Balancing homeschool work and field trips and hybrid program

[ktgrok]

This year is our first big year with lots of activities. And with my DD13 in 8th, I'm finding it harder to balance school work with everything else.

We try to do quite a few field trips - this year we've done Jewel Cave, Minuteman National Monument, Custer State Park, Devil's Tower, Mount Rushmore, a historic gold mine, Badlands National Park, a homeschool program at Kennedy Space Center, a guided hike to learn about dragon and damselflies, the local Regional History Center, the local Science Center, a historic national fishery, the High Plains Western Heritage Museum, and Blue Springs State Park. So those are days we are learning, but not doing "school work" in the sense of math lessons, grammar lessons, textbook assignments, etc. 

She also goes to a drop off STEM program - she was doing two days a week but since the holidays dropped to once a week. It's is an amazing place, and she learns a lot. They do a 90 minute science workshop where the kids take notes, there is a demonstration, and often a hands on component. Topics ranged from a series on the "inner life of computers", botany, chemistry, etc. They also participate in classes on CAD, and coding, are growing plants in a hydroponic system and made their own mini hydroponic system, play/learn with Spintronics, Turing Tumble, financial literacy games, media literacy, etc. Plus social time, playing chess, doing duolingo. AND they help clean up, etc. 

But with all that it is a long day, and it is 30 minutes away. So we leave at about 9:15am and I pick them up at 5:30pm or so, and then are home around 6pm or later depending on traffic, etc. We listen to science podcasts or audiobooks of historical fiction, or chapters from History Quest US or A Different Mirror or various other things. By the time we get home, do dinner, etc the kids are worn out. Asking them to do a full history lesson, math lesson, and more on top of what they did all day seems too much. 

I had been doing history just with various living books and videos, as a family, but DD13 felt that wasn't enough and hates being lumped in with her younger siblings, so now she's doing Notgrass America The Beautiful. It is designed to be done 5 days a week, do I make her do 5 lessons a week? I've basically made science VERY light, with mostly podcasts and documentaries and field trips given how much they are doing at the drop off program, so that does free up more time in the week. Except of course then there are the board game meet ups on Tuesday, Park Day on Wednesday, PE drop off program for 2 hours on Thursday. Then the STEM program Friday. Our only full day home is monday, and last monday we went to Blue Springs State Park to see the manatees (636!). 

I hate to say no we can't do the social stuff, she has struggled socially and really needs it. I have been making her do a 5th math lesson on the weekend, to make up for missing on Fridays, but I hate to do that with history as well....but maybe I need to. 

Any thoughts? Do I just have her do 4 days of schoolwork a week, plus 1 day of STEM, knowing some days we will have field trips and skip entirely? Cut back on what we cover in textbook subjects? Thoughts?

[Dmmetler]

I think I'd do what you can get done, and if that means not finishing a full book, it's OK. Field trips and hands on stuff are excellent learning opportunities, and giving up a day of book stuff for them is fine. 

 

[ScoutTN]

As long as math, writing, and literature are getting done, I think it’s fine. 
 

Next year might need to look somewhat different with a high schooler? 

[SKL]

Many middle school kids take classes that are not daily, but 2-3 days per week, with the lenth of time doubled.  For example, maybe they have science and English on Mondays & Wednesdays, and geography and math on Tuesdays & Thursdays, with Fridays being switched off.  So maybe you could do that with your daughter's schedule.  I agree that the day she goes to the STEM program is long enough.  I would count that as 2 days' worth of science and maybe a little computer science, math, and English (depending on whether she's doing grade-appropriate reading, writing, and speaking as part of the program).

As for field trips, it's pretty normal to not do regular school on field trip days.  I assume there is related reading, math, science, and social studies involved (or that can be included) in most travel trips.  (Math for a middle schooler can include practical matters of distance, time, money, geological computations, gas mileage ....).

