Each year of home schooling will look at little different. Family circumstances, children’s individual needs and seasons of education can cause us at times to struggle to keep to our well-laid plans. It is a good idea to do a mid-year review in December or January to see where you are with various subjects for each child and compare it to your plans. Doing so can help stop the panic in May when you realize you are months behind in a subject and will be doing school all summer, even though you planned to finish by May.
Here’s how we do it. I have my students pull out all their books and notebooks (This is also a great time to have them tidy up school areas). Then we go subject by subject, jotting down where they are in the book and how much there is to go.
Example: Algebra 2 60/130 lessons; English, 12/30 units.
After going through each subject, I count how many weeks we still have to complete the school year and see how many lessons are required for each. Doing this may reveal that there are areas where you are falling behind. In subjects where you are behind, resist the urge to try to catch it all up in a marathon flurry of work. Also, don’t let this become a struggle in your home. You are collecting data, not blame. You will use this data to make necessary adjustments. Consider whether it is a top priority item, an elective, and whether a different routine should be put in place for these classes. Some classes can be spread out over two years and that may relive some of the pressure. You may decide some of the things you had planned really are not worth the time and effort and it is ok to let them go! You can also adjust a curriculum to fit your realistic teaching availability. An example of this is we skip busy work that is low value for high value work. We also may decrease the quantity of work for each area. Math is an obvious one here. You can occasionally have the student only do the odds or evens, or skip the book work every tenth lesson or so. You can opt out of timed multiplication practice.
Hopefully there are some areas where you are on track or a bit ahead. That is fantastic! Keep pressing on. See what is working well in these areas and see if you can repeat this success across the board.
