Please help me though this block

[Parrothead]

I was on a roll a couple weeks ago with planning for 9th grade. I think I've planned a few weeks in most subjects. Now I can't make myself go back to it. It isn't an overwhelmed feeling. More of a, "I"m really going to screw this up."

 

I can't figure out how to start again. I'll start reading a book to see how to fit it in to the plan (or to make a plan from it if it is a text) and things start looking like blah, blah, blah. Then I put it down and say "Nope, I don't want to do this now." The I go of and get distracted by something mind numbing like digital card games.

 

This has been going on about two weeks now. This evening when I decided that dd should be an 8th/9th grader starting next week I thought I'd be able to buckle down since it is kind of crunch time to getting things re-organized and ready for what comes next.

 

I picked up our lit resource and once again put it down thinking I'll go play cards instead. This is just too difficult to do.

 

I've never experienced anything like this. Even when we first started homeschooling 9 years ago. How do I get through this?

 

 

ETA: Sorry this should have probably been posted in the Gen Ed board. I didn't really realize I was still on the HS board when I started the thread.

[Rosie_0801]

I'd begin with sleep and a decent meal, followed by new purple and green pens and some chocolate. That got my essays for uni written, anyway.

[jhschool]

I would

1. make your daughter an 8th/9th grader for now; you can decide later what to call her

depending on the number of credits you have in 4 years; there is no rush to decide right now.

2. make a schedule for just next week--trial week 1

3. if it doesn't work by the end of next week tweak it and see how that works.

 

What I mean it, for example, say something like:

1 hour of math a day from this book (whatever level you are doing) which you already have

1 hour of science a day from this other book (pick one--it doesn't matter which) which you

already have

1 hour of English a day from either classics, writing, reviewing vocab, or watching Shakespeare

or whatever textbook you already have

1 hour of history a day from whatever simple book you already have and do the problems or answer the questions at the end.

15 min of practicing whatever instrument

 

And do that the whole week; stay on autopilot and do not question anything for the

whole week. At the end of the week, evaluate what worked and

what didn't. If something worked, leave it alone. If something didn't, change it for

the next week.

 

Not sure if this is what you were looking for...but it's a suggestion.

 

Anyway, also get rid of your card games; come read the boards instead! I got my

best ideas here! Also chocolate like PP said sounds good! Except hot chocolate

sounds better!

[elegantlion]

Schedule your work time. Give it a few days, write a list. Treat it like a job and parse out the duties. Also remember it's February. I have to go in spurts on the planning. Having worked for years before staying home, I find it best if I tackle it with that "employee" mindset. My son's education is the boss. Failure really isn't an option, but it won't get completed in one sitting either.make a list of what needs to be done, prioritize it, and set aside time to do it. You can do this!

[Maureen]

I feel your pain! I'm facing 3 girls in 9th grade this fall. I have set aside this semster to figure things out and get ready. Right now I'm trying out Trisms format for history to see if that's what I want to use in high school. I've printed out the 1920s and 1930s outlines and we will do each decade over two weeks. At the end of the month I plan to sit the girls down and ask them what they liked/disliked and go from there. I'm also exploring science curriculum choices for Biology and plan to lay a few out for them and have them decide which one they want to use. By the end of this semester I hope to have fall figured out. Then we'll jump in, stick with the plan for a couple of months, and see if we need to tweek things for the second semester.

 

My hope is that I can also teach them how to make weekly goals and transfer those to daily plans. I have read everything on URthemom.com. I love her philosophy.

 

Ultimately, I hope to work myself out of a job by the time they are mid-10th grade. I want them to take charge of their own education and be prepared for college because I don't plan to move into their dorm room.

 

Good luck with your planning! I wholeheartedly endorse the new pens and chocolate. I'd also add a Diet Coke.

[Nscribe]

I find the table of contents for each resource for each credit area really helps me take my thinking from each detail to a bigger picture outline. It helps me to see a flow for the year and decide how much time we will dwell in a given area. Initially, I don't do more than glance at the chapter layout for books and note in the margins of the TOC how many practice questions/so forth each chapter has. If using films/audio, I note the titles and time for each on the TOC. Then I hit the web and look for syllabi/pacing guides others may have available for the resources.

 

I compare the information from these to the time we have available for the year.

