2 year old and future placement

[mrskturner]

I am doing Little Hands to Heaven with my two year old right now, he will be 3 when we finish it. The next guide ( Little Hearts for His Glory) is for ages 5-7. So would my son not be mature enough to start this guide next year because of his age? Has anyone else used Little Hearts for His Glory with a three year old?

[my3sons]

I did LHFHG with my 4 1/2 yo, and I would not suggest doing it with anyone younger. My ds at that age was writing well, reading the Emerging Reader's Set books, etc. Dc who do well early on with letters, sounds of letters, numbers, math, writing letters, etc. can be fast-forwarded into skills they are just not ready for - namely comprehension and writing especially. The brightest of little ones just don't have the fine motor skills nor the listening/comprehension skills to jump into LHFHG so early. So much learning is lost when this is done. I already suggested some other ideas for what can be done next in this thread...
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7707

I have gone half-speed for many guides with my ds, to let his maturity catch up with his advanced reading and writing skills. It has been fine, but that is when my ds is always about on the youngest age of the target age ranges of the HOD guides. Doing LHFHG with a 3 yo would put so much pressure on him. It would make every year with HOD an increasingly harder year to get through, skills and activities would have to be tweaked or dropped because he just wouldn't be ready for them, and I think it would take the joy out of learning and the meaning out of the lessons. The guides get hard. I just don't want you or your ds to miss out on the joy of doing them! HTH as you consider what to do next. I've been through LHTH 5 times (twice teaching toddlers during a Bible Study group, twice with my oldest 2 dc, and now again with my youngest.) I still love it! The dc that I taught it at church went through it all twice back to back and still loved every minute of it! I think going through it again with your 3 yo with the harder materials and possibly starting phonics would be fun to do next, but that's just my opinion.

In Christ,
Julie

[krismoose]

Hi! My 3yo listened into the stories and joined in to the activities when we did LHFHG with 5yo ds, but there is no way she would have paid attention that long if it was just her...I'd maybe look at going through LHTH again with the Bible & devotional for older kids, and maybe add in different letter or number activities here and there. Our library has Alphabet Art, which has some easy crafts, or you could look for a letter-of-the-week type website for ideas to supplement. Kids that age love repetition, the question is, how would you feel about going through it again so soon?

[ALB]

I started LHTH with my 2 1/2 yr. old ds this fall and have thought through the same issue. He desperately wants to do preschool like his big sis and likes learning letters, so this seems a good time to start. My plan at this point is to stretch each letter into two weeks, by doing LHTH full speed every other day, and adding a homemade letter of the week type program on the days in between (making letter crafts, reading a book starting with that letter, etc). Even then, I still think we'll likely finish with extra time before I'm ready to put him in LHFHG, so I'm thinking we'll just go through LHTH again, but instead of focusing so much on the letters, add some phonics or the Get Ready for the Code workbooks. I think it will be great to go through the stories and activities again when he has more maturity and understanding of the material, and it will set him up for success by being a bit ahead of the game with LHFHG, rather than feeling a bit slow at it.
I have to say that while I have wished there was another guide between LHTH and LHFHG for those starting at 2, I also really appreciate the flexibility of this program! I can't believe how much 2 yr. olds can really learn and get from it, and yet 4 year olds can truly benefit as well! I have searched and searched, but never found anything so meaty that can be used with this diverse age group. Preschoolers are all over the board as far as their abilities, development, and attention span goes!

[mrskturner]

Thanks Julie! I had lost my old post on the board and didn't realize you had already responded to my question on there.

I really appreciate everyone's advice on this. I thought it might be too much of a jump to move into LHFHG next year at 3. Thank you all for letting me know that it isn't a wise choice to start that with him next year. I think I will just go through LHTH with him again and add in some other stuff with it and use the older Bible and devotional with him next year.

I am still in shock that my 2.5 year old is learning to use scissors and cut out his magazine pictures for LHTH. I didn't hand my first child a pair of scissors until he was at least 4. But Grayson really loves using his scissors. I was wondering what the Do It Carefully and Finding the Answers books are like. Do you think I could do those with him next year? Or still just have him cut pictures out of magazines?

Thank you all so much for your input on this!

[my3sons]

Your little guy is doing great! He's going to be one of those few boys who has his fine motor skills come more easily for him - hooray, hooray! You could probably have your ds do the R & S Workbooks. I think that would be a good start! You could also have him do a K handwriting program like "A Reason for Handwriting K" or "Italic A" if he is taking initiative in writing his letters and you think he's really ready for that. (I wouldn't do this if frustration results though.) If he does do them, then during LHFHG, he could do "Thinking Skills Grade 1" and the next level of whatever handwriting you chose. Otherwise, we have really enjoyed the cutting, coloring, and gluing activities in the Kumon workbooks. We've been doing the Ages 2 set and having a nice time with those. That may be fun to do too!

In Christ,
Julie

[countrymom]

I started Little Hearts with a 4 1/2 yr old and am currently repeating LHTH with my youngest. Based on those two experiences I would say that I would not start Little Hearts before 4 1/2 and the little ones definitely don't have a problem with a repeat of LHTH. I really see my son gaining so much more this time around. Given your son would be only 3, you could do LHTH at 1/2 speed and add in things like the pre Explode the Code books, Handwriting without Tears if he has the coordination, the Kumon books, and so on. We are actually using all of those with our son (not every book everyday) and I am also doing a topic of the week with library books. I think you could easily keep your little one busy and learning and have him really be ready to get the full value of Little Hearts when the time comes. My oldest is mature for his age, has great coordination skills, but I still wouldn't have wanted to start him before 4 1/2 in Little Hearts.Hope that helps, we are having a blast on round two of Little Hands.
p.s. I picked a different Bible for variation and there are 3 devotion books to choose from so you could change that too.