We started schooling in August, so our semester will be over in December. I'm wondering how many of us have gotten halfway through the school year and realized that you are moving quicker/slower than you thought you would... Are you needing to re-evaluate and change things for the coming semester? I've set some goals for us to complete by the end of the school year.. They aren't very lofty goals, but I think we are well on our way to completing them. I'll have to spend a little more time on Math next semester, but can probably slow down on Science.. what about you? What changes will you be making?
I really don't set goals anymore. We open the book and go, and finish when we finish. Sometimes that's mid-April, sometimes it's mid-August.
I had to make some small adjustments in the begining of the year with our art and music but beside that I do not really see any changes to our plan. Dd's chorus class will be ending in Jan so we will add in health and our CLE music to the schedule. I just sort of tweak as we are going and follow my lesson plan. Since I pretty much plan out the year there are not too many surprises.
I'm only 9 weeks in, but adjustments are just part of the process of homeschooling. Nothing works out perfectly - at least for me I've had to adjust our schedule numerous times. I had finally found something that worked for my boys, but had to recently readjust because it didn't suit my 3 year old. She isn't in school, but what we do every day impacts her. I've scheduled her day out and she is much happier. As she gets older she desires much more interaction in her play. So I have her spending a portion of each day playing with me as well as times playing with each of her brothers. Plus I have a reading time with her, a time to give her an art project, time to get out a new toybox, time on the computer, etc. I recently adjusted how we work on foreign language, increased the time for Greek, dropped a few things, slowed the pace of some things, added some things, and am changing some of what we are doing for grammar and spelling. I'm also adjusting what my younger son is using for writing. I've also greatly increased time and frequency spent in handwriting. We are doing handwriting 1x a day and copywork 1x a day now. I'm FINALLY starting to see a change in my son's poor habits. I am starting to catch him use a correct position outside of handwriting!! I'm also saving up to get a new Greek program. I was using a free one. It is a great program, but frustrating to use the pdf files and audio links. It is a great big dance, but I tend to throw a whole bunch out there and adjust as we go.
We're actually working at a very good pace. We're exactly where I thought we'd be, maybe a week behind...but I had an extra week in the schedule to play with (with Christmas being on a Sunday, I don't really feel like we HAVE to take the week before AND the week after, so we're probably taking just the week after, and maybe the Monday after the 1st...just to have an extra "quiet" day. We'll be going through to the 23rd, but I'm going to give my kids the option do double up when they can so that if they're done earlier they can be off earlier. They did NOT take me up on that for THanksgiving, but I'm thinking they might for Christmas. We'll see! I would love it if we could be done with 80% of the work going into that week so that it's just project finishing and fun stuff that last week....we'll see what they do! LOL LOL
Well, we'll be adding a new student on Monday! When you do what I do, it's a constant rescheduling game... I THINK I will have on hand what I'll need for the new guy for most subjects, but I MAY be jumping through hoops for social studies/history&geography. I MAY have to order something!
Things have definitely not gone the way that we planned; but I am trying to remind myself that they don't have to in order for us to succeed. It has been a crazy semester with moving half way across the country; but my kids are young (1st and K-4) and are learning other skills if not so much book work. I decided to abandon our history curr., even though I love it (Winter Promise Hideways in History), until January because trying to get it done along with everything else was just too much stress. So we talked about Colonial times, and Pilgrims and such in November and will probably learn about Saint Nick for December. But, I'm learning that it is okay to deviate and that they will still learn.
Our homeschool group just had a curriculum night. I found it a really good time of year to do a self check. As I listened to people share their fav items, I was thinking, "have I done what I wanted to this year?"; "am I on track?" My DS is doing great. Although there are some things I need to work on! I'd like to have them doing more Charlotte Mason style nature studies, and having DS read more outloud. Rather than me reading instructions, I'd like him to be reading more to me. What we have done that we love, is having a reading time where DS reads to one parent at bedtime. Then it doesn't feel like school, and he gets some 1:1 bonding time. We also did up a velcro schedule for the day. I put up what subjects we will do that day. He sometimes changes the order, sometimes I'm okay with it, sometimes not. It's helped our flow a lot, and that way, when he's in a hurrey to get outside or play a video game, I can see on the list how many more things we have to do. That way neither of us can forget about one of the subjects for the day.
I am homeschooling one child and we are ahead of "schedule" again. By March, I know I will have to purchase more materials. But the beauty of homeschooling is that you can go at your child's speed. If they need more time, you can slow down, if they accomplish more in less time, you can adjust for that too.
The first year, I was constantly buying new stuff and adapting. Last year was better. This year, so far, we're perfectly on schedule with where I thought we'd be. I think we've found our groove.
I think we are moving slower than I had wanted but its ok... I school during the summer months so we just keep going until it is complete... these last few weeks it seems like nothing has gotten done! LOL...
This is our first year of hs'ing, so I have no idea if we are where we should be! One of my goals over the Christmas break is to review the rest of the year and see if we are on track. I *think* we are doing OK! This post did get me thinking that I want the kids to do more independent reading (for pleasure). I am not great about making that a priority in our day. I also want to make reading TO them a "for sure" each school day.
Assign a time for a half-hour of silent reading. I do this right after lunch. THIS IS MY MOM'S TIME!!! I set the timer, and the kids know not to bother me during this time. Rules are NO HOUSEWORK, NO SCHOOLWORK (including lesson planning or grading papers!). This is time for you to sit down and do whatever it is that relaxes you. Also, if you want the kids in bed by 10:00, tell them bedtime is 9:30, but they can stay up an "extra" half-hour if it is spent reading. We do that with our kids; usually, they jump at the chance of "staying up" an "extra" half-hour! The exception is my youngest. He'd rather go to bed than read, lol!
I've decided to completely scrap my entire program and at tax time in Feb buy all new stuff. I told myself I would give it till December before I gave it up. I finally realized I was was working too hard to make this fit us, and it just isn't happening. I hate that I've wasted an entire semester and I just don't feel like we have accomplished anything.
We're moving slowly. I'm so behind that I'm scrapping the curriculum for now and coming back to it in January
I just did a review of our progress, I am not moving as slow as I first thought! makes me one happy momma
We started our year the first week of June so I knew that we would complete a lot of work but we completed a lot more than I anticipated. Come January, I would like to put together extra work to take the place of what Ems already completed or we can spend that extra time focusing on areas where more practice is needed.
Phillip is finishing up TT6. I could borrow TT Pre-Alg from a friend, so I gave him a pretest today. I learned that he is NO WAY ready for Pre-Alg!!! So, does anyone have TT7 they want to sell?
We are behind where I think we should be.. At least the boys are. Ds14 broke his hand right after we started school so didn't get much done until the cast came off.. Ds15 coming back to homeschooling. That threw EVERYTHING off. But we finally got his curriculum going and are adjusting to homeschool life with him here again.. Looking forward to next semester.. We start a new homeschool group that should break our monotony up a bit.. Will meet once a week.. So they will get every Friday off starting in January.. YAY..
