A Year off HOD to MFW then Back again...ill-prepared?

[rika4584]

If a student takes a year off HOD after CTC to go into MFW ECC to mature a bit, will he or she still be prepared to jump back into HOD for the RTR guide? Or, will the student have lost skills and risk no longer being  ready for HOD RTR?

 

 

[momofabcd]

You could have dc continue working on the skills they learned in CTC within MFW ECC. They should still be sufficiently prepared for HOD RTR. Of course, I haven't tried this, but I'm in the same boat you are, except that we are taking a year between Preparing and CTC for maturity. I just plan on honing the skills she learned in Preparing.

[cbollin]

I agree with momofabcd to continue on the "skills" in other program.

 

I'd like to share what I did with my children in our mfw years on skills...  It's going to seem "too simple", ;) (but my oldest just graduated and is college ready, so something worked in my method, I hope. )

 

math and language art are always at level, so I'll skip that as it's not relevant to your big question...

 

skill growth in science:  as students are in grades 5-6, student becomes more responsible for set up and clean up for any science experiements and demos.  Begin to write simple lab reports or notebooking pages on various experiments.

 

I let them check the boxes in the grid when they were done.

 

I let them pick and select what they wanted to read from book basket and just narrate to me about it.

 

let them do the crafts without it having to be "blog worthy". 

 

my at the time jr. higher in ECC had to do more of the Country Summary Sheets, do full report.

 

ECC will have a fanatastic time of independent research with the "Continent Packet" (using World Geography workbook.)  They have to learn how to cross reference resources in order to do the worksheets.   Help them as needed in the beginning to learn which resources to find.   Plan a weekend day to go to local library and ask the reference desk for almanacs, and all of that.   If you do one continent together, then they can do the next one with less help... grow all year...  

 

I think you'll be fine.   Even if the weekly grid and daily notes do not have the words "do this semi independently" "do this together"... I really think you'll be fine.   Remember to read the notes in the intro of the teacher's manual for things you can do all year.

 

If they aren't doing enough writing:  have them write a little more from the Hero Tales biographies. 

 

make a student copy of the grid with any notes "Teresa, you do both geography vocab words.   Patrick, you only do the first word listed. Wiley, I expect you to just trace the picture and I'll write the word on the notecard"   (ok..  I just used names from the Mentalist..  that's weird...)   

 

basically...   you will know your children and their abilities..  and can adjust for a wide variety of abilities. as the year continues..  you can change it so Wiley now has to trace and write.   you get the idea.

 

I really do think homeschooling in general in flexible for that, and ECC has a lot of room for wide variety of skills.

 

hope some of that helps a bit to have a plan how to continue and grow.

[rika4584]

Thank you, Momofabcd and Cbollin!  There is so much to ponder :-).  Besides Sonlight, MFW, and HOD, are there any other programs that would work well as a filler year?  I need something put together for me because things will be crazy with life for a few months next school year.