How much of your curriculum do you finish each year?

[PachiSusan]

I think one of the great things about homeschooling is that you are not tied to specific materials and plans. I really am not concerned about "finishing" anything. We do to some degree finish math. That doesn't necessarily mean doing all the exercises etc....but we don't move on to the next level until we have a good mastery of the the topics in the current level.

 

We use materials as long as we are learning from them and progressing. Some materials are set aside and picked up again later. Some are just set aside forever. Some are fully utilized. Some I only intend to use in part.

 

I do have educational goals to meet. I informally assess these throughout the year, but during the summer set new ones. If we haven't met them I try to understand why. Do we need more emphasis on an area or are there other issues impeding progress. Maybe it just wasn't an appropriate goal, or we accomplished something else more important instead.

 

We also don't have a start and stop date for schooling. We have an ebb and flow. Jan, Feb, March, July, sept, oct, nov. tend to be more academically intense. But we are learning all the time.

 

Granted I have young kids, so what do I know. ;) But if I had to finish someone else's prepared materials every fall, winter, spring, I don't think I would enjoy homeschooling.

 

 

 

Just another perspective: Both of us get a supreme sense of satisfaction when we close the books on a school year knowing we followed through with the plan and finished. I think that's a good lesson to learn as well.

[FloridaLisa]

Math: the whole book

Science: the whole book

Grammar: almost the whole book; we never cover the last few chapters about the card catalog and out-of-date referencing

Writing: I never seem to do enough here.

Logic: the whole book

Latin: the whole book (in the younger years, not necessarily in one year; older years it's outsourced and online)

History: it depends: we used the self-paced Veritas this year and will finish the entire program; in previous years I always bit off more than we could do and we tended to just stop at some point.

 

For the math we use, I think it's very important to do the last 20% since it's completely new material. In fact, I can see skipping through some/most of the first 20% since that is mostly review (until you get to upper math), but not the final 20%.

 

Lisa