This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please read my disclosure policy.
Sometimes you need to finish your homeschool year fast.
Maybe a baby is coming or the family is moving across the country. You don’t have the luxury of meandering through the school year. The reason doesn’t matter.
You need to finish your homeschool year FAST!
How Much Time Do You Have
Before you can finish your homeschool year fast, you need to know how crunched for time you are.
Start by calculating the number of days needed to finish each subject.
Now figure out how many homeschool days are left before you must be done for the year.
What is the difference between the two?
Hopefully, you have the same number of days, or less, to finish each subject as you have homeschool days left in the school year. In this case, stay on track and keep working on the plan. You’re doing just fine.
But what happens when you don’t?
You ran behind in a subject or two. And now you have far more days left in the subject than you do in the year!
Condense Lessons
Condensing lessons means that you do two lessons in a day rather than one
It’s a great method when you’re dealing with a subject your children easily understand.
For instance, we just covered adjectives. On the first day, we talked about adjectives that help us see such as the black horse or the bright lightning. On the second day, we discussed adjectives that help us hear such as the loud thunder or the singing bird. There’s no reason these two lessons couldn’t be grouped together!
And condensing like lessons allows you to double your pace through the subject.
History and art are easy subjects to condense. Simply plan for a longer school day and double your pace.
But be careful about condensing skill subjects such as math and foreign languages.
Sometimes kids need extra time to master the material.
Use Documentaries
Documentaries are a fun method of covering history and science topics plus they allow you to finish your homeschool year fast.
This works especially well if you’re covering a large topic such as the Civil War, World War 2, how the pyramids were built, astronomy, or mammals.
My kids got sick with the flu one year when we were about to cover the American Revolution. Rather than trying to double up on their history readings, I found a documentary to watch.
And the kids loved the change of pace!
So pop a big bowl of popcorn and curl up in the living room together. And spend a quiet day watching documentaries.
Or you can save your school hours for subjects you’re condensing and watch history and science documentaries in the evening.
Remember to enjoy long discussions at the dinner table.
Move to a Six-Day Week
Working six days a week is not my favorite method of solving the issue of running behind, but it is effective.
And it’s the best solution for math and languages because it immediately increases the number of lessons you can finish.
If you’ve been using a four-day week, you’ve just added two more lessons a week. If you’ve been using a five-day week, you’ve added one more lesson a week.
Moving to a six-day week is an easy way to finish your homeschool year fast.
Shift Studies into the Summer
In this case, you save some studies for the summer which allows you to finish your homeschool year fast.
Call the school year done when you need to be done and save the last of your studies to complete during the summer. In my house, it usually means the kids have a light load of school work to complete.
Another fun method is to specifically save history or science for the summer.
And then enjoy a history-focused or science-focused summer with your kids.
Take field trips, complete projects and experiments, read books aloud. Plan vacations around historical sites that fit in with your history studies. Spend a day at the science museum.
Your kids won’t remember the year you crammed to finish the year.
They’ll remember the museums, projects, and experiments you enjoyed as a family.
Finish Your Homeschool Year By Stopping
The final option to finish your homeschool year fast is to stop for the summer and pick up again in the fall. When you have a hard and fast deadline coming up such as a baby or move this is the best option.
Get as far as you can without sacrificing mastery and start again the next school year where you left off.
The textbooks may not all finish at the same time in June. They may finish in August, September, October, or even later. And that’s okay.
Let the kids finish the textbook at their own pace and begin the next book when ready.
Remember, slow and steady wins the race.
And just because the kids won’t finish the curriculum by summer doesn’t mean you have to skip the rest of the material. Simply pick up again where you left off.
When you need to finish your homeschool year fast, mix and match among these five methods. You may find condensing a few subjects and moving to a six-day week is your best solution. Sometimes watching documentaries and shifting studies to the summer months works best.
Or perhaps simply calling it quits for the year and starting up again in September is your best solution.
As a homeschooler, the option is yours.
How do you finish your homeschool year fast?
Recommended Reading
Books:
- Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler’s Guide to Unshakable Peace
- The Unhurried Homeschooler
- Better Together: Strengthen Your Family, Simplify Your Homeschool, and Savor the Subjects that Matter Most
Links:
- 3 Excellent Reasons to Color Code Homeschool Supplies