 

Then I go to the content itself and determine dwell times, what to cull, what to beef up. Math tends to pace itself (x number of lessons per week plus a few extra weeks to allow time to bolster weaker areas). Foreign languages and sciences tend to break down similarly.

 

Once I have a sense of pacing, the fun part starts. I will watch any visuals, read content and make decisions about what to add or delete/de-emphasize.

 

If I start with the content, I find I get bogged down and lose the forest for the trees and grass.

[Teachin'Mine]

My advice may not be the best, but I like Rosie's suggestions - especially the chocolate!

 

I'm impressed that you already have a few weeks planned. If your 9th grade schedule is a lot different from what you've been doing this year, then I'd be thinking along the lines of flexibility and not planning out the whole year or semester. The few weeks you've done may be plenty to get you started and to make adjustments in courses and course load, as needed. I'd look at next year's calendar and find the first week break that you'll take, and get plans to take you up to that point. Then you'll have time to plan further ahead and to make any changes. I think that reading the books you want to use for English and that type of prep work is great to do now. But until you've got the schedule in full swing, it may be hard to know how many written assignments you want to give her, or the best spacing for those.

 

But then again, I did start off with saying that my advice may not be the best. I'm more of a big picture planner, and not as concerned about the details so far out. All the best planning in the world won't be able to take into account the unknown as far as curricula compatibility, new interests, work on gaps, working slower or faster than expected, etc.. Don't forget that you have the whole summer too. Maybe you just need a break from the planning for now. I'd definitely use the rest of this year to work on any gaps and get her ready for next year by ramping up the time spent on school work a bit. The extra time doesn't have to be something she dreads as it could be done by adding in more time for an area or two of interest.

 

ETA: I'd also use this time to try out any new curricula for compatibility. If you're able to get it at the level she's at now, that's great, but if not, if you can start to buy next year's resources now, you'll have time to try them out to see if they're likely to work. It's so much easier to make changes now than after a quarter or two of work while in high school. With the pacing of high school texts, those mid-year corrections are costly timewise.

[regentrude]

I would not plan more than a few weeks in any case. See how things go, whether the curriculum you have chosen works out, whether the workload is right for your student, reevaluate periodically. Do not worry about preplanning the entire year.

I do not "plan" at all for high school- aside from big picture. I have a four year plan with classes penciled in and am willing to change even that. By the beginning of the school year, I have materials for each subject selected and let my students run with it. Easy to make changes along the road, because I don't have to worry about "wasting" carefully laid plans.

[Nscribe]

I would not plan more than a few weeks in any case. See how things go, whether the curriculum you have chosen works out, whether the workload is right for your student, reevaluate periodically. Do not worry about preplanning the entire year.

I do not "plan" at all for high school- aside from big picture. I have a four year plan with classes penciled in and am willing to change even that. By the beginning of the school year, I have materials for each subject selected and let my students run with it. Easy to make changes along the road, because I don't have to worry about "wasting" carefully laid plans.

 

I agree with this, with a caveat, that when a student is juggling a lot of rehearsals, practices and so forth it can help to have gone over the TOC's and anything that is long (video series) and see if it generally looks like too much.

 

Example from our experience: With Biology I realized by looking at the TOC that about 4 chapters of environmental content could be moved forward and just read and discussed. On the other hand, I saw that if we hit the plant content in February it would allow us to plant some seeds in the garden and do a couple of longer term observations and we see the concepts living around us entering the Spring. Had I followed the program exactly as presented it would not have fallen that way. I also noted that Genetics and the Biochem would be things we wanted to dwell on a bit more and glancing at the calendar saw that we had a week with no dance or theatre in Fall because of the public school's break. Thus, I knew going into the year this would be the time to aim to do it.

 

If I don't take a glance, we could hit a two week block of performances at the same time a difficult or especially time consuming content area presents. I don't plan each day in advance, but looking at the TOC's and having a generally feel before we enter the year helps us.

 

I also tend to be somewhat aware of the winter holidays. Family coming in, shows to do and so forth make that time between Thanksgiving and New Years particularly extra busy. Glancing ahead lets me decide if moving something around might keep us from being in an area that would not be served at all well with choppy time.

[Wildcat]

I was on a roll a couple weeks ago with planning for 9th grade. I think I've planned a few weeks in most subjects. Now I can't make myself go back to it. It isn't an overwhelmed feeling. More of a, "I"m really going to screw this up."

