What are your strategies for finishing strong?

[bookfiend]

We only have five weeks left, and I can hardly fuss at the boys when I am the one constantly distracted. Where do you dig out the motivation to finish strong? If you don't have any magic words, at least tell me I'm not the only one!

[Starr]

I have yet to finish strong. We just wind down until it is done but often that is August. If you want your break you have to be braver than I and finish strong. Good Luck. :)

[CalicoKat]

feeling like I'm on my belly doing the army crawl these days............

 

Hang on on it's going to get bumpy.

[FaithManor]

I schedule all of our dissecting and microscope studies for May so that I know I need to be winding down in April in order to accomodate this. I schedule all of our really awesome field trips in June and if anyone gives me big attitude about getting school work done by the beginning of May or at the latest, Memorial Weekend, they don't go and have to stay home with Big sis the paramedic in training. This is a huge motivation for all of us.

 

The added bonus is that dd is just beginning to start I.V. procedures, intramuscular, and intradermal injections, etc. She looks at veins like a starved, rabid dog looks at a bunny! Knowing that she isn't allowed to actually "practice" on them doesn't make it any better because she still has lots of other "tortures" to put the boys through such as setting up mock accident scenes in the yard and making them all play roles, plus endless hours of having their vitals taken or holding note cards and quizzing her. She is completely enthralled with her course of study and overwhelms the boys so this works to my favor since it is inconceivable to them to be left with her. LOL

 

Dh helps keep us on track as well. He also very much likes me as a sane person and will make some little person's life miserable if he gets home and I am wild eyed and crazy. I am very thankful for his help in this.

 

Seriously, having some goals like the above, have helped us keep on track. We'll do some crazy creative writing projects plus the field trips and more whacky science things throughout June, but otherwise we will take a break from formal work and July will be devoted to 4-H and the Fair...then we'll be back on the educational wagon in August but I do ease us into the routine and don't do all the subjects everyday until September.

 

Faith

[iquilt]

We do weekly field trips as we start to wind down. I am more motivated to get it done if we have fun excursions to plan.

[Pamela H in Texas]

The years we've "done school" we did NOT even TRY to finish strong. We started finishing materials in March/April (we also started earlier since it's so HOT) and so each day, week, etc just meant less schoolwork, more play time (which is extremely important in Texas spring! To me, it's about winding down, not finishing strong.

[Rhonda in TX]

We don't finish strong. We just peter out. :)

 

We're dropping subjects as they're finished. Grammar was done back in February. My idea was that I was freeing up the schedule to work on writing, but that isn't going quite as planned. I find it very difficult to pile on the work when we're so close to the end of the year.

 

4 weeks and 4 days to go. Woo-hoo!

[Kimm in WA]

When my boys were little (they are now 16, 15, and 15) we spent the last 2 weeks making "homemade books" ala Valerie Bendt "Creating Books with Children". Oldest now at CC and I have a 10yog but they still LOVE doing the homemade books each year (OK, oldest did a cookbook the last year he did one so he didn't have to do creative writing and did minimal drawing). It always feels like a HUGE push for ME at the end of the year but to the kiddos it feels like a reward for their hard work. They will often work harder as the year comes to an end so as to completely free up those last two weeks to ONLY work on their books... and look at their previous years' books, clear back to when some of them were only 3 yrs. old.

 

HTH,

Kimm

[patchfire]

We plan a vacation for the week in which our last five days fall. Since I plan 160-175 days of work for each subject, we can easily count our trip as the last five days (and they are usually quite educational!). If the work isn't done, we have to take work on our trip :( or do it when we return :( :(. No one wants to do that! So we finish. :)

[texasmama]

I made a schedule for the subjects that are important to me to get done and follow it, if not daily, at least to see that we get all the week's work done. It keeps me on track, :001_smile:

[Daisy]

I made a schedule for the subjects that are important to me to get done and follow it, if not daily, at least to see that we get all the week's work done. It keeps me on track, :001_smile:

 

:iagree:

 

Every last lesson planned down to the week, if not the day. Makes it much hard to flake. It helps keep the end in site. One foot in front of the other until you reach the finish line.