[athena1277]

Our coop is all enrichment, no credit.  It’s 3 Fridays a month.  As my kids became teens, I knew they needed coop for friend/social time, even though they aren’t getting other work done.  For us it means the school year runs a little bit longer in order to make sure necessary things are covered.  Doing all those big field trips may have to count as breaks from regular work, with the official school year running a few weeks longer.  Perhaps closer to a year round school schedule.

[ktgrok]

1 hour ago, ScoutTN said:

As long as math, writing, and literature are getting done, I think it’s fine. 
 

Next year might need to look somewhat different with a high schooler? 

Math gets done usually 5 days a week, sometimes only 4 days a week, with her knowing that means math will go into summer. 

She reads 5 days a week (or more), and we listen to audio books in the car and/or I read aloud to them 3-4 days a week. We discuss orally what we are reading. 

is working through Essentials in Writing. That is done about 4 days a week, with me crossing out some lessons because she doesn't need 6 full days of "Don't vs Doesn't" or whatever. Some days are grammar exercises, some are rewriting a sample paragraph to be better, some are writing based on prompts, etc. I've also said that this month I want her (and her brother) to do at least one written book summary for the STEM drop off program (they earn "xp" for reading as well as for writing summaries, but it's optional and so far neither have written a summary)

She also does "speed presentations" at the STEM drop off about once a month, where she has to research and design a powerpoint in a short amount of time and then present it. Sometimes they are serious, sometimes they are silly. 

I am definitely more worried about how to balance this next year, as a highschooler. I'm leaning toward something like Notgrass that has fewer weeks scheduled to help fit everything in, although I might prefer a different curricula. Science is still up in the air for next year...sigh. 

 

[ktgrok]

I'm realizing this has come to a head partly because of the switch in curriculum midyear. Because we spent way more time covering certain time periods than the textbook does, she is "behind" already, even if doing a lesson 5 days a week. If she does only 4 lessons a week I'm not sure she'd finish before next fall. So then, do I cut out some lessons, just not do the last few units, I don't know. I could have just had her skip some stuff and start further in, but I didn't. 

[ScoutTN]

For history next yr, it doesn’t really matter what you “cover”, as long as the number of hours for a credit are good. 
 

I love all the FTs!!!

Edited February 2 by ScoutTN

[freesia]

The STEM program sounds amazing. Honestly, what an opportunity. I wouldn’t worry about history being lighter. Since you aren’t doing science the other days can’t she do extra history then? And if you don’t finish bc of field trips that is ok this year. Writing, reading and math are your priorities. 
 

I think it will be more challenging as she enters high school, but I would still try to make it work. 

[73349]

Can you just extend the school year?

[ktgrok]

11 minutes ago, freesia said:

The STEM program sounds amazing. Honestly, what an opportunity. I wouldn’t worry about history being lighter. Since you aren’t doing science the other days can’t she do extra history then? And if you don’t finish bc of field trips that is ok this year. Writing, reading and math are your priorities. 
 

I think it will be more challenging as she enters high school, but I would still try to make it work. 

Yeah, I think maybe she just needs to do extra history the other days, if need be. Maybe two lessons on Mondays, which are usually are day at home. 

If she does 5 lessons a week from now on she'd finish July 11th, so still have some summer break before we start back up mid/end of August. Or I may get to mid/late June and I'll decide that's enough bookwork, and just do some videos for the last few units - they do have videos and such to go along with the text on their supplements page. 

 

[lewelma]

My younger boy really needed social stuff. He had 9 activities per week. I came to understand that this was more important than any school work, so we streamlined. For the 4 years of high school, he did 1 hour math and 3 hours writing per day + easy reading at night. I folded in geography, history, literature, economics, science into the writing work (he has dysgraphia so getting him to write was a long arduous but critically important task, one that I did with him side by side on the sofa for 4 years 3 hours per day). So his 'school work' totalled 20 hours per week.  This prepared him well for university. He is in an honours program getting all As in a university with no grade inflation where 60% of students get Cs or Fs. I have come to believe that a lot of highschool 'school work' is not overwhelmingly useful. 

