Anyone using CTC with a variety of ages.

[sted]

Well, I must be antsy to get school started again (too much holidaying) but I'm finding myself thinking about next year's curriculum. I love HOD but with doing three programs I'm thinking about simplyfying it next year in whatever way I can. I love the idea of doing history and read alouds together. This year we are doing Bigger, Bigger w/extensions, Beyond and some of Little Hands. I love that almost all of us are doing the topic of American History together. Next year however, my oldest will be 11 and is really ready for CTC. The next one has some learning difficulties but will be 10 althought not yet independent in alot of ways. Logically she would go into Preparing. The third one will be 7 and is an independant reader and does very well with basic skills. My thought is doing one program for all of them and "tweaking" my expectations for either the oldest or the youngest. I'm leaning towards CTC and requiring less work from the younger students. Or I could do Preparing and require more work for the oldest but I always struggle with "tweaking up". I guess one way of looking at it would be as a unit study. I would of course add grade-appropriate math,language arts etc but the left side and possibly science would be done together. Any ideas on "beefing up" Preparing or "tweaking down" CTC would be wonderful. Anyone using CTC with a variety of ages? I guess one way of looking at it would be to treat it as a family unit study. Of course I wouldn't be expecting the seven year old to get as much from it but maybe at 7 they don't need as much focused history and science? Maybe it would be enough to have them listen to the read aloud parts and do some colouring sheets or easier history activities. Just thinking out loud...

Thanks,
Shannon

[Alison in KY]

We'll have to pass notes back and forth to each other, because this is what I'm planning on doing. I probably won't be starting it until 2011 though. I'll have an 11/12 yr old with a 9/10 and 7/8 yr old. The only thing I've thought was do the same read aloud with all, then possibly have my girls do the Story of the World activity guide and listen to the audio cd's....and then possibly do some of the activities with big brother. This would basically be me doing the program with the oldest who would fit there, and having my younger two tag along in the same time period. However, that's a long way off, so who knows how I'll actually work it out . In the meantime I'll just keep reading everything I can on CTC.

Alison

[8arrows]

If you want to combine everyone, I would really suggest Preparing. CTC is going to be a reach. I am currently combining a near 12, 9, and a near 8 year old in Preparing. I would not want to be trying CTC right now with the three of them. At the beginning of the year I had them separate, with the 11 year old in CTC.
Each guide does really increase in content. I chose to combine because with 8 children it was just too much to do three separate programs and my oldest daughter was lonely. She missed being with her siblings. School had become something to get done, not enjoy.

[Marsha]

I will post my plans.
I will have a K, 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 9th grader(with a 2 year old and one less than a year)

For my 9th grader:
Bible-Study of Genesis 1-11;Read Adam and His Kin and In the Days of Noah; keep a Docrtine Notebook; plus do Character Studies on Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph
Personal Development; Read Before You Meet Prince Charming
Geography: Read A Child's Geography Volume 2, Letters From Egypt, and A Traveller in Rome and do mapwork.
English/Literature: Analytical Grammar, Write with the Best/Teaching the Essay/Teaching the Research Paper or The Elegant Essay, and Literature from Heart of Dakota and Beautiful Feet Books
History: Listen in on Heart of Dakota and do Beautiful Feet Ancient Set
Science: Apologia Biology with Labs
Photography-Online Course
Math-Mathusee Geometry
Choir- Will join
Piano-Learn using Piano For Life cd's and practice

For my 5th and 6th grader:
Creation to Christ set;
They will use everything as schedule except they will do Intermediate Language Lessons and Mathusee.
They will use the boy and girl read-alouds as their reader. The 5th grader is a boy and the 6th grader a girl.

The K and 2nd grader...I want them to study Ancients and Biology with us.
They will do Reading Made Easy, Beginning Readers, Handwriting, and Mathusee for the K. The 2nd grader will do the 1st half of Primary Language Lessons, Level 2 readers, Writing with Ease 2, and Mathusee.
They will both do:
Story of the World 1 with Activity Guide and picture books
Elemental Biology for science
Write from History for copywork(2nd grader only)
Beyond Hearts for His Glory guide for Dictation passages, and Bible.

[my3sons]

Hi Shannon! I think PHFHG would be a better fit for combining with the ages and the individual placement specifics you've shared. It would be much easier to add the extension package for your 11 yo than to try to water down CTC for a 7 yo. CTC for a 7 yo would take some MAJOR tweaking, not to mention the content is intended for much older dc. PHFHG was great to do before starting CTC, since PHFHG does a one year sweep of history. It gave my ds the "hooks" to hang his later learning upon that CM talks about.

In Christ,
Julie

[Carrie]

Shannon,

I agree with the ladies that Preparing Hearts with extensions would be a better fit overall for the ages of your kiddos. While we are thoroughly enjoying CTC with my 5th grader this year, it definitely is a big step-up in independence and in content from Preparing Hearts. Children who fit the target age range of the guide should be fine with the content in CTC, however the guide is targeted for ages 9-11 with extensions for ages 12-13. So, for those who are between the ages of 9 and 13, the guide will work well overall. Even then, those on the youngest age range of the guide will find it very challenging. So, it takes a strong academic 9 year old to thrive in CTC.

Another thing to consider is that the guides will continue to increase in difficulty as they progress, so our new guide RTR will require an even higher level of maturity and academic rigor to complete. The next guides after RTR will move into the high school preparation mode. So, in looking down the road you'd be better situated in the longer run if you combined within Preparing Hearts. Then, you'd always have the option of moving your older one out of the rotation up to a more difficult guide and leaving your youngers thriving in the guide they are in. Just a thought.

One other thing to remember is that if you end up adding so much to the program to stretch it or tweak it (to fit kiddos who aren't actually in the age range of the guide) you could be making more work for yourself than it would be to just teach two separate programs. Often the adding of content ends up to be the equivalent of another program in itself!

So, your best option for meeting their needs where they are at would be to do Bigger Hearts and CTC next year. I do think this is a plan that would work, as CTC is quite independent, leaving time to teach Bigger Hearts. If this doesn't fit your family goals, then the next best plan would be combining within Preparing Hearts. This plan would take some definite tweaking for the 7 year old.

I don't see combining within CTC to be feasible with the content and with a 7 year old, as you'd mostly be pulling that child along as almost all of the content, assignments, and written work will be much too difficult for that child. Another thing to ponder is that the readings in CTC are meant to be done by the student independently, so they were not chosen for their read-aloud appeal. That makes those particular titles more difficult and much longer to read-aloud, as you'd be using them in a way in which they were not planned to be used. Just something worth weighing too.

Blessings,
Carrie

[threegreatkids]

I'm enjoying "listening in" on this conversation.
I've wondered about the level of difficulty in the upcoming guides, so that was helpful information.
OK, back to eavesdropping