Tell me about your day?

[~Amanda~]

I'm struggling. We are so behind, I'm not 100% sure how we got here. I mean, yeah, I know how we got here; I took a job outside the home, thinking I could be supermom and stay on top of it. it wasn't until I quit that I really realized HOW far behind they were. They are all over the place; some subjects are only a few days behind, some several weeks.

 

I need to change what I'm doing. but I don't know what to change it to. So, could you tell me about your day and what you do and how it goes, and maybe I can get some ideas on how to switch up my style. My kids are 10 and 12.

[elegantlion]

We're behind too. We have 3 weeks left and I'm not doing more school than that for several reasons. We will need to finish math over the summer, ds knows that, and he'll have reading to do, but beyond that I'm standing firm on break time. We all need it.

 

To facilitate that I've spent some time going over each subject. A few we just stopped and will pick up next fall. One we will double up on each day to finish. Another we will get done what we get done, we're continuing it next fall and it's been low priority anyway.

 

Our last three weeks will mostly be literature (must finish), math (need to work on - will finish in summer), and writing (have a definitive stopping point).

 

In the past I've kind of dangled the fact he'd have to finish over the summer. The reality is *I* don't want to finish over the summer either. I need a break and I still have lots for fall to plan.

 

We'll finish history this week and have a few movies on the schedule. It's been very freeing to simply mark a few things off the schedule.

[MomatHWTK]

We use several online subscription based resources so I sorted my curricula for the year into categories by time left and made myself a little reminder chart.

 

Bible is first in our day, but right now that is just a devotional reading. Next are the classes through the online program that ends in July. We aren't going to be able to finish everything that program has to offer because it covers several subject areas and grade levels. So instead of completion I am looking to at least do 1-2 of the available classes per day. Ideally we would do more because there are 5-6 great subjects covered by the classes, but that would tend to overwhelm my students. ;)

 

Then we do our online course that has an actual schedule and deadlines with assignments due. This one ends in 3 more weeks.

 

Next, is VP self-paced. I have this subscription for longer, but there is a lot of material to cover so we need to try to keep up with it.

 

After that I have a collection of read-alouds on different topics and I try to do one of those a day. These have no deadline, they are just things we should be learning or are of interest to the kids.

 

Finally, we work on math, writing, reading and spelling. These are last because the kids are split up for some of these and the materials are open ended. My oldest has LDs and we've been working on getting those under control this year so I would say we are "behind" in these particular subjects. But, we will be hitting them harder once we start the new school year in July and our subscription based materials expire.

 

DS had indepent reading that had I assigned every day would be finished by the end of this school year, but I skipped some days. Looking at the bookmark placement, I think we are in pretty good shape. I'm going to sit down today and see how many pages are left in each book then decide whether to accelerate his reading schedule or carry the books over into the next year.

 

So basically, anything with an external deadline gets priority. Everything else gets handled on a case by case basis. :)

[phathui5]

On the days I'm off work, I homeschool the children. When I'm at work, our babysitter oversees the schoolwork.

 

My older two are 11 and 8.

 

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday we do history. Science is on Tuesday and Thursday. Today for history we'll be reading a section from Story of the World chapter 24 together and answering the review questions.

 

Today, my 11 year old did schoolwork from 9-10:40am. He did a lesson in Saxon Math 7/6, two pages in Key to Fractions, practiced math on www.ixl.com and practiced Latin on headventureland. He'll do another hour of schoolwork this afternoon.

 

My 8 year old did one lesson in CLE Math 3, 2 pages in Explode the Code 8 1/2, a chapter in Song School Latin and the test for a CLE Bible Lightunit. She'll need to do spelling and reading this afternoon and then she'll be done for the day.

[PeterPan]

Weeks are nothing. Months behind, now THAT gets more interesting, lol. Make a plan for the basics and plan to work it most of the summer. You'll get there. If you start NOW, you can get in 12 weeks and still have a full month off in August before Labor Day. That's enough off for anyone, mercy, lol. 12 weeks is basically a semester, so you're going to be fine. Whatever is wrong can probably get fixed by then. Just don't get too picky and think essential things that really *aren't*. There's almost nothing a 10 yo does except for math that is unskippable. Have the kids been reading? I mean seriously, if they can read, remember how to form letters, and have completed their grade level of math, you're fine. Everything else can be picked up in the fall. That Jr. AG is *not* essential. It's totally skippable, just DROP it. Spelling is nice, but it will always be there. Just finish their math.