Edited February 2 by lewelma

[kbutton]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

Many middle school kids take classes that are not daily, but 2-3 days per week, with the lenth of time doubled.  For example, maybe they have science and English on Mondays & Wednesdays, and geography and math on Tuesdays & Thursdays, with Fridays being switched off.  So maybe you could do that with your daughter's schedule.  I agree that the day she goes to the STEM program is long enough.  I would count that as 2 days' worth of science and maybe a little computer science, math, and English (depending on whether she's doing grade-appropriate reading, writing, and speaking as part of the program)

I agree, and we did that, sort of, but we had some input into what went on at co-op (just a few families—all of us had kids with LDs and whatnot). We also had music and therapy appointments always during school hours. Your “this year” field trips are probably comparable to what we got to do over many years, but that’s cool!

I used some free printable calendars of varying formats and used colored pencils to mark off hours of the day to show we were gone and who all was busy while gone (so, sometimes we all went to therapy appointments or music, but one kid got therapy or music while the other did schoolwork). From there, we prioritized and block scheduled.

At that age, my older one (2e ASD) had been making his own schedule for a while and figuring out for himself how to fit things in. My younger one would still need hand-holding for that at age 16. YMMV. Anyway, the older one knew how many lessons of each thing he had to get done each week, knew what working conditions he liked, and he plugged in the assignments from there. It might mean he did all of his Sequential Spelling one day per week on a day that was otherwise busy and then only had math that day (he basically had to do math every day to not get behind). Other days, he might do extra of history, depending what he did in co-op (it took care of science, most of English with light homework, and some history).

It helped him learn to make the most of time and helped him feel in control.

Again, it wouldn’t have suited the younger one—I had to do this for him (he transitioned to school in 9th). 

31 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

I'm realizing this has come to a head partly because of the switch in curriculum midyear. Because we spent way more time covering certain time periods than the textbook does, she is "behind" already, even if doing a lesson 5 days a week. If she does only 4 lessons a week I'm not sure she'd finish before next fall. So then, do I cut out some lessons, just not do the last few units, I don't know. I could have just had her skip some stuff and start further in, but I didn't. 

I wouldn’t sweat it, but if she’s a reader, asking her to do a catch-up lesson once in a while seems sane. Depending which middle school Notgrass she’s using, skipping some is easy—Uncle Sam has free-floating holiday lessons, and she probably knows stuff about the major ones and could skip those, for instance.

Half a year of one curriculum and half a year of another is still a full year of history.

[freesia]

18 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Yeah, I think maybe she just needs to do extra history the other days, if need be. Maybe two lessons on Mondays, which are usually are day at home. 

If she does 5 lessons a week from now on she'd finish July 11th, so still have some summer break before we start back up mid/end of August. Or I may get to mid/late June and I'll decide that's enough bookwork, and just do some videos for the last few units - they do have videos and such to go along with the text on their supplements page. 

 

Honestly, if she just started the book, I wouldn't worry about finishing.  My older kids, in particular, did a four year cycle, so they would have covered half of American history one year.  You did do history with her the first half of the year in some fashion, right?  I wouldn't even hesitate to just do half. Make next year the second half--or switch altogether.  One of mine studied the world wars for one whole year in high school.  It was fine. 

Don't make too many rules for eighth grade.  High school can be confining in and of itself.  Eighth grade is the last completely flexible year. 

[ktgrok]

13 minutes ago, lewelma said:

My younger boy really needed social stuff. He had 9 activities per week. I came to understand that this was more important than any school work, so we streamlined. For the 4 years of high school, he did 1 hour math and 3 hours writing per day + easy reading at night. I folded in geography, history, literature, economics, science into the writing work (he has dysgraphia so getting him to write was a long arduous but critically important task, one that I did with him side by side on the sofa for 4 years 3 hours per day). So his 'school work' totalled 20 hours per week.  This prepared him well for university. He is in an honours program getting all As in a university with no grade inflation where 60% of students get Cs or Fs. I have come to believe that a lot of highschool 'school work' is not overwhelmingly useful. 

