The School Time Squeeze {Let's Homeschool High School}

So many resources... so little time... left in the school year. Oh sure, we could do school year round, but I've been on that merry-go-round, and my kids are happier getting their vacation time in the summer. So am I. That means that this is the time of year when we need to take a good, hard look at what we have left that we NEED to finish up and what would be NICE if we could include and start tweaking the schedule and expectations so we can make it all happen. Ideally, make it all happen before final grades are due!

Last week, I worked with Landon and Kennady to make some adjustments to our daily schedule. We - all three of us! - need to work on our time management skills, and Landon could do a better job of keeping himself on task rather than using the excuse that he was "waiting for Mom to give me the next assignment" or whatever. No. You should be able to figure out what the next assignment is, even if I haven't printed out the lesson plan for you. So now I think we've dealt with that. We also went over the expectation I have as far as how much time the kids need to spend on schoolwork or educational pursuits each day. It's only the second day of actually using that new schedule, but I'm noticing improvement already, so I hope that's a good sign!

Around midterm, I was a little concerned about our chances of getting through Science (Biology) before the end of the year. Science is easily our most neglected subject this year, so I decreed that Landon needed to work on Science every day, and give it high priority. Also, I took the text materials that I had in download format to the office supply store and paid to have them printed. The entire text of the Life Science units. That has helped. And we're going to be writing another review of Supercharged Science this spring, so there's some extra motivation to work on it every day.

I've got more resources and ideas and stuff I want to cover in Social Studies than we will ever realistically be able to do before year end, but that's okay. If we don't do it all, that's because there's more than we need, not because we're failing to do it! That said, I still feel like I need to assign more individual study to Landon in this subject. He needs to write more and he should probably get used to doing it all on his own, since he may be doing one of the Notgrass courses next year. Not sure yet. He WILL be doing Notgrass World History and Notgrass Exploring America, but we may decide to leave them for 11th and 12th grades and do something else next year.

Don't you hate it when you have cool resources lying around that you'd planned to use, and then you wind up not being able to fit them in the way you'd like? Yeah, me too. We've got technology stuff that I thought we would use - TeenCoder courses, but I couldn't make that happen this year. Not enough computers! I've got awesome art stuff too - ARTistic Pursuits, but Landon doesn't want to draw; or a photography course, or Graphic Design... not enough time and interest to squeeze that in this year.

Do you still have coursework you'd like to squeeze in before the end of the school year? Will you manage it, or will you leave it for another year? Leave a comment and let me know! This post is linked at the "Let's Homeschool High School March Blog Hop" .

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