Deciding on Placement

[3Blessings]

I'm trying to decide on placement for next year, and iron out our summer plans / schedule. I would really appreciate advice!

Background: DD started MP in 2nd grade. We started this year with 3A, but changed to the moderated pace after a few weeks. We also changed out Astronomy for Mammals.

This year has been a crazy year with a lot of life. We were a little bit behind, but nothing we couldn't catch up over the summer. Until the end of February when she broke her arm. She's just now getting transitioned into a brace but is still struggling with writing. I even posted and asked for advice when it happened I know that ideally we would have kept up with everything orally and kept right on track, but the truth is that is so time intensive and mom intensive that we didn't. Her retention on what we covered orally also isn't nearly as good as her retention on what she has written.

My initial plan was to push through this summer and get everything done to where we could start 4th in the fall. I'm not sure that's the best plan. I want her to have good retention of the content and not feel like we missed the entire summer just to push through. The upside to this is we don't have any more travel planned for the summer, and she only has 1 week of camp, other than that week, and the week Mom will be at Sodalitas we are home.

I don't think she really needs to repeat all of third. We have kept up well with math (she can write numbers with her left hand!), spelling we have switched to R&S and are just going to keep making progress on that, and literature has been easy to keep up with because she loves reading. Discussing the books with the guide was already something we were doing.

My latest thought is to put her in 4th for new users. That way she will get a review of the weeks we have done, and I believe is ready for the increased workload, and she'll be on track for 5th the next year. We could easily finish up math and literature over the summer, and we're doing our own thing with spelling. Thoughts? Ideas? Is there a better plan out there, or does this seem like it will work? I just don't want to rush through the wonderful content subjects and of course I want her to have a sturdy foundation in LC before moving onto FF. Thank you so much for any advice!

[pickandgrin]

Re: Deciding on Placement

I think 4NU sounds like a great plan to keep you moving forward with workload expectations but also give you the coverage you desire with the cumulative subjects. You won't need to buy much since you already own most of the materials from 3A (coming to mind: curriculum manual, math, writing, spelling-which you are subbing anyway, literature set)

Will she be frustrated with the repetition, or do you think it'll be an easy win for that part of the year? Her handwriting will probably be the biggest challenge, getting her back up to speed so that she can compete more work quickly.

If you choose 4NU, I'd give her as much of a break as you can this summer. Perhaps you cull out anything extra and only do what she needs to be ready for 4NU in the fall?

Hope this helps and I look forward to reading other ideas!

[3Blessings]

Re: Deciding on Placement

I think 4NU sounds like a great plan to keep you moving forward with workload expectations but also give you the coverage you desire with the cumulative subjects. You won't need to buy much since you already own most of the materials from 3A (coming to mind: curriculum manual, math, writing, spelling-which you are subbing anyway, literature set)

Will she be frustrated with the repetition, or do you think it'll be an easy win for that part of the year? Her handwriting will probably be the biggest challenge, getting her back up to speed so that she can compete more work quickly.

If you choose 4NU, I'd give her as much of a break as you can this summer. Perhaps you cull out anything extra and only do what she needs to be ready for 4NU in the fall?

Hope this helps and I look forward to reading other ideas!

Thank you so much for your feedback! We have most of the materials so really only need to purchase the manual, fable, math, and literature (of course I'll call and go over it with them to make sure we have what we need!). I think she would be okay with the repetition, especially since if we do a really light summer she will hopefully come at it refreshed. She has always been a slow worker, so we're going to be working on cursive throughout the summer to get her back up to speed in writing. Hopefully the review lessons that are easier will make the hard work of writing quickly and neatly less frustrating. All she really needs to be ready for 4NU would be to finish up math, which I don't like a long break from anyway, so that and cursive would be an easy summer.

I really appreciate your feedback! I'm hopeful this will be a good fit!