 

4 minutes ago, kbutton said:

I agree, and we did that, sort of, but we had some input into what went on at co-op (just a few families—all of us had kids with LDs and whatnot). We also had music and therapy appointments always during school hours. Your “this year” field trips are probably comparable to what we got to do over many years, but that’s cool!

I used some free printable calendars of varying formats and used colored pencils to mark off hours of the day to show we were gone and who all was busy while gone (so, sometimes we all went to therapy appointments or music, but one kid got therapy or music while the other did schoolwork). From there, we prioritized and block scheduled.

At that age, my older one (2e ASD) had been making his own schedule for a while and figuring out for himself how to fit things in. My younger one would still need hand-holding for that at age 16. YMMV. Anyway, the older one knew how many lessons of each thing he had to get done each week, knew what working conditions he liked, and he plugged in the assignments from there. It might mean he did all of his Sequential Spelling one day per week on a day that was otherwise busy and then only had math that day (he basically had to do math every day to not get behind). Other days, he might do extra of history, depending what he did in co-op (it took care of science, most of English with light homework, and some history).

It helped him learn to make the most of time and helped him feel in control.

Again, it wouldn’t have suited the younger one—I had to do this for him (he transitioned to school in 9th). 

I wouldn’t sweat it, but if she’s a reader, asking her to do a catch-up lesson once in a while seems sane. Depending which middle school Notgrass she’s using, skipping some is easy—Uncle Sam has free-floating holiday lessons, and she probably knows stuff about the major ones and could skip those, for instance.

Half a year of one curriculum and half a year of another is still a full year of history.

Thank you, I think you have some good tips here. 

She's doing America the Beautiful. I had her start on lesson 39, this past Wednesday after a week of looking at and ordering something that she thought would work for her. 

I think I needed to hear that bolded part. Because although it is obvious, it's still so hard to remember, lol. 

4 minutes ago, freesia said:

Honestly, if she just started the book, I wouldn't worry about finishing.  My older kids, in particular, did a four year cycle, so they would have covered half of American history one year.  You did do history with her the first half of the year in some fashion, right?  I wouldn't even hesitate to just do half. Make next year the second half--or switch altogether.  One of mine studied the world wars for one whole year in high school.  It was fine. 

Don't make too many rules for eighth grade.  High school can be confining in and of itself.  Eighth grade is the last completely flexible year. 

Yes, we did a mash up of Oh Freedom and  History Quest (History Quest is for up to 6th I think). Plus historical fiction stuff. And some mapwork using Seterra. 

What I may do is having her only READ some lessons, and do the reading and review questions/map/timeline on others. So maybe just reading on the ones that are about natural wonders, or let her pick one lesson a week to just read. 

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

We have a lot of activities as well. I’m homeschooling 3 who are in 12th, 11th, and 8th/9th. This year I made a conscious choice that each of our activities met a very specific need and would be valued pretty much equally to our book work. That means that most weeks are 4 day school weeks. I’m ok with that. The plan is that each of the four core subjects will be done for 150 hours over the course of the school year (one hour per subject, per day, for 150 days) and then we’ll be done with school. We started after Labor Day and will finish before Memorial Day. In reality, my oldest is a week or more “behind” the pace she’d need to be on to finish in May. She will likely get even further behind this spring due to speech tournaments and work. As long as she continues to work diligently in the time she DOES have available, we will still wrap up school about when co-op ends in May, even if we haven’t quite hit 150 hours. Co-op is mostly enrichment, but the music, arts, and other classes that feed their souls are important. My oldest has a part time job that is teaching her valuable skills not easily taught out of a textbook. All three DC will work 20 or more hours a week this spring at a seasonal job that will last a few weeks. They’re involved in a musical. Younger two are working hard towards their black belts and will hopefully achieve that goal in the next few months. There is church and scouting, and running club. But as I thought about how to fit it all in, I realized that I couldn’t fit it all in. I thought about dropping activities but decided that they are all important in different ways. So I scaled back on school work. Other families may have different priorities but this is where we ended up this year and it feels like a balance we needed. 

