I am always curious about how other people manage their schedules. I know that in theory I always start with an perfectly even distribution of subjects. For some reason it never ends up as shiny and neat as September by this time of year. We always have something that we are behind in, something we finish early. I tend to look around at what we have left in May and find that I practically need an entirely new schedule to get us through the last few weeks!
In the second half of our last term, we always start finishing things up. We get to the end of that novel, wrap up that unit… decide we really hated that book and don’t care enough to finish it? (You too? Or is that just me?) On a good year when everything is working out fairly evenly, our school work tends to just slowly peter out. One thing at a time, we finish up our subjects. Our school days get shorter as our patience for doing it starts to wane.
Not every year is quite that tidy though. Sometimes we are running behind on some subjects, or there are just too many pages left in something. Instead of letting school drag on for an extra few weeks, The kids and I prefer to consolidate it.
There’s something about this time of year that just motivates us to be finished. We try our best to be done our school year as close to the beginning to June as possible. (One of the perks of being a homeschooler is getting to go places while they are quiet during the school year! June and Sept are my favorite months for field trips.)
With the sight of summer vacation on the horizon, the kids are always on board with condensing what we have left and doing one last push to wrap up our year.
To keep them motivated, and to help me keep track of things on a different schedule, I write out what is left on a new piece of paper. We get to cross it off as we finish it. This is very satisfying, and a great visual for the kids. (Who am I kidding, I need the boost by then too!)
The picture above is an unusually pretty example I made one year.
If we’re being honest, it’s more likely to look like this though:
Not revolutionary, but not how I imagined things either when I first started homeschooling. What does your end of year look like? Are you tidier than I am?
Want more Hodgepodge Homesteading? Here’s where else you can find us!
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hodgepodgehomesteading/
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092368241618
On Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/hodgepodgehomesteading/