Comments on: How to Easily and Quickly Finish Your Homeschool Year

By: Sara Dennis

Sara Dennis — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 20:17:12 +0000

In reply to Lisa Ehrman. I also let my teens decide how they want to catch up. Usually like yours, they avoid Saturdays like the plague, but this year my son ASKED for Saturday assignments! :-o

By: Lisa Ehrman

Lisa Ehrman — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 18:10:10 +0000

Great ideas. We doubled up when my children were young, but when they were in high school, I let them decide which method. They usually picked summer to finish any work that wasn’t complete. When they picked it themselves, it stopped any complaining on their part. My kids really hated doing school work on Saturdays 🙂

By: Sara Dennis

Sara Dennis — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 17:30:29 +0000

In reply to shannon cox.

Shannon, I completely agree that elementary history is definitely one to NOT feel upset about finishing. Studying what’s interesting is one of the joys of homeschooling. The ancient Greeks are fascinating!

However I maintain, from hard experience, that not finishing curriculum is a bad habit to get into. For instance Saxon Math, which we use, reviews the previous book at the beginning of the year. And I discovered my kids need that review. The first time they see the new concept they say, “I think I understand.” The second time it’s, “I GET IT!!!” Seeing the concepts for a second time ensures mastery. Finishing the old textbook with a review the next year makes math easier. No more tears!

Rod & Staff English, which we use for grammar, teaches concepts in a similar order every year. You start out with sentences before moving on to nouns and verbs. Prepositions and articles are usually covered at the end of the textbook. When we first started using R&S English, I followed the advice to not worry about finishing curriculum each year. After all, the material would be repeated in the next book! However if you don’t finish the book one year, you probably won’t the next. In the haze of pregnancies and babies, I didn’t realize that. A couple years later I discovered I had kids who could spout of the definition of a noun in their sleep but were hazy on prepositions. *sigh* In retrospect I should have simply picked up where we left off in last year’s book.

Also by the time you’re homeschooling high school teens, the option of picking it up again in middle school or high school is gone. It’s now or never. 🙂

Enjoy studying the Ancient Greeks. They’re a fascinating people to learn about!

By: shannon cox

shannon cox — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 16:09:40 +0000

May I say, I read somewhere that curriculum, at least the kind that is pre-made, is often NOT meant to be completed necessarily in the school year and often enough the beginning of the next year’s curriculum (or level) in any given subject is review of the last year. So, I would probably think to look ahead a bit to see what the last part of curriculum covers, look at what the next year’s starts out with and see if I could just use review weeks to cover what I didn’t get to cover at year’s end….if that makes any sense. History is definitely one to NOT feel upset about not “finishing.” You could just pick up where you left off…or just read on through the summer, using living books to fill in gaps or opting out of certain units that aren’t integral in the arc of history study. Because, you’ll definitely pick it up again in middle school or high school. For example, one year we were just really moving slowly in Ancient History (first year and I thought we had to READ ALL the suggested books even though they were listed as optional supplements) and I found that we were not going to get to the Greeks by year’s end. The prospect of this bummed me and the kids out. So, we skipped over the chapters about African and Chinese history…and went for early Greeks.

By: Sara Dennis

Sara Dennis — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 14:01:55 +0000

In reply to Catherine. As long as we're meeting our children needs, there's no reason we can't pick and choose what to work on. That's the beauty of homeschooling and giving our kids a personalized education.

By: Catherine

Catherine — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 18:52:20 +0000

Great tips! I think for myself, who is a rule follower, I tend to follow curriculum to the letter. However, that just is not always possible. Learning that it is okay to skip things they already know, to pick and choose what you want to work on or to change the lesson to better meet our time constraints (like watching a video instead of reading about it for days) is ok. Not just okay but really needed. Thanks so much for sharing with others these tips.

By: Sara Dennis

Sara Dennis — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 21:45:01 +0000

In reply to Renee. That's happened to me quite a few times over the last 15 years. After a while I picked up a few tips. :-)

By: Renee

Renee — Tue, 08 Mar 2016 13:52:45 +0000

These are great tips to help get caught up! Sometimes life just happens and we just behind. This is a great way to encourage us when we do get behind. Thanks!