[ktgrok]

And yes, we definitely want to keep them in the STEM program. 

If anyone wants to see some of what they do, this is their facebook page - if you scroll down to the lockpicking workshop post, DH taught that, and DD13 is the girl in the red shirt and glasses, giving her friend a dirty look (because he broke the lock rather than picking it, lol)

https://www.facebook.com/metahumanseducation

[kbutton]

4 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

What I may do is having her only READ some lessons, and do the reading and review questions/map/timeline on others. So maybe just reading on the ones that are about natural wonders, or let her pick one lesson a week to just read. 

That sounds like a winner! I forgot, but there is also a chart in the beginning of each Notgrass set that shows ways to customize for different ages that might have some additional suggestions for compacting in this situation too.

 

[ktgrok]

1 minute ago, 2ndGenHomeschooler said:

We have a lot of activities as well. I’m homeschooling 3 who are in 12th, 11th, and 8th/9th. This year I made a conscious choice that each of our activities met a very specific need and would be valued pretty much equally to our book work. That means that most weeks are 4 day school weeks. I’m ok with that. The plan is that each of the four core subjects will be done for 150 hours over the course of the school year (one hour per subject, per day, for 150 days) and then we’ll be done with school. We started after Labor Day and will finish before Memorial Day. In reality, my oldest is a week or more “behind” the pace she’d need to be on to finish in May. She will likely get even further behind this spring due to speech tournaments and work. As long as she continues to work diligently in the time she DOES have available, we will still wrap up school about when co-op ends in May, even if we haven’t quite hit 150 hours. Co-op is mostly enrichment, but the music, arts, and other classes that feed their souls are important. My oldest has a part time job that is teaching her valuable skills not easily taught out of a textbook. All three DC will work 20 or more hours a week this spring at a seasonal job that will last a few weeks. They’re involved in a musical. Younger two are working hard towards their black belts and will hopefully achieve that goal in the next few months. There is church and scouting, and running club. But as I thought about how to fit it all in, I realized that I couldn’t fit it all in. I thought about dropping activities but decided that they are all important in different ways. So I scaled back on school work. Other families may have different priorities but this is where we ended up this year and it feels like a balance we needed. 

You know, I may just do this....if we don't get to the final unit or two, it's not the end of the world, and it would be because we did a LOT of other stuff. And spent a lot of time on Native issues/events, added in the History Smasher's Mayflower and History Smasher's American Revolution, etc. We spent much more time on those topics, as well as pre Columbian topics, so it makes sense we wouldn't cover as much of more modern history. Maybe I'll ask HER what unit or two she'd want to skip. 

Just now, kbutton said:

That sounds like a winner! I forgot, but there is also a chart in the beginning of each Notgrass set that shows ways to customize for different ages that might have some additional suggestions for compacting in this situation too.

 

Oh, I'll look. I might even try emailing them. 

[Hilltopmom]

On 2/2/2024 at 4:17 PM, ktgrok said:

You know, I may just do this....if we don't get to the final unit or two, it's not the end of the world, and it would be because we did a LOT of other stuff. And spent a lot of time on Native issues/events, added in the History Smasher's Mayflower and History Smasher's American Revolution, etc. We spent much more time on those topics, as well as pre Columbian topics, so it makes sense we wouldn't cover as much of more modern history. Maybe I'll ask HER what unit or two she'd want to skip. 

Oh, I'll look. I might even try emailing them. 

(Deleted for privacy)…

Social studies “class” doesn’t need to be working through a curriculum/textbook 🙂

sounds like she has a great program going!

Edited February 5 by Hilltopmom

[ktgrok]

22 minutes ago, Hilltopmom said:

Totally random point- I live across the street from Kate Messner who writes the History Smashers series (& a ton of other books).