 

I can't figure out how to start again. I'll start reading a book to see how to fit it in to the plan (or to make a plan from it if it is a text) and things start looking like blah, blah, blah. Then I put it down and say "Nope, I don't want to do this now." The I go of and get distracted by something mind numbing like digital card games.

 

This has been going on about two weeks now. This evening when I decided that dd should be an 8th/9th grader starting next week I thought I'd be able to buckle down since it is kind of crunch time to getting things re-organized and ready for what comes next.

 

I picked up our lit resource and once again put it down thinking I'll go play cards instead. This is just too difficult to do.

 

I've never experienced anything like this. Even when we first started homeschooling 9 years ago. How do I get through this?

 

 

ETA: Sorry this should have probably been posted in the Gen Ed board. I didn't really realize I was still on the HS board when I started the thread.

 

Chucki, I have been on this board for several years, and have read many, many of your posts. I am confident that you will not 'screw up'.

 

First, I think the HS board is the perfect place for your post, as when high school was looming over me, this was where I came for inspiration and calming words.

 

Second, everyone has given great advice. I planned a little, ate a lot of chocolate, and read *tons*. I had back up plans, and many binders of printed materials (and bookmarks and doc files!!), much of which was compilations of posts from the women here. I agonized over which translation of the Iliad & Odyssey to use, I fretted over math curricula, and I hunted and searched the web for the 'recommended' edition of xx history text.

 

Like you, I didn't feel overwhelmed. At all. I felt terrified. Terrifed of messing up this super important 'job'.

 

I still worry and second guess and freak out (have you seen my posts recently, especially on AP English?!). I never thought I could homeschool, much less through high school. But you know what? It has worked out. I'm not sure how, but it has. My son was accepted into all the unis he applied to, and their honors programs, and is doing great in his senior year. The things he has accomplished have surpassed our hopes. My dd is also doing very well, and I suspect these next two years she will continue shine beyond what we had imagined ~~ she is already doing so, and she is poised to continue. They have shown me that it really doesn't matter which translation of the Iliad we read, as long as we read it and discuss it (we went with Fagles, BTW :lol: ).

 

If there is one thing I could go back and tell myself, it would be to breathe, relax, and don't eat so much chocolate. ;) I lost a lot of sleep because of the tossing and turning, and the worry that "it's all on my shoulders", and "what if I screw up", and 'what if, what if'. It will be fine.

 

I learned early on to only plan about six weeks at a time. I had a very, very rough sketch for the year, but only six weeks of actual plans. Rarely did that even work. I did find that I was constantly tweaking things. I would add things and take things out. The last four years are a blur because I was constantly planning and revising. And I don't regret one minute of it.

 

Breathe. Heed the advice given here. You will do just fine.

[elegantlion]

To add more, I enjoy flexibility and rabbit trails, but it is also my weakness to think we're doing fine and then panic when I realize we haven't progressed as far as necessary. Part of that is me, part of that is having an average student who will try to scoot by on the minimum amount of work.

 

This is what I plan. Break each class down into 36 weeks. We usually spread .5 credit classes out over the year. I DO NOT schedule everything needed for each week. I don't merge the weeks together like a Sonlight planner would. I need the flexibility to ebb and flow and be on different weeks in different subjects.

 

Part of planning is knowing how your student works.

 

In creating my course of study I have a good idea of what chapter we need to be on during each week. I also get an idea of what will be graded. Math is easy, chapter tests. I grade less and don't grade daily work, but I want to have some idea of how many graded items will be in a class.

 

Another caution is that you can over plan and under prepare. What I mean by that is I can plan each subject to the daily detail and feel like I've been productive. However, my time might have better been spent reading through that text or literature to understand it better. I ran into that this year. My planner was pretty, but there was at least one subject I should have spent more time studying and less time making the Word document formatted correctly. Does that make sense?

 

My planning for next year includes a lot more content prep rather than planner prep.

[Nscribe]

 

Part of planning is knowing how your student works.

 

 

 

:iagree: and would say......knowing how they don't work. :toetap05: I know one plan I can always be sure is right......start the morning by taking the cell phone and putting it on the charger in my office.

[Parrothead]

Oh, wow! Thanks for quoting me wildcat. I wouldn't have come back to check this otherwise.

 

Thanks for all the advice.

 

I do come read the high school board. I read from here an hour or so a day now. Sometimes that is just one long thread - like the interesting one about why do we do lit analysis. - of a bunch of little threads.

