I just sat down and completed the lesson planning for the first three weeks of school. I quickly realized that if I attempt to follow the pace of the pre-planned lessons included in the Abeka and Bob Jones curricula (Science and Literature respectively), my daughter will soon be overwhelmed. What I have decided to do is to follow the pre-planned lesssons and activites at our own pace. With that being said, we will more than likely only get through two thirds to three fourths of the material. Should I be concerned about this? Looking ahead to the following year, would it be best to continue where we leave off or move ahead to the next grade level?
I think it depends on the age of your children. We used to keep on track and finish everything, we took summers off and had a two week 'summer school' to do this but it worked. I think it works best if you give them goals to follow. Expect more or less but plan for the best month in the beginning, when it seems easy, then as it gets tougher around January slack a little bit and then recharge. See where you are for the second semester. re-plan the months each adjusting as you need to.
It also depends on the material. If there is something your child already knows, skip it. If it's a publisher that spends the first month reviewing what was learned in the previous semester, you don't necessarily have to finish the course. Just go at your own pace picking up as much as you can. Public schools never finish entire texts, either.
I would try to keep up with things like language arts and math, but for content subjects like science and history take more time. Also decide if the work they require is "busy-work" for your child or is she learning with it. She may not need to do everything listed.
We use all BJU and when you recieve it, it always looks overwhelming. I think the same thing how in the world are we going to finish it. We also skip the busy work. But we always wind up finishing early. In the reading or litature depending on your grade there is always one or two stories that my kids are scratching their head at, so we skip them. But I usually have my kids complete everything. Plus we only school 4 days a week because of our local co-op. We do make up days when ps has a snow day and we usually get a lot done those days because I work for our local school and it give us a chance to plow through because I am home the entire day. Don't stress it all works out in the end..
Maybe this will make you feel better, in NYS teachers are only required to finish 80% of the curriculum in a year. So most schools are probably not finishing the curriculum either.
Both Abeka and BJU were built for schools, so there is a ton of busy work, seat work, homework, etc., in those lesson plans. If you pare it down to the essentials and some fun stuff, and leave out all the stuff homeschoolers don't really need (like extra reviews that aren't needed because you know what your child knows, not like a classroom where you're not sure if they've got it or not), you can make it lots more manageable. Depending on how much of what is left at the end of a year, we may call it done, or we may pick up at the beginning of the next year and finish before starting the next course. Math and reading/literature we definitely pick up again and finish, science we may not.
I have not finished from this past year but we started today and we will just go until we complete this grade and then I will purchase the next grade. That is how we decided to do it so that they get all the information and we can go at our own pace.
Justbecca upon assessment that is wht I am doign with Spanish for ds, he needed a break cause it was hard plus 12 units, so we decided to finish ten, take three or this coming year plus the video and book text I am trying with him to make the second year of Spanish complete.
My DGS did not finish all his first grade work last year. This year we will pick up first grade reading 5 units before starting 2nd, 4 units of LA before starting 2nd, and 1 unit of Math before starting 2nd. Science and social studies we'll start new at the beginning. My 9th grader will start R&S English 6 somewhere in the middle where we left off and finish that before starting 7. Literature will be 8th first, then start 9th. We're going to do quite a bit of review (fractions, long division) math before starting anything new. And so on...
and on another note, my 10th grader will be completing his 9th grade spanish and the second quarter of his Senior Social study course that I gave him too soon, maybe this year and maybe next. The rest of his work will be 10th except for 11th grade math.