Social studies “class” doesn’t need to be working through a curriculum/textbook 🙂

sounds like she has a great program going!

Tell her a homeschool mom in Florida thinks her books are awesome! I learned SO much - for instance that the Boston Tea Party wasn't about the price of tea!!! The tax on tea was already repealed and tea was actually cheaper than usual!

[lewelma]

53 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

having her only READ some lessons, 

My older boy had 2 high school classes where we only read and discussed. There were no test, papers, presentations etc for the year-long class at all. I made this clear on my course descriptions. He learned a ton, and no university cared. 

[catz]

We were always super heavy on out of the house stuff.  I did try hard to protect our mornings through lunch except when we were doing co-op.  

Then as long as I felt learning was happening across the boards, I would make sure we'd pace math to get that done.  That for us was at least 4-5X a week.  The other thing is math is one of those things that need consistency to click.  So this is the area I would focus on getting to 5X a week.  If that meant a lesson needed to be done over the weekend, so be it.

We had periods of time where we'd assign like 1 history related and 1 lit based book appropriately leveled assigned a month to be read at leisure and we'd often discuss over a snack or in the car.  I might have them journal on that as a writing exercise.  That kept us moving foward with allowing some flexibility.  If super structured curriculum isn't working for this season, it's ok to let it go and think out of the box.  I personally felt that hands on stuff stuck much better than dry curriculum at home.  We used a lot of audio books, documentaries, podcasts, etc ovre the years.   I think math is trickier because it is incremental and developmental.  

[lewelma]

For world history, my ds watched the 2 crash course series about 4 times each (his choice!!). He really got the big picture content in his head. Then we did one deep dive on the colonisation of Africa. This combination was very effective in achieving both general knowledge and an understanding of the nuanced nature of historical study. It was simple and fun.

[catz]

Oh we used series of crash course vidoes at times too, so fun!

The other thing we did every day for years was watch cnn student news at breakfast and discuss current events a little bit.  That was a great start to our day.

[KungFuPanda]

What are your long term goals as far as PSAT and SATs go? Will she be ready for college level math by college? Are you willing to pay college tuition for high school level classes that improve proficiency?  I’d consider her/your post high school goals, work backwards from there to plan the curriculum, and fill in extra curricular/field trips around the time that will take. 
 

[KSera]

4 hours ago, ktgrok said:

What I may do is having her only READ some lessons, and do the reading and review questions/map/timeline on others. So maybe just reading on the ones that are about natural wonders, or let her pick one lesson a week to just read. 

Yeah, honestly, for 8th grade, I think you’re overthinking it. She’s doing lots of great learning. Other than staying on track to reach her math goals, there’s no specific timeline she needs to be on in content subjects eighth grade. What you say above is what I was thinking after the first post: you could eliminate or have her just read the natural wonder part each week. There’s zero reason she needs to do every single lesson in the Notgrass book in order to consider it a full year of history. Eighth grade is the last year where you don’t have to stress about what’s going on the transcript, so I wouldn’t jump into that any earlier than you need to.

[ktgrok]

1 hour ago, KSera said:

Yeah, honestly, for 8th grade, I think you’re overthinking it. She’s doing lots of great learning. Other than staying on track to reach her math goals, there’s no specific timeline she needs to be on in content subjects eighth grade. What you say above is what I was thinking after the first post: you could eliminate or have her just read the natural wonder part each week. There’s zero reason she needs to do every single lesson in the Notgrass book in order to consider it a full year of history. Eighth grade is the last year where you don’t have to stress about what’s going on the transcript, so I wouldn’t jump into that any earlier than you need to.

You know, what's funny is I was fine with us getting to whatever period in time we get to when I was making my own curriculum out of a mishmash of others. But once I start using a textbook, I get the urge to finish the textbook and do it "right". Sigh. 