[Pippen]

We do weekly field trips as we start to wind down. I am more motivated to get it done if we have fun excursions to plan.

 

:iagree: I've got full day field trips planned for most of the remaining Wednesdays, so it motivates me to keep on track the rest of the days.

 

I've actually stepped up the reading these past few weeks and that's helped.

 

The last week I'm going to have her do a scrapbook of her school year.

[Dandelion]

When my boys were little (they are now 16, 15, and 15) we spent the last 2 weeks making "homemade books" ala Valerie Bendt "Creating Books with Children"... They will often work harder as the year comes to an end so as to completely free up those last two weeks to ONLY work on their books... and look at their previous years' books, clear back to when some of them were only 3 yrs. old.

 

 

What a neat idea! I'll be checking this out... Thanks! :)

[kalanamak]

I have broken down and made a daily sched and read hubby the riot act about impinging on it. I've also broken down and let kiddo watch Mike Venezio vids for all work completed and well done. I hope this bribe doesn't come back to haunt me.

[Renee in NC]

Finish?!?!? We're supposed to finish?

 

Please don't tell my dc!:lol:

 

I'll be honest, though - if I could write lesson plans, stick to them, and my dc would progress at some steady rate, we'd finish too....:leaving:

 

We're always year round by default, not plan. We did take last summer off, but it was because of the move and living with my Mom. We didn't get into our own place until October.

[Chris in VA]

We don't finish strong. We just peter out. :)

 

We're dropping subjects as they're finished. Grammar was done back in February. My idea was that I was freeing up the schedule to work on writing, but that isn't going quite as planned. I find it very difficult to pile on the work when we're so close to the end of the year.

 

4 weeks and 4 days to go. Woo-hoo!

 

THis is us, too--but then I get charged up again, for some reason, and start in on new material around the end of April! Why IS that? lol

We have finished grammar and are one lesson away from finishing our math book. I have decided to order the next set for math, but just do worksheets for grammar.

We still have SOTW and Science (nearly all science...) to finish. And I'd like to get to the African studies we were supposed to be doing this year...and the art...:D

[Liza Q]

I made a schedule for the subjects that are important to me to get done and follow it, if not daily, at least to see that we get all the week's work done. It keeps me on track, :001_smile:

 

:iagree:

 

We have five *weeks* worth of work left after the one we are in right now. We can squish it into four weeks if we are feeling motivated or spread it out over seven weeks if we decide to have a lot of park days! Whatever happens, we should be done by mid-June at the latest. That will give us at least a month off and we will start up again in mid-July. Having this plan keeps me from being afraid to take any time off but keeps me accountable to finish the work we need!

 

Well, I have to go - we are skipping school today (well, we will do a few things before we go out) as the Cherry Blossoms are in bloom!

 

ETA - I want to mention that there are some things that we will not finish. We started GWG late in the fall so I expect that it will spill over into next year - no big deal. Spelling is another thing that doesn't really get finished - they just keep going at their own pace. But I like to finish most things so we can move on!

Edited April 20, 2010 by Liza Q

[gandpsmommy]

I can completely relate to your sentiment. My best tips are to try to get out and do something energizing and engaging at least once a week. I find that sometimes taking one day off to do something that stimulates our minds and gives us a change of pace does more for helping us to concentrate and stay on task for the remainder of the week than just plowing through, although it may initially seem counterproductive.

 

For us taking a spontaneous field trip to the art museum in the middle of last week seemed to perk us up a bit. And yesterday we had to go to a mid-morning appointment an hour away, and decided just to use the rest of the day to go to the library (where we found some great books--always an energizing experience for me), go out to lunch, shop for dh's birthday gifts, do our weekly grocery shopping, and go home to let the kids play with their neighborhood friends outside for the evening.

 

For the rest of the week, I try to get them to do their schoolwork as quickly as possible so that we can get outside to play in the afternoon. A lot of times in the springtime we go outside to do our schoolwork. We have done our schoolwork on a blanket on the grass, on our picnic table under the trees, on the patio table on our deck, under the canopy on our wooden playset, and even in the hammock.

 

We also find great joy in finishing up some curr. early. We have already finished SOTW. We will soon finish FLL3.