I would pray about it. I would definitely not say that you are behind if your child just turned 8 and is working through Beyond. If you start your child in the middle of the age range (sounds like you started this child at 7 and that is the middle of the age range for Beyond) and they do 1 guide per year, they will be on target to finish the final high school guide as a senior. But, if you truly feel like your child is not placed correctly and that Beyond is way too easy and just isn't enough of what this child is looking for, then I would bump him. I know many times, us as moms are always encouraging people to take every year slowly. But I also know that my girls really wanted that extra school. My youngest is doing Bigger and she started at 7. It has been great for her. There is a lot more writing in Bigger and there is a lot more work in general. For my dd, it is a ton of fun though. She really likes it. She likes to sit and write and draw and read. Does your son like to do this too? If so, then I would consider bumping. However, if he complains at all while doing Beyond (which, by the way, was one of my kids all time favorite guides), then I would not bump him. I know that copy work might not seem exciting but there is a lot more of it in Bigger so your child must be able to do quite a bit of writing in Bigger.
As for Singapore 1, I would have your child take the placement test on line. This will give you a good view of which level you should start at. Because Singapore is so different from other math programs, you can't really skip around. Singapore takes 1/2 the time to teach and do for kids when compared with some of the main stream programs because it doesn't include nearly as much drilling and reviewing. And it covers things differently. Again, you are actually on track for where you child is grade wise. But if you feel like your child could do more, I would print the placement tests and test him. Then you will see exactly where he places and that will work well for you.
As for combining the kids and putting a child in a guide that isn't for their age range, I wouldn't. This is my third year using HOD. I started it when my youngest was 5.5 and my son was 7. Because I didn't quite see how HOD worked, I didn't realize that it would be unwise to put my youngest in the guide that wasn't in her age range. I started her in Beyond that year. She did beautifully. She had no trouble at all. Her and her brother did everything together and she always kept up. However, my oldest started Preparing that year and after finishing that year, only then did I really understand why you wouldn't want to place a child to young in a guide. It would have been way too much work for her once she turned 7.5 to do Preparing. In that guide, they start reading quite a bit of history to themselves and they read and do all of the science independently. There is no way I would want to push that much work on my child. So last year, I decided I didn't want my son held back and decided to have my kids complete 3 separate guides. I bumped my youngest down to Little Hearts, my middle child bumped to Bigger and then my oldest moved up to CTC. It was a great year! My kids learned a lot. Everyone was perfectly placed. Everyone grew. It seemed to work out wonderfully. This year, I started all 3 kids separate again. Everyone was doing fine in their guide. And everyone was perfectly placed. It was me though. I work from home and I just couldn't maintain the pace of running 3 guides. I prayed about it and prayed about it and prayed about it some more. I had to make a change. I wished that when I originally started HOD, I had put my two younger kids in Little Hearts. They did learn well together. But I also knew that I couldn't bump my youngest up a guide and skip Bigger because I was unhappy. I ended up deciding to repeat Bigger with my son for everything except science. And to be quite honest, we are so much happier because of it. By doing this, my son will not finish every HOD guide. And honestly, I am okay with that. Did I feel behind when I decided to make this decision? To be honest, a little. But then when I look at the age ranges of the resources, I don't feel like that anymore. I feel like life is a happy balance. I personally want more down time with my kids and no longer feel the need to constantly push, push, push my kids in school. Even my oldest is slowing down a little bit this year. There is so much reading and writing in R2R that she is having a hard time focusing to get her work done. She started the guide at 10 so she was on the youngest end of the age range. Right now she is really struggling with moving from one thing to the next. And there is more writing in this guide. She does great at writing. But it seems like a little maturity could go a long way. So I am slowing her down a bit to give her that little bit of time to mature and hopefully focus a bit better. I can only see this being a huge benefit in the years to come and in future guides.
As for your kids, are they combine now? Are they similar in abilities. If they are similar, then I would consider putting the younger child into Beyond as long as that child can actually do the work. If it would be to difficult to do the work, then I wouldn't do it. If anything, I would consider bumping the oldest down into Little Hearts. Yes, Little Hearts is going to feel like a step backward but it really isn't. Life will be just fine if you did that in the end. That would mean that your oldest would miss the final high school guide but that would be totally fine. It wouldn't be a big deal at all. Your child will still more than be prepared for whatever college path they chose. However, if you did do Beyond with the younger child now, I would move to doing school 4 days a week. This would mean that you would not finish a guide a year. And it would help to make the younger child a little bit older for each time you start a guide. I would do this for Beyond and for Bigger. Your school year could eventually move to starting in January and then by the time you get to Preparing, your kids will be 8 and 10. As for the oldest child, you can definitely up the grammar program for that child (I didn't though - my son is on target to only finish up through the first half of
. And you would adjust math. If your oldest is a good reader, I would also consider having that child complete the extensions. My son is not a strong a reader so he won't be doing them. I should say, he does read fine for his grade and he could easily have done the reading in Preparing, but he doesn't particularly like to read and those books are longer and can be challenging. For me, I decided against it.
HOD really is a wonderful program with a lot of flexibility. It is really only ourselves who lay guilt down on us for what we do or don't do. I struggled for so long with my own decision of combining my younger kids but I am so much happier now that I did combine them. They are a lot happier too. Your really are right on target for where you child should be. You are definitely not behind! I have found that eventually kids who are ahead will slow down anyway. I wouldn't worry about it all. Every child is different. I would just pray about where the Lord is leading you with this. If you do decide to jump into Bigger now though, I would definitely not bump the younger child up with the older child. It would be too much for that child and then you would have to start modifying every guide. HOD works best without tons of modifications. That is why I love it. I love the skills it targets and builds in each child. If you start modifying it, you lose a lot of that simplicity and growth. As the kids get older, HOD has them become more independent. I need that! So for me, running the guide without modifying it works beautifully.