[Faith-manor]

3 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

What are your long term goals as far as PSAT and SATs go? Will she be ready for college level math by college? Are you willing to pay college tuition for high school level classes that improve proficiency?  I’d consider her/your post high school goals, work backwards from there to plan the curriculum, and fill in extra curricular/field trips around the time that will take. 
 

This. It is expensive to pay for remedial coursework that does not count towards graduation and rarely is covered by scholarships since they don't award a lot of money to students needing remedial placement. It is so important to look at the end, and then carve the path to that point.

For our 3 boys, the competitive rocketry team and hands on engineering classes were VERY important to them. But their goals for after high school were also front and center. So instead of a 9 month school year, we schooled 11 months, taking July off. I also streamlined history and science exams. If at the end of the unit, an oral quiz from me indicated they had mastered the content and could readily explain the concepts to me, then we skipped the written exam, and only did semester and final exams.

They wrote a lot of essays, and we never skipped chapter exams in English or Math because those are so important to being comfortable on college entrance exams. But any time there was a struggle, we stopped, discussed, remediated, and then tested. This worked well for the first two years of high school. Once they were in AP world history, AP Government, AP Chem, and such, we had to follow that strict curriculum to prep for the exams, and when they did Dual Enrollment it was of course outside my control.

High school is tough. It isn't just core material. If going to college or to a selective tech/trade school, then one needs to worry about foreign language, fine arts, computer science/literacy, PE if required, electives. Sometimes the social has to give a bit.

[KSera]

To hopefully make you feel better Katie, as someone who used that Notgrass program once many moons ago, there’s absolutely no chance that skipping the “natural wonders” sections will in any way make your daughter behind or need remedial work in high school in order to reach basically any possible college goal she might have. She can even still go to Harvard if she skips it 😉. 
 

(Remind me, did your oldest homeschool high school or will this be your first high school homeschooler?)

[katilac]

On 2/2/2024 at 2:29 PM, 73349 said:

Can you just extend the school year?

This. Extending the school year makes the entire year more relaxed. My kids were always still finishing up in June, with short days, and we always started the first Monday in August.   

If a kid is doing two hours of schoolwork and one hour of chores most days in June, that still leaves them with an abundance of free time. 

In high school, lots of socializing and field trips during the week might doing some schoolwork on a Saturday. This can be a good trade-off, and it's kids in school work on the weekend all the time, even though they've been in school all week, so consider that when making high school plans.

I do agree that not every high school class requires written output. We did history throughout high school with very little written output.

It also helps to let go of the idea that a field trip day equals no other schoolwork. We got up at the usual time and did whatever work we could before leaving - most field trips didn't require leaving before our typical day began. Don't fall into the trap of, oh, we only have forty minutes, it's not worth it. My kids could do both a grammar and spelling lesson in forty minutes, or one Latin worksheet, or various other things. 

Yes, one lesson is worth it! It's like the old saying about money: a penny isn't much, but pennies make nickels, nickels make quarters, and quarters make dollars. Lessons make chapters, chapters make units, units make books. 

You're doing some very worthwhile things, but my personal opinion is that only one full day at home means a longer school year is needed, and probably some Saturday work in high school. 

Edited February 3 by katilac

[QueenCat]

I'd extend the school year before I'd drop field trips or social activities. Both are important.

[ktgrok]

Ok, another thought I had, was to keep going slowly, with added books and videos, and just do the first half or so of American History this year, and do the second half next year, as her high school american history credit. Now HOW exactly I'd do that, not sure. But it's a thought. 

[Starr]

School classes don’t finish text books and sometimes skip chapters. We would work part days for a while into summer on subjects like math that I thought they needed to finish. Don’t worry so much now. I would spend the time thinking about Highschool curriculum plans. One of mine was somewhat high school light and graduated college with honors. 

[Ellie]

On 2/2/2024 at 12:13 PM, ktgrok said:

This year is our first big year with lots of activities. And with my DD13 in 8th, I'm finding it harder to balance school work with everything else.