 

Employee mindset. That is a good idea. I might just do that over the weekend and have dh take care of the house stuff.

 

Yes, the web. That has been my greatest ally so far. It is how I've been able to do the little bit I've done. I've found syllabi for a few of the books I'm planning. That has been helpful. I've not thought to look for all of the books. That is a good idea. I think I'm stuck on the content, and making it complicated when it never has been before.

 

Rosie and Teachin'Mine those are wise words. I shouldn't take myself too seriously even though this is serious business. Funny thing - ,my mom bought me some funky colored pens for Christmas. I should use them for this. And to be clear I have a couple weeks of biology and a couple weeks of human geography. Everything else is still rattling around in my head like this :willy_nilly:

 

Regentrude I wish I had your motivated students. There is a slight lack of maturity in my dd that does not yet allow her to "run with it" even in her favorite subjects.

 

Yes, the last week of April and the first week of May we generally don't have school due to drama and dance performances. Or at least very light school. So I have to make up that time other times in the year.

 

Thanks, Wildcat. I needed to hear all that.

[regentrude]

 

I agree with this, with a caveat, that when a student is juggling a lot of rehearsals, practices and so forth it can help to have gone over the TOC's and anything that is long (video series) and see if it generally looks like too much.

...

 

If I don't take a glance, we could hit a two week block of performances at the same time a difficult or especially time consuming content area presents. I don't plan each day in advance, but looking at the TOC's and having a generally feel before we enter the year helps us.

 

I also tend to be somewhat aware of the winter holidays. Family coming in, shows to do and so forth make that time between Thanksgiving and New Years particularly extra busy. Glancing ahead lets me decide if moving something around might keep us from being in an area that would not be served at all well with choppy time.

 

 

Oh, I completely agree! I do that. I look through the TOC, browse the books, even draw up a tentative schedule of how we could fit the material into a school year by sketching out which chapters to complete which month, whether to regroup material if I am not happy with the sequence in the book. In this, I try to project for a light December and for being done in April, giving us time in May to fill in as needed.

 

But my experience is that we are off schedule by the 2nd week of the semester! Every single time.

 

If DD discovers that she is really on a roll with math, or on an exciting history topic and feels like she wants to keep going with that, I would consider it foolish to tell her that she must stop because we are behind schedule in something else. It always averages out over the year.

So, as much as I enjoy making plans and schedules (and she does, too, and asks me for detailed schedules at the beginning of the year), it ends up being useless because I can not plan for enthusiasm and interest hitting at random. So, we roll with the punches ;-)

[regentrude]

Regentrude I wish I had your motivated students. There is a slight lack of maturity in my dd that does not yet allow her to "run with it" even in her favorite subjects.

 

 

Oh, I do require time on task! 5.5 mandatory hours of school work daily in 9th grade, spent with materials that I have selected beforehand.

Whether they are motivated or not.

My kids have the freedom to fill their school hours with any combination of "pre-approved" curriculum for "pre-approved" subjects; they do not have the freedom to work less time.

[Parrothead]

Oh, I do require time on task! 5.5 mandatory hours of school work daily in 9th grade, spent with materials that I have selected beforehand.

Whether they are motivated or not.

My kids have the freedom to fill their school hours with any combination of "pre-approved" curriculum for "pre-approved" subjects; they do not have the freedom to work less time.

 

Do you ever come across a pre-approved book that hasn't been looked at until the middle of May? I suppose not, because I'm sure you check work periodically.

[regentrude]

Do you ever come across a pre-approved book that hasn't been looked at until the middle of May? I suppose not, because I'm sure you check work periodically.

 

Yes and no.

I require my students to keep records of what subject they have worked on and for how long. Just because they select their own schedule does not mean I am not involved in their education. I inquire what they learned, look over math, read and edit writing assignments - so I am aware if something gets neglected and I will remind the child that he has done too little of xyz. But my kids learn in spurts. DS, for example, had a fall semester of tons of history, but almost no science. He has now decided to focus on science in the spring semester and put history on ice for a while - perfectly fine.

DD's schedule is now very tough; her two dual enrollment courses require most of her time. So, I have to remind her that, when she has a day without classes, she should spend some time on history. And very occasionally, there will be a subject to which we don't really get. I can already see that she won't fit in government until the summer; it is on the list, but it is the subject that gets pushed on the back burner. That too is fine. It just means an intensive course of government will happen in the summer.

