seat (as Carrie would say) as the mom/teacher.

I hope this helps!
Sincerely,
Rebecca

[aprilmd]

Thank you for your information. Your recommendation for two program (Bigger and CTC) is what I orignally thought would work. I just "WANTED" to have all three girls in the same program. I love it when they are all learning the same history together. Then they play what they are learning. In Sonlight it is very difficult to cover everything in two programs. My girls always want to listen to all the History and Read Aloud for both programs. This makes for a very long day, with everyone listening to all books. I notice you do three programs at once. Is it hard to cover everything? I know in Sonlight, I can't do everything for two Cores. I am continuing to pray for guidance in these choices and love the encouragement and insight I see on this forum.

Thank you,
April

[Mumkins]

What about just doing the History in CTC for all but having 8 y.o. do her own program otherwise?

[aprilmd]

Do I understand you correctly? I could have my 8 year old do CTC history and then her own English (R&S at her level), Readers (DITHR) and Math. Would I still need "Bigger" for all the other pieces (spelling, dictation, Read aloud, art, etc?) Would I just follow the lesson plan in CTC and supplement in her level for all other areas of learning? Thank you for this idea, it gives me another option to pray about!

April

[Mom2Monkeys]

I would think you'd at least have to do the right side of Bigger with your 8 yo but it is very doable to do 2 programs. If your 8 yo fits best in Bigger, I'd do Bigger. If you MUST combine, you'd just do the right side of Bigger with the 8yo and include her in CTC with the older. It's best for the upper elementary crowd, so you'll have to tweak it or not expect her to have a wonderful understanding of it of course. I personally wouldn't put them both in CTC, but the flexibility in HOD to make it fit your family it one of it's strong points! You can do whatever works best for you!

I have been doing LHTH plus some K options with my 5 yo as well as Beyond with my 7yo and we're taking about 1.5 to 2 hours per day for EVERYTHING!
Today, I started Little Hearts with my 5yo and doubled up with my 7yo b/c we're going to be moving, gone for a 1.5 weeks soon, and some other big changes and we won't finish if I don't speed us along. So, we did Little hearts and 2 days of Beyond and we were done in about 3 hours (even with the 2 year old wild child running around!) We spent all afternoon outside enjoying God's wonderful creation! (and getting sunburned! )

In the fall, I'll be doing LHTH 3 days per week with the 3yo, LHFHG with the 5yo, and Bigger with the 7yo (who will be . 3 Programs and it's still VERY VERY doable! I can't imagine doing 2 cores of Sonlight b/c I personally would burnout in a day!(I almost started off there though and tried to combine). But with HOD, you really can tailor it to your kids abilities and not be overwhelmed. It's so wonderful!

I also add in Brazilian Portuguese (added Latin the past year), English From the Roots Up, Conversation With Character, Picture and Music Study, and we do DITHOR (although sporatically), activities with our homeschool group, and Nature Study. I have plenty of time to do all these! HOD has been a true blessing b/c it's been so easy to do, so fun to teach, wonderfully fitting for each of my kids, and I can add in all the fun stuff we want to do! Even though I'm doing 2 programs and have 3 kids! I know you'll find you fit here

[Carrie]

April,

The ladies are doing such a good job of tossing out possible options that would work for your family. I agree that the best placement if you were look at the kiddos individually would be Bigger Hearts for your younger one and CTC for the older two.

If you are really desiring to do them all together then Preparing Hearts would be the best fit for that. It would also set you up to keep your kiddos combined through the years. You'd also most likely need to add the right side of Bigger Hearts for your 8 year old for language arts and math to the combining within Preparing Hearts scenario (depending on where that child places for language arts and math). I understand that through Core 1 you will have done part of A Child's History of the World, however I do think that since it wasn't your older kiddo's primary program and you haven't covered the entire book, it would be fine to do Preparing Hearts with them. We do add different resources than those that are found within SL1, and it is done with projects, geography, sketching, research, etc. Grandpa's Box adds all of the Biblical history that was missing in SL1. I've used SL1 with my oldest son, and I will say that it is a very different program from Preparing Hearts (with the exception of A Child's History of the World). My oldest son also did A Child's History of the World again and really enjoyed it so that is something to consider.

