Family - When are all my children in the same program?

[Julie in MN]

Hi. I am new to MFW. I just received the catalog yesterday and I am just thrilled with what I see so far. I feel it is my answer to prayer. Some questions though. I have two boys, 5 and 7. This will be my second year homeschooling.

My question is how and when do I combine their schooling? Or will my oldest one always be ahead? I am pretty sure I've come to the conclusion that I can't combine the two this year, but I would like to eventually. Is this possible? If so, how?

I am also due in a month with #3. Is MFW too much for two and an infant, meaning too time consuming, especially when they're not combined?

Thanks,
Stephanie

Stephanie,
Welcome to MFW :o) You'll find a lot of enthusiasm here for how MFW has solved just such problems in our families.

I wanted to explain the idea of stages of learning, which is not new but is clarified for families in the MFW program:

1. Pre-reading - all those learning games you are doing with your kids
2. Learning to read - each child goes thru at their own pace
3. Learning to love to read - the family can enjoy learning all together from about 2nd to 8th grades
4. Learning by reading - the child will break away & start doing more independent learning in high school


Every child will need to go thru the Learning to Read stage on his or her own level, so off-and-on over the years you may be teaching more than one program at once. But you will have one "main" program & just add a "small" program for K and/or 1st - and it will likely even be just a partial program (reading/math).

Once out of that stage, they will fully join any siblings who are in the learning to love to read stage, which extends thru about 8th grade with most kids. You will not "start over" for them, but just welcome them into the group (they will have picked up a lot along the way already). All the 2nd-8th grade programs in MFW are designed for all your kids to learn together!

Have fun in MFW! Julie

[cbollin]

Welcome Stephanie,

Just a bit of encouragement here. The Hazells, authors of MFW, know what it is like to be juggling little ones while teaching young children. David Hazell has the experience of being the main homeschooling teacher. When child #4 was only a few weeks old, his wife went back to work as a full time classroom teacher. David was teaching the oldest and the next and had a toddler and a nursing infant. hmmmmm.... never did figure out how he dealt with THAT part of the picture. Anyway, the authors designed the program to help meet the needs of busy young families. :)

Julie already explained the idea that younger siblings listen and join in until around 2nd grade.

Once you get your teacher’s manual for Adventures, there is a section call “Help! How do I fit everything in?” In that section you will find some ideas to help with flexibility in juggling the needs of the infant and giving some independent reading time to the oldest students.

Here are some things that I did the year that my oldest was working in the Exploration to Countries and Cultures, next was Pre K, and I was dealing with an intensive high need autistic toddler. It was a hectic year. When I had to immediately tend to the youngest child or work on teaching the middle child, the oldest had a list of ready options to choose from: “book basket” time browsing books for fun, or to do some art/crafts, or (her favorite) play some math game on the computer.

Out of the "why I still can homeschool" testimony side from my family. The programs in MFW are designed to be successful in the real world of homeschooling, not some mythological ideal homeschool. If it hadn't been for MFW, I wouldn't still be homeschooling. To be sure, I'm not the perfect MFW user --- our timelines aren't colored in. They are not laminated. The history notebooks are a mess :) But my children are learning a lot.

I’m sure everyone has their own style for juggling around. The nice thing is that the MFW programs make it easy to get school done and still deal with homeschooling in the real world. It is doable. It is academic. It is easy to implement for both teacher and student.

--crystal

[jwood]

Stephanie,
I love the K program!!! And do not want to miss any part of the character development and science!!! I do the entire program with my K child and sometimes my older children help with the science. I am on my third time through K and my older still benefit and have fun with the program, it only takes 30 minutes of time. It is also a 27 week program so it can be stretched out over the 34(?) week older programs. My girls still show people their Creation Book! And their Scroll from 1st =)

Later programs:
Personally, my younger child came in as he wanted to during the older's program. He did the state sheets and made his own "portfolio" binder. He also came in for the projects and science but played outside or the Leappad during the rest of the program. You can also cut out the science, art etc as you choose in the 1st program.

