Can someone help me with the lesson splitting over the course of the year?

[Hunter's Moon]

I'll be taking some year long courses but I don't plan on taking them daily. English for example. I am taking Grammar and writing 1/2 year and Amer. Lit 1/2 year. Say I only do 3 days of English a week. How do I make sure I complete everything so I can finish in time? How do I know how many lessons to split 'em up into? It will obviously be less than 180 and may take a bit longer than if I did it everyday for 180 days, but how do I figure this out with math? I have been trying all day and confusing myself. How do you do it?

 

 

PS, thank you all of you for putting up with me, a sixteen year old girl with all my questions. You are all the best and most helpful people I have ever met and I could never be more grateful for this board. I came on this board thinking about Homeschool and now I'm going through with it. Thank you so much! :D

[Teachin'Mine]

Most schools which fall under the 180 days a year law, use four quarters of nine weeks each. If you take a look at your books, most will be designed with this time frame in mind.

 

Saxon math, for example, has about 120 to 130 lessons in the text. That combined with the 30 tests comes out to almost the full number of days, so doing a lesson a day is the usual.

 

Our geography book has 34 lessons, so that works out to one lesson a week. If we were doing it in half a year, that would mean two lessons a week.

 

Generally, I would recommend either doing a subject fewer days a week, or for half a year, but not both combined. Unless there is very little to cover, this may work out to be too much work on those two or three days out of the week. If there's a lot of reading, it could work, but if there's a lot to memorize, and each lesson needs to have time to sink in before more is introduced, I think it would be too much to retain. By doing a full year course in half a year, and then only two or three days out of the week, that's putting a lot on those days.

 

How many chapters are in the English book you'll be using? Take that number and divide it by 18. That will tell you how many chapters you need to do in a week. Then you can look at how much work is in each chapter or lesson, and determine how many days you'll need to complete the work. Also take into account study time for tests, and time for the tests themselves.

 

Some books like science, if it doesn't work out to break it down by chapters, you can just look at the total number of pages in the book, and divide that by 36, or even 32, and make that your goal for each week. Dividing it by fewer weeks allows you some extra time to spend studying for quarterly tests, subject tests or AP, or whatever you may need the time for.

 

I don't know if any of what I've written helps, but that's how I've done it. Then we make up a chart with five days on it, we don't call them Monday, Tuesday, etc. - we use day 1, day 2, etc. That way if a holiday falls on a Monday, or we take off a Friday, it doesn't throw our schedule off. We just keep rotating from days 1 through 5 no matter what day of the week it is.

 

If you give some details on the courses you're trying to schedule - number of lessons, chapters, pages, what needs to be done for the course, etc. - we can probably give you more specific help.

 

This forum is amazing for getting help!!! :)

[Hunter's Moon]

By doing a full year course in half a year, and then only two or three days out of the week, that's putting a lot on those days.

 

I'm sorry, I meant that both of my English courses combined together would be a year, not that I wanted to do English all in half a year. I am doing Grammar and writing for 1/2 a year, and then Amer. Lit for 1/2 a year. The only classes I will do everyday is Math and Science but I feel for English, and most other courses, I can do them in four or less days, especially since some are just 1/2 year courses.

 

I don't know if any of what I've written helps, but that's how I've done it.

You were very helpful.

 

I'll also give some details on the courses I'm trying to schedule, as you said, so people on here may help me.

 

English: Grammar and Writing: There are 16 chapters, and about 410 pages of lessons. I cannot really say how many "lessons" in each chapter because there are many listed on the same page. Since this is only one part of my english and 1/2 a year, I would like to finish in 1/2 a year so about 16 weeks in. So, would I do one chapter a week, or if more hefty split the chapters into 2 sections and do 2 a week?

My Amer. Lit book is more extensive and considered honors, so I'm guessing I will have to spend more time on this per week than grammar and writing. They go by units, and there are 4. There are 181 pages. I would also like to finish this is half a year. This book requires more extensive research and essays, not book work so much. I am going to do grammar and writing the first 1/2 of the year, and then finish with Amer. Lit.

 

I am using Math U See for Math, so I think I am pretty set with that for now.

 

 

You were very helpful. Thank you so much. And you're right:

This forum is amazing for getting help!!!

 

I also like the day thing you do: Day 1, Day 2, etc. It makes sense. Thanks, for everything. Very informative :D

[Susan C.]

A friend told me something about the English that may help you. Do the grammar/writing the first semester. Sixteen chapters plus tests and extra time for papers should take about a semester. If you think the literature might take longer than a semester, give yourself a month or two head start with it, doing both the grammar/writing and literature for a month or two.

 

When you are pacing yourself, don't forget to give time for review and tests.

[Hunter's Moon]

A friend told me something about the English that may help you. Do the grammar/writing the first semester. Sixteen chapters plus tests and extra time for papers should take about a semester. If you think the literature might take longer than a semester, give yourself a month or two head start with it, doing both the grammar/writing and literature for a month or two.

 

When you are pacing yourself, don't forget to give time for review and tests.

 

Thank you. That's what I was thinking. The Literature relies a lot on essays so I figured I should refine my skills before I begin. I am just a bit confused on how to split up the Lit. because it goes by units. I'll give it a closer look though and see what goes with what and do it that way.