Strategy 2 for Saving Time in Your Homeschool
Do you remember sitting in school, tediously completing worksheets while the teacher walked around the classroom, or sat working at her desk? Do you remember finishing early and sitting there, bored out of your mind, until everyone finished? Or maybe you were the kid who was still working, but because everyone else was done, the pressure mounted, and you couldn’t think straight to finish all those problems!
Teachers in a classroom constantly have to walk the tightrope of allowing enough time for kids who need longer while keeping the other kids occupied (or quiet, at least)—and trust me, my heart goes out to the teachers out there! That’s the nature of a mass education setting, where everyone is somewhat bound to each other’s pace.
One of the biggest advantages to homeschooling is self-pacing, and that pace works to your advantage when it comes to saving time in your schedule!
Yesterday, we talked about one of my favorite ways to save time throughout a course: testing out of chapters when appropriate; it can shave weeks off of your school year!
But what if your actual day is just running too long?
Let me show you how pace comes into play and can help save time in your day right away, every day… starting today!
✅ Fast-track assignments when your child understands the concept.
I remember looking at my child’s math lesson one day and seeing pages (plural!) of problems to reinforce the lesson. There must have been 50 problems there. Thankfully, the curriculum only assigned half of them, but that was still 25 problems, and when a kid is doing something process-heavy like long division, that can take a really LONG time!
While, true, practice makes perfect (or, as it has been corrected to say, “perfect practice makes perfect”), at what point does all the repetition become tedious and start working against you, because the child grows bored, antsy, and frustrated?
One thing I hate to hear is when my son, who excels in math, tells me he hates math! Why would he say that when he does so well at it? Usually, it’s because of the amount of time it takes to do all those problems (and other times, it’s because he’s feeling lazy and doesn’t want to do the work; that’s a different situation).
So, with the former reason in mind, I decided to pick up the pace on those assignments. I suspected that not all 25 problems were necessary for him to truly grasp the concepts, and I decided to shave it down some—a lot, actually.
So, how do I choose what to have the kids do and not do?
If your curriculum is laid out like ours, then you are probably familiar with worksheet layouts that go more or less like this:
Top of the sheet: Brief overview or description of the concept
First section: 10 – 12 simple problems of one type
Next section: 10 – 12 problems of another type, perhaps slightly more complex than the first section
Third section: Even more problems, either structured another way or increased in complexity from the first two sections.
Last section: 2 – 4 word problems (math) or “write your own” sentence problems (English), or something else that shows more mastery and application than the previous sections.
This is just an example, of course, of what a worksheet might look like.
So, let’s get to the point.
If my child goes through the lesson and seems to understand what he just learned, I can fast-track this worksheet by choosing about 2 – 3 problems from each section to have him do.
If he does those 2 – 3 problems easily without any help from me and gets them right, we’re clear to move on.
If he has questions on them, I’ll help him, re-teach or give him tips on how to remember the steps he’s struggling on, and get him through those problems. Then I’ll have him do a few more to show he remembers on his own and can do them without me.
In most cases, this takes a lengthy worksheet down to a handful of problems, and he’s done in about 15 minutes instead of a half-hour (or longer)!
But is this enough reinforcement? If he only does a few problems, how do I know he will retain the information?
Again, this is the beauty of homeschooling. As you dip your toes in the water of fast-tracking, it won’t take you long to see what works and what doesn’t.
If we fast-track an assignment and don’t do enough reinforcement, guess what? It’ll show up on the chapter review (and/or cumulative reviews, if you use those), and we can go back and hit that concept again before moving on to the test and leaving the chapter.
But doesn’t that defeat the purpose? Not necessarily. Remember, it’s trial and error, risk and reward. Sure, you might have to go back and spend more time on that lesson, but you might not, either. If you take the chance and your kid has the concept down pat, you just saved both of you time and sanity… and that goes a long way toward your motivation and morale, as you will then build upon the wins you have under your belt! That can be very encouraging for a kid and help him want to keep moving forward (even if it’s his least-favorite subject).
Clarification: I’m not suggesting that you shove your kid through lessons and chapters at an unnecessarily fast or unhealthy pace. It’s perfectly okay to stick with the curriculum as it is laid out, as long as it’s working for you. Just remember that many curriculum providers are providing you more than enough for what you need to get the job done. Our curriculum, BJU Press, is excellent about putting every tool in our hands that we could possibly need! That doesn’t mean that we have to use every tool for every lesson. We use what we need, and once we’ve hammered the nail in, we put the hammer down and move on. 😊 (Side note: My dad’s a builder by trade, so that’s where my tools/construction analogies come from).
Fast-tracking comes into play when you and/or your child is maxing out, getting frustrated, and feeling exhausted at the end of every school day. Completing every single thing can be counterproductive if it makes your day drag on and on, pushing you closer to burnout and further from an enjoyable experience!
There is certainly a time and place for slowing the pace, as I talk about in Homeschool Crash Course, and I truly believe that slowing down the pace when appropriate will actually save you time in the long run! But that’s another conversation for another day.
If you’re enjoying these tips and are finding them helpful, you can get immediate access to my arsenal of strategies and tips found in Homeschool Crash Course today.
Click here to fast-track your own understanding of how to customize your homeschool journey to go further faster!
Because our kids deserve better,
Amy