Math was another thing: she did calc 1 compressed over last summer in order to have the prerequisite for her physics class. She hardly had time to do any math over the fall semester. Did a crazy spurt of half of calc 2 to have the prerequisites for her spring semester physics. But we'll finish calc 2 only when the semester is over.

 

The one subject where this does not for is foreign language. For foreign language, I found that close involvement is required, because it is impossible for a child to muster the motivation to teach himself a foreign language form books and CDs. It is too frustrating, and process is slow; there I am more hands on, will help break the material into chunks, will remind. DS drags his feet on Italian; if he did not get to it in a few days, I sit down with him. For DD, the weekly hour with the tutor provided enough structure to get French done - but since she is in a class, it has gotten sooo much easier!

 

ETA: To get back to the original question quoted: sometimes I find that a resource I have selected does not resonate with my student. A perfectly fine textbook choice on a topic the student is interested in may end up in a corner - because it was boring or the writing style did not fit, or because we had many resources for the subject and others got preference. I usually have more materials lined up that we would need; for astronomy for example we have 96 TC lectures and a college textbook and non-fiction and documentaries, not all of which will need to be completed for a half-credit elective.

[Parrothead]

Okay, I'm getting off line. I'm going to dedicate at least the next 5 hours to getting things organized and at a minimum a weekly schedule of what chapters will be done when for each subject. Once that road map is compete I can build from there.

 

If you see me on line before 5p EST boot me off.

[Nscribe]

 

...

But my experience is that we are off schedule by the 2nd week of the semester! Every single time.

 

...

So, as much as I enjoy making plans and schedules (and she does, too, and asks me for detailed schedules at the beginning of the year), it ends up being useless because I can not plan for enthusiasm and interest hitting at random. So, we roll with the punches ;-)

 

Week 2 = me thinks Regentrude lives in my attic...yup....every single time. (don't try rewriting the plan at end of week 2 because end of week 3 will unravel that one as well)

 

Teens! They seem to have an uncany knack for lacking the consistency of effort, enthusiasm and interest that every great plan assumes they will. Pesky thing that trait is. The piece that kills me ... gives me the need to :banghead: ... is when the inspiration, enthusiasm and interest appear right about 9:45 PM.

 

Those punches hurt when you forget to drop and roll. Key to planning #2 after the certain but unplannable punches, have a place to retreat to and remember "teen" is a 4 letter word.

[Nscribe]

They usually grow out of it.

[regentrude]

 

Week 2 = me thinks Regentrude lives in my attic...yup....every single time. (don't try rewriting the plan at end of week 2 because end of week 3 will unravel that one as well)

 

I have made the mistake only once because DD had begged for an update. Yep, that plan was shot after a week, too.

 

Teens! They seem to have an uncany knack for lacking the consistency of effort, enthusiasm and interest that every great plan assumes they will. Pesky thing that trait is.

 

But it's how I learn, too - I go in spurts of interest that cause me to gobble up books or lectures on a particular topic for a week and then veg and while away my time on the WTM boards the next.

 

The piece that kills me ... gives me the need to :banghead: ... is when the inspiration, enthusiasm and interest appear right about 9:45 PM.

 

If my teens want to be enthusiastic in the middle of the night, more power to them. Mom needs to sleep. But DD can chat online at midnight with her friends about art history and Shakespeare and mythology. She does not need me to be awake, LOL.

[Nscribe]

If my teens want to be enthusiastic in the middle of the night, more power to them. Mom needs to sleep. But DD can chat online at midnight with her friends about art history and Shakespeare and mythology. She does not need me to be awake, LOL.

 

 

Oh now that would be neat..."art history and Shakespeare and mythology". Mine taps, clogs and plays guitar (occassionally drums and horns). I am a sound sleeper, but not that kind of sound. She might start off reading or working, but sound usually follows at some point. Fortunately, Dd has learned she is a better person to live with if she sleeps a solid 9 hours and those days (nights) are more of a memory at this point.

[swimmermom3]

I would not plan more than a few weeks in any case. See how things go, whether the curriculum you have chosen works out, whether the workload is right for your student, reevaluate periodically. Do not worry about preplanning the entire year.