Eventually they will join together and will be doing everything together except LA and Math. Their Math and LA will always be seperate but MFW plans for that and puts everything else together.

Once you settle into a routine things will go well, I am sure=) As long as the learning is fun and not pushed then kids turn out great loving school.

[mom2wonderfulboys]

Thank you all so much for your input. I appreciate it all. Like I said, I feel so blessed to have found MFW and I haven't even placed my order yet! I've been praying for so long for a curriculum. I was about to sit down and piece together a little of this and a little of that when the MFW catalog came. I am so glad I took the time to look at it.

God bless,
Stephanie

[Sue in MN]

Welcome to MFW. We are all very thankful that David and Marie Hazell came out with this curriculum. It is an answer to prayer for us too!

[Julie in MN]

we have 7 children, and another one due this summer... we have always homeschooled... i believe we have tried *everything* :( my boys are 14, 12, almost 11, and 8 - and the girls are 6, 4, and 1 ... the 6 and 8 year old do not read yet... they are the ones i am needing to work on the most... i was told to look into MFW - and it looks great... but my problem is i don't know what to do here--- do i concentrate on the 6 and 8 year old, and let the others do *whatever* or do i do them altogether or suggestions???? any help will be appreciated...
Tina

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 12:01 pm

Hi Tina,
Wow, what a mom you are!

With MFW, it is easy to combine grades 2-8 if they are all readers. You just jump into ECC, and then start the history cycle. Each child works at their own level, but all are studying the same things. The very youngest in the group will repeat the cycle again later and get even more out of it, so you don't have to feel pressured to achieve mastery in every child at this point.

Even if you have younger ones learning to read, they really can join the others in a lot of things. You can choose to let them tag along for any science, history/geography, Bible, art, music, and so on.

However, each child needs to be at his own level for math and learning to read (or, in learning some of the language arts skills that follow learning to read). The MFW-K and MFW-1 programs are very special programs that accomplish the math and reading skills, as well as much more.

You can teach all of MFW-K and/or MFW-1, and give your younger kids their own mom-time and special program. Or, you can pick & choose what your youngers especially need to focus on, and then do the rest of the subjects together with the older kids.

As for your 14-year-old, he may be heading into the high school program soon. Again, it could be a chance for you to spend a bit of special time with him, studying one of his subjects with him such as Bible, or at least in the scheduled parent meeting once a week. To prepare for high school, it may be helpful to transition him into a couple of independent things this year, such as science and math. Most kids of this age are ready and eager to be given some independence, tho of course each child is unique.

Hope that's a start,
Julie

[cbollin]

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 12:12 pm

In addition to Julie’s ideas (which I agree with) I want to encourage you to consider also calling the MFW office and talk with them to find the best fit for everyone with your family. David Hazell knows what it is like to teach with a bunch of little ones at his feet. But we'll try to help with our ideas over here as well.

Like Julie said, your children in grades 2-8 could all use ECC, Exploring Countries and Cultures. There is a 7th-8th Grade Supplement package. Here's a quick link to that.
http://www.mfwbooks.com/ecc_7-8.htm

And with MFW K, 1st or ECC programs it is easy to let a 4 y.o tag along and have some school time with older siblings. There are lots of hands on projects and family style activities in the programs that can help to educate, involve and occupy those younger siblings. The 4 y.o might even pick up some early reading skills too.

Don’t worry too much about trying to do ECC while also doing K or 1st. K and 1st don’t take too much time

-crystal

[mlbuchina]

I have a dd6 and dd4. I began dd6 with MFWK when she was 5, with little sis tagging along as she may. We are now in MFW1st, and I am having dd4 going back through the phonics of MFWK, and joining in with dd6 with Bible and science from 1st.

What I need to know is, how do I teach Adventures? Do I just do Adventures with both of them, keeping the math, LA at grade level, or try to go through 1st again? Or K again? Dd4 will be dd5 and reading well once we get into Adventures, and I don't know if she will want to repeat K or 1st. The phonics instruction of 1st will end up being review, so I know we won't be doing it again. We are already doing the Bible lessons and timeline, and will be adding to the timeline with Adventures... Anyone see my confusion? I'm not really sure how I would go through MFWK and Adventures. Has anyone done this? I saw a post about doing K and 1st at the same time, but not one with kids two years apart.