We try to do quite a few field trips - this year we've done Jewel Cave, Minuteman National Monument, Custer State Park, Devil's Tower, Mount Rushmore, a historic gold mine, Badlands National Park, a homeschool program at Kennedy Space Center, a guided hike to learn about dragon and damselflies, the local Regional History Center, the local Science Center, a historic national fishery, the High Plains Western Heritage Museum, and Blue Springs State Park. So those are days we are learning, but not doing "school work" in the sense of math lessons, grammar lessons, textbook assignments, etc. 

She also goes to a drop off STEM program - she was doing two days a week but since the holidays dropped to once a week. It's is an amazing place, and she learns a lot. They do a 90 minute science workshop where the kids take notes, there is a demonstration, and often a hands on component. Topics ranged from a series on the "inner life of computers", botany, chemistry, etc. They also participate in classes on CAD, and coding, are growing plants in a hydroponic system and made their own mini hydroponic system, play/learn with Spintronics, Turing Tumble, financial literacy games, media literacy, etc. Plus social time, playing chess, doing duolingo. AND they help clean up, etc. 

But with all that it is a long day, and it is 30 minutes away. So we leave at about 9:15am and I pick them up at 5:30pm or so, and then are home around 6pm or later depending on traffic, etc. We listen to science podcasts or audiobooks of historical fiction, or chapters from History Quest US or A Different Mirror or various other things. By the time we get home, do dinner, etc the kids are worn out. Asking them to do a full history lesson, math lesson, and more on top of what they did all day seems too much. 

I had been doing history just with various living books and videos, as a family, but DD13 felt that wasn't enough and hates being lumped in with her younger siblings, so now she's doing Notgrass America The Beautiful. It is designed to be done 5 days a week, do I make her do 5 lessons a week? I've basically made science VERY light, with mostly podcasts and documentaries and field trips given how much they are doing at the drop off program, so that does free up more time in the week. Except of course then there are the board game meet ups on Tuesday, Park Day on Wednesday, PE drop off program for 2 hours on Thursday. Then the STEM program Friday. Our only full day home is monday, and last monday we went to Blue Springs State Park to see the manatees (636!). 

I hate to say no we can't do the social stuff, she has struggled socially and really needs it. I have been making her do a 5th math lesson on the weekend, to make up for missing on Fridays, but I hate to do that with history as well....but maybe I need to. 

Any thoughts? Do I just have her do 4 days of schoolwork a week, plus 1 day of STEM, knowing some days we will have field trips and skip entirely? Cut back on what we cover in textbook subjects? Thoughts?

4 days a week at home, including 4 days of Notgrass, plus STEM, if you must. If you do a field trip on one of those four days, it is what it is; you'll do three days of school work that week.

Personally, I eouldn't do the podcasts or audiobooks on the way hom from wherever. Let them rest. No schoolwork after y'all get home.

I count field trips as educational as any math or grammar lessons or textbook assignments.

[ktgrok]

4 minutes ago, Ellie said:

4 days a week at home, including 4 days of Notgrass, plus STEM, if you must. If you do a field trip on one of those four days, it is what it is; you'll do three days of school work that week.

Personally, I eouldn't do the podcasts or audiobooks on the way hom from wherever. Let them rest. No schoolwork after y'all get home.

I count field trips as educational as any math or grammar lessons or textbook assignments.

I do make sure to do anything "heavier" on the way to the activity, so the audio of History Quest or other non fiction, and then a novel or more fun podcast if anything, on the way home. Sometimes if they are dead we just listen to music or have quiet in the car on the way home, because yes, if they are beat they aren't going to be able to concentrate. But because EVERYTHING we do is at least 20, and usually 25-35, minutes away it's so much "lost" time that I want to make use of at least some of it. Plus, to be frank, it makes my life easier as then I don't have to fit in another chunk of time reading aloud later. 

And thank you for reassurance on the value of field trips - I do think they get so much out of them. Hoping to go to Everglades National Park next month!

Edited February 5 by ktgrok