The last option would be to try to have your younger one ride along with the older ones in CTC. This may work, but would require modification on your part to make it suit your younger child. Then, you would always be pulling your younger one along through each of the coming programs, which is usually not the best situation. You have a better shot with Preparing Hearts to suit your kiddos varying levels.

If you get a chance to pop back in and let us know what you're thinking that would be great!

Blessings,
Carrie

[aprilmd]

Ladies, thank you for all the information. I am praying about either "Bigger" and "CTC" or just "Preparing." I do have to admit I am a little nervous about leaving Sonlight, but even more nervous to stay. I love the schedules and thrive on the check boxes. I keep praying and asking the Lord for peace in this decision. Looking at "Bigger' it sure seems like a good fit for my youngest. I believe my two oldest would really enjoy "CTC". After doing two Sonlight Cores this year and having the girls want to hear everything I read in both Cores, I am not sure about doing two programs. I have poured over the forum and found that many people use two or three HOD programs. These users of HOD don't seem to be overwhelmed, but instead encouraging. I know the Lord shall supply all of our needs, whatever He calls us to do.

Thank you all!
April

[deltagal]

These users of HOD don't seem to be overwhelmed, but instead encouraging. I know the Lord shall supply all of our needs, whatever He calls us to do.

April,

On paper it is hard to imagine (especially from a Sonlight perspective) how one could do multiple programs, but HOD is so smooth. Last year, about this time, I had "planned" to pick back up on Sonlight full steam, because we were using their book list as filler for so many of our subjects at the time, but once I pulled together the overall plan it was daunting AND expensive. I knew I needed to do something to speak to my younger children, but the Sonlight plan was requiring so much work and the sirens went off in my head. Little did I know, then as I do now that HOD had everything I was looking for. So, when I stumbled upon it this past fall I was delighted, because it was designed to do what I couldn't "make" Sonlight do. One of the MANY great features of HOD is meeting each of your children on their level. We've only been using HOD, since the end of December, but all of my children are rocketing forward in skill development, because I finally have a "plan" that speaks to each of their needs. I know you'll make a great decision for your family!

[aprilmd]

Ladies,

Thank you so much for all the input. I have been praying and am leaning towards "Bigger" for my 8 year old. When I showed her the pictures of the books on line, she got very excited. I am still thinking about "Preparing" or "CTC" for my two oldest children. Before my first post I was completely against two programs. As I have prayed and researched HOD, I am more convinced that two programs are what is probably best for my family. I can't wait to see the sample week for "CTC."

April

[Rebecca]

Dear April,
You asked about teaching three programs at once...
For me, I did have trouble this year trying to teach Little Hearts, Beyond, and Bigger. It is very smooth, and FINE teaching Little Hearts and Bigger. I would think it would be fine to teach Bigger and CTC. However, I personally wouldn't teach Bigger and Preparing. That would be challening, IMHO, because the skill levels are "close" to each other- and also- then your child in Bigger will move into Preparing- which you just taught, and so on... This is what I ran into. My Little Hearts guy is trucking right along and will be moving into Beyond next year- easily. Teaching Beyond twice in that way was not the best use of my time- and honestly, that is the program that didn't really get done completely. I am much happier and school is going much more smoothly by moving my Beyond child into Bigger. He is doing wonderfully and is perfectly capable of the Bigger assignments. Bigger has all the components that Beyond had that he was using -except the math activities- so I use the Beyond guide for those. He seems to be more at peace, too.

Anyway-I don't know how it is teaching two of the "meatier" upper level HOD programs- but I do know that they are structured toward independence- while keeping those important discussions between you and the student a priority.

Next year- I will be teaching three programs again - but I am not concerned. My experience with Beyond was wonderful and I know my son will love it. I also know that it will fit right into our day where Little Hearts is flowing right now. The other program is Little Hands- which is not burdensome... and my other two will be in Preparing...

I hope this helps,
Best wishes as you pray and ponder your decision!!
Rebecca

I hope this makes sense.