Any suggestions or thoughts would be great! TIA!

Oh, well going back and re-reading Marie's post about teaching K and 1st together makes perfect since now. I guess I just needed to write it out and organize my thoughts! I've been doing it that way all along.
http://board.mfwbooks.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=191

[kerby]

LOL

Did you keep reading the post and see how to combine them next yr as well? You could do it that way, but if you honestly feel the phonics/reading instruction in 1rst would not be as helpful for your younger dc, then you can always use a different phonics for that yr. Your older dc would be ready for the next step of learning, using what MFW recommends.

[RachelT]

Hi! My kids are 2 years apart, so our situation was similar to yours. It is nice that Marie has some great posts on how to specifically work it all out. We didn't exactly follow her pattern, but we were close. We did MFWK with 5 and 3 yr old chiming in, then we did 1st gr when ds was 6 and dd was 4 and she listened in on most of it, but I did MFWK phonics with her that year. The 3rd year ds was in Adventures and she did it with us except for another K/1st phonics program for her reading and her own math because I decided that she needed more time to be a Kindergartener even though her reading and writing were advanced for her age. This year we are doing ECC together and she has her own math and we are going through the MFW 1st gr. phonics workbook, Bible reader, and Bible notebook. The 1st grade phonics is review for my dd because she is reading at a much higher level, but it's also nice that it isn't hard and there are still some specific pattern or exceptions to the typical spelling patterns that she is learning. I purposefully did not do the 1st gr. phonics with her when my ds was doing it, so that he would have his "own" reading program. Next year, she will have her own spelling, English, reading, and math, but they will both be in CtG! It helps so much to be able to use MFW unit studies with multiple children at different grade levels (and I only have two!).

HTH
Rachel

[mlbuchina]

We did MFWK with 5 and 3 yr old chiming in, then we did 1st gr when ds was 6 and dd was 4 and she listened in on most of it, but I did MFWK phonics with her that year.

This is where we are now. Dd6 is doing 1st, and dd4 is listening to most and doing MFWK phonics. This is just throwing me off for next year when she is "technically supposed" to be in K. What do I do then??? Let me read on...

The 3rd year ds was in Adventures and she did it with us except for another K/1st phonics program for her reading and her own math because I decided that she needed more time to be a Kindergartner even though her reading and writing were advanced for her age.

I see. This is where we will be next year. So your younger did basically the same during this year as the the one before. Followed along with Adv., but did her own phonics and math. I am planning on using the phonics I used with dd6 once we are finished with MFWK phonics (only 2 more letters now). Dd6 was already reading when we started MFWK, so I had to get the different phonics program, and dd4 is following along a similar path.

This year we are doing ECC together and she has her own math and we are going through the MFW 1st gr. phonics workbook, Bible reader, and Bible notebook. The 1st grade phonics is review for my dd because she is reading at a much higher level, but it's also nice that it isn't hard and there are still some specific pattern or exceptions to the typical spelling patterns that she is learning. I purposefully did not do the 1st gr. phonics with her when my ds was doing it, so that he would have his "own" reading program. Next year, she will have her own spelling, English, reading, and math, but they will both be in CtG! It helps so much to be able to use MFW unit studies with multiple children at different grade levels (and I only have two!). HTH Rachel

OK. Now they are both in ECC, but you have dd doing 1st gr. phonics for review and the Bible reader and notebook. Is this easy to incorporate into ECC? Are you doing any of the stories in the TM or activities, or are you just having her read the reader and making the notebook? I have the TM for Adv. and just could not see how to include MFWK activities into it, hence the beginning of this thread. I know I am probably thinking way too far ahead, but I am such a planner I can't help myself sometimes! I want to make sure that I don't leave my younger behind and end up missing something, you know?

Thank you so much for sharing your experience! It really has helped me be able to see the long term goal and planning!
Michele