Anyone combining younger ones in CTC or RTR?

[Alison in KY]

My oldest is doing CTC and it's going fairly well, however, I miss that togetherness we experienced when we were doing the same history. We combined with Beyond and then I broke them up into their own programs. Now that I've finished several weeks of CTC, I'm starting to miss them being all together in history, science, and Bible. I was thinking I could just read aloud the history and science to all of them next year from RTR, but I wasn't sure how long the reading is. I might just stretch it out over 5 days, instead of the four. I was just wondering if others were doing these upper level programs like this and if so, how you had found it to work best.

Alison

[tahami]

Yes, we are doing our 6th and 8th grader together in RTR. I also have a 3rd grader doing Bigger. Basically I have "group" and read the history of RTR out loud. My 3rd grader listens in and actually absorbs alot (he loves the knights and battles). I then have my two oldest do their notebooks, math and grammar while I work with my 3rd grader on Bigger. I save Science for Friday. (our kids now know Friday as "Science Friday" ) I do love that together time and wasn't ready to give it up even though, technically RTR history is supposed to be independent. We did the same thing last year with CTC and had a great time!! Hope that helps!
Blessings,
Anne

[Alison in KY]

Thanks Anne.

Do you read all of the science out loud on Friday's? How long would you say the history readings are?

Do you skip some of the other activities to have time to combine? I still cannot come up with a good solution for what I am wanting. Thanks for any advice, I'm glad it's working out well for you.

[1shortmomof4]

I am doing RTR with a high schooler - if you did all the history reading one day a week that would be A LOT of reading! especially when there are written narration assignments to be done after the readings. I am actually doing all the history reading with my dd (along with the Shakespeare) and it is really awesome reading but I would not recommend this level for younger kids - certainly not below the 5th - I'd prefer 6th and up just because of the content. Yes, Carrie gives you a heads-up on reading content that is not for the sensitive child, but when I've read through this myself before reading it to my 9th grader, I can see that even some of it could be an issue for her! I think it is important to remember that this particular time frame of history was not easy - especially for those who were persecuted and stood for Christ - so important to learn, a lot of emotional impact - that I would want to be sure my kids were ready for this undertaking. It really isn't just about knights, castles, monks and big feasts - certainly not in the history books we've read thus far (my dd is reading the read-aloud books herself and the Mysterious Coins book series is awesome!). Carrie has done an awesome job undertaking this time period - certainly not full of fluff!
Heidi

[Alison in KY]

Heidi, are the more mature contented books the history read alouds, or are you talking about the actual history curriculum?

[blessedmomof4]

Alison, how old are your children? And where they fit in their ablilities makes a big difference as far as combining. If they are too far apart in skill levels, you could just do one storytime with all of them to keep some of that togetherness, but continue to do all the other things with them in separate guides. The concern is that each of these guides builds skills incrementally, and if you tweak it down too much for a younger child, they are not receiving the intended benefits. Also the older/more advanced child kind of has to wait for the other to catch up, while the younger/less advanced child may find it frustrating to keep up. If the children are close in age/skills, combining goes much more smoothly.

[Alison in KY]

Next year they will be 12, 10, and 8, and yes, their skills are all way different on the math and english subjects. I don't want to work out of 3 different guides. We do our own math and spelling already, and I could do the Rod and Staff with my middle and older one. Darn, I know what I want, there just isn't an easy way to go about it I"d just like them to be somewhat together on history and science...I know I have months to figure this out, but it's prime research time for me.

Any other suggestions, or info on the RA's would be appreciated.