More Lessons From Mom

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I have been a lot more relaxed this school year, thanks in large part to the advice from both my mom and my mother-in-law.  As a bit of a follow-up, I'd like to share another piece of advice they have given me and how I have (finally!) been able to apply it to my own homeschool.

You don't have to complete every workbook page or lesson.

  I usually receive this advice when I show up at one house or the other a little late and feeling harried because there just isn't time to squeeze all the things I feel like we need to cover into a reasonable school day.  And yes, usually does mean I have heard this advice more than once.
  I tend to be a "by the book" kind of person, which makes it really hard to me to skip pages with out feeling guilty or worrying that I am somehow endangering my children's education.  While I know that my children are not going to end up illiterate and ignorant just because we failed to complete half a math page in second grade, identifying which pages can be skipped without missing important concepts can be a hard task.
  In the past, I have felt that certain subjects could not be skipped at all.  Giving my students a good foundation in math and reading have been so all important that other, to my mind at least, less important things have slipped through the cracks.  Science experiments and creative writing are always the first things to get dropped.
  But science experiments and creative writing are important too, so this summer I spent some time evaluating our school day to see how I could put all those "less important" things back in my teaching without stressing over the other work.
  One of the main things I did was to plan for busy days.  We keep the same schedule from week to week as far as the activities we do outside of school, so it isn't too hard to pinpoint those days when I need to plan a little less school work.  Time consuming activities are planned for the days that I can run a little late with school or when we can get back to it after lunch.
  I also gave myself the option to skip certain activities if they did not fit in the day.  I plan to do math flashcards every day.  We only do them two or three times most weeks, but that is two or three times a week more than we did last year.
  I have found it helpful to decide what is important today.  We are currently working through a five week science project involving plants.  Some of the experiments are timed to be done at a certain point in the plant's growth, and if we are off by a day or two they don't work as well.  So science has the priority right now.  We haven't had a chance to do many flashcards, but we are almost done with the science project, and I know that we will have more time for flashcards in a couple of weeks.
  I think part of the reason I have been afraid to skip a workbook page or lesson is that I'm afraid we will miss something important.  I have spent a lot more time this year flipping though the books (usually while I am waiting for my kids to finish an assignment) to see where we are headed.  Knowing where we are going gives me a better sense of the importance of a particular page or lesson.
  Another thing I have started doing is to try to identify which portions of a lesson can be skipped if necessary.  Today we had ten examples in our math textbook and twenty-five problems in the workbook.  I decided that it would be a better use of our time if we only did one or two of the examples from the textbook and then I planned to work with my daughter on part of the workbook page.  As it turned out, when I tried to work with her on the workbook page, she allowed me to coach her through two problems and then took the book saying, "Mom, I've got this."  Music to my ears!
  I'm lucky to have two moms who support my homeschool living just a few minutes away.  They often give me a hand on days when I am pressed for time, and you can bet those grandmothers are happy to teach their grandkids!  But that is the subject for another blog post. 
In the mean time...

What about you?  How do you fit everything into a busy school day?