I do not "plan" at all for high school- aside from big picture. I have a four year plan with classes penciled in and am willing to change even that. By the beginning of the school year, I have materials for each subject selected and let my students run with it. Easy to make changes along the road, because I don't have to worry about "wasting" carefully laid plans.

 

I spent several years making minutely detailed plans only to have my son make a leap in understanding that made some parts worthless. And while I appreciate the methodology of just counting out pages or lessons and dividing by 36, I find that the first few weeks, I may need time for review or a class may have housekeeping material to move through that may take some time. I now set a few "mini targets" for the year and will plan up to that point.

 

It is not just my son that can be problematic. As we work through certain subjects,usually history and literature, I may see connections that I had not seen previously and will decide to reshuffle the material to make a more interesting "unit" if you will. For example, we are using an a college-level history text. Mesopotamia is covered in Chapter 2. We read The Epic of Gilgamesh at the same time for literature. That portion on Mesopotamia ended with Hammurabi's reign. The next part of that area's history shows up in Chap. 4 in a section for the Hittites and then a few pages later, for the Assyrians. If I lump all of that reading together, it gives me just enough time to add another day for discussing Gilgamesh. I was initially just going to assign a certain number of pages in the history book each week, but my new division is allowing for better coverage of both areas. This stuff happens to me all the time. The Hebrews get about a page in the history book, I need at least a week to address the literature. I don't know this by looking at the TOC, but by knowing the material.

 

Have clear goals for material to be covered and skills to be taught. Know the order for the skills. Know the mini-goals like, "I have to be through the Greeks by mid-April." Know what parts of the material don't matter as much to you that they can be condensed or deleted altogether if you have a time crunch. Build flexibility into that basic schedule.

 

This is just one way to deal with it. Chucki, you'll be just fine. You don't have to have a set of TOG quality plans done overnight.

[swimmermom3]

 

Another caution is that you can over plan and under prepare. What I mean by that is I can plan each subject to the daily detail and feel like I've been productive. However, my time might have better been spent reading through that text or literature to understand it better. I ran into that this year. My planner was pretty, but there was at least one subject I should have spent more time studying and less time making the Word document formatted correctly. Does that make sense?

 

My planning for next year includes a lot more content prep rather than planner prep.

 

 

Jumping up and down yelling, "This! This! This!" I read the chemistry texts. I read the math texts. I read all of the literature and I know now to read all of their introductions (most of the time). Often, the introduction to the text will suggest the lesson plan or at least part of it to me. I check out the Teaching Company lectures in the car, while I am ironing or filing paperwork. Then I know that a history lecture can be pitched because it is redundant with a literature lecture.

 

I feel as though the quality of the work we do has improved now that I don't spend all my time making beautiful lesson plans, but actually learning the material I am going to teach. Besides, with a background in ad design, I can lose way too much time making my lesson plans visually attractive.

[regentrude]

. I check out the Teaching Company lectures in the car, while I am ironing or filing paperwork.

 

 

Thanks for the priceless image of you ironing in the car.

I've seen texting; ironing may just be the new thing ;-)

It gives DWI a whole new meaning.

[swimmermom3]

Thanks for the priceless image of you ironing in the car.

I've seen texting; ironing may just be the new thing ;-)

It gives DWI a whole new meaning.

 

Don't you know that all things are possible with homeschooling? :D

[Teachin'Mine]

Thanks for the priceless image of you ironing in the car.

I've seen texting; ironing may just be the new thing ;-)

It gives DWI a whole new meaning.

 

That's hysterical! Homescholers are amazing multi-taskers!

[Parrothead]

It is done. Almost 10,5 hours. There is a tiny bit of tweaking that needs doing for biology. I'm exhausted and my eyes hurt from looking at the computer for so long.

 

I had a bit more done than I remembered doing so that helped a lot.

 

Thanks for giving me the kick in the pants. We can start 8th/9th grade on Monday.

[Nscribe]

It is done. .

:party:

[Wildcat]

It is done. Almost 10,5 hours. There is a tiny bit of tweaking that needs doing for biology. I'm exhausted and my eyes hurt from looking at the computer for so long.

 

I had a bit more done than I remembered doing so that helped a lot.

 

Thanks for giving me the kick in the pants. We can start 8th/9th grade on Monday.

 

That's awesome! Just try to tweak a few weeks at first, because I bet you'll find as the weeks go on, your tweaks will end up needing tweaks. ;)