 

What you might do then is pick *1* thing they can work on that you can encorporate a number of skills into (spelling, etc. etc.). For us it's a state study. Don't know what it might be for you. Don't even fret all that other stuff. The chem didn't matter; read library books. The history odyssey didn't matter; read library books. Don't cry over spilled milk and don't ruin their summer trying to fix everything perfectly. Pick one thing and don't worry about the rest. It really WON'T matter. The world won't blow up, and they'll still be fine to move on in the fall.

 

Maybe your one encompassing thing could be a summer reading challenge! That would be a sneaky way to get a whole bunch done but only do one thing (plus math obviously). Take whatever their history time period was (Middle Ages, whatever) and make up reading forms with sections for each genre and some pretty pictures to represent the theme at the top (castle, knights, whatever). Should be categories like biography, science, war/weapons, poetry, fiction, etc. Then challenge them to some competition where they try to get one book in each category for a stamp and a reward at the end. Bonus is finding a hands-on project to do to fit with the theme. Then you head to the library and let them find books. And for every book they fill in, maybe they have to write a 3 sentence summary. So boom they're reading, writing, summarizing, covering science, history, lit. Not perfectly, but it's something DONE. Then move on in the fall.

 

Homeschooling is way too short to do it with regrets. Say it was a lesson learned, make the best of it, and move on.

[~Amanda~]

<3 thank you OhElizabeth. its very hard to not have tunnel vision and feel like you are totally screwing something up right now.

[jth]

Thank you so much for that! We find ourselves a little behind - some a little, others a little more... I appreciate your words of wisdom on letting it go! :grouphug:

[Lily_Grace]

I'll agree, days and weeks behind is nothing. :grouphug:

 

That said, we have hit upon a good rhythm in the past few months with history/science that rely quite a bit on independent study. Each week he completes one unit or card and Fridays are set aside for presentation day. He does projects, research, mapwork, and essays, putting them together in a folder. I break it down to "do 2 tasks" for each day (or however many there are divided by four), but he chooses which ones. Sundays are set aside for library trips to gather materials for the coming week.

Those are the mandatory things. The extras, what I do with him when we have time, are the elaborate projects, the experiments, and the extra guidance on making outlines.

[SailorMom]

I think we've all been weeks behind before for one reason or another :grouphug:

 

Don't push too hard on math - it's hard to make up time on that and still get the retention. Prioritize everything else.

I'm not an advocate of it under most circumstances, but remember that public schools consider a course complete if the kids finish 2/3rds of a text book (might make you feel better!)

 

As for the future.... I have to hold myself accountable for the daily stuff. I have to remind myself that, no - we can't make up for it later....

I split everything up by weeks at the beginning of the year, and if we get off track, I know just by looking how many days/weeks I have to re-divide it all by to get done in time. This year we took an extra week of vacation and I had to split that all up to catch up.

Math and science are non-negotiable - they have to be 100% complete before we stop.

The others, I'm a bit more flexible. I prioritize at the beginning of the year, and add extras the last month that I won't be too upset about missing if we don't get there. That way we have flexibility built in for not just getting behind, but also for changing topics, or spending time on other interests.

[HecticMama]

My 11 year old is almost always a week behind her younger sister, even though they pretty much have the same curriculum, and I worry because history always gets left behind, to be done over the summer. We always do a second math over the summer (review type work), because I've found they lose a lot if they don't do a little every day. We take time off when we need it, but I've found that doing a little all summer is a good thing to keep away the "I'm bored!" comments.

[TCoppock]

We ended up months behind due to illness and major changes in our lives, so I just moved our school year Jan.-Dec. Slowly we have been making headway to get back to a September start. Now we are really close I have this feeling we are behind where we should be. I'm go crazy to get us back on track for Sept. (perhaps a little too crazy)

 

What we did to catch up was drop subjects which DS seemed to have master. Ex. Handwriting

 

We combined subjects. Ex. Vocabulary and Spelling.

 

We counted outside classes as school. Ex. Music Lessons, Swimming, Sunday School and RA

 

We schooled year round and worked weekends when needed so we did not fall further behind. Ex. School work not complete during the week, or prior to and after vacations

 

We've had to make some sacrifices, but I think it's been worth it.