Okay, despite having dozens of topics about which I want to write, I’ve had to drastically reduce my computer time this week. I’m absolutely down to crunch time on a project I’m doing for my best friend from college’s wedding next week, and unless I spend at least three hours a day on this project, I’ll never be done in time. (And yes, I’ll post a photo when it is done. And it WILL be done.) In fact, my husband has strongly suggested to me that I refrain from housework today so that I can make some progress on this project. Since this is a highly unusual request in our household, I think think it’s safe to assume that he’s just a bit tired of hearing about this subject. (And yes, before you ask, I do realize that he did not say to abandon the housework so that I could work on my blog.)

I have, however, almost finished my quota for the day, and my fingers are about to fall off, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to sneak in a little post before I put my nose back to the grindstone. I’ve been looking forward to doing a homeschool post for a while, so today I just wanted to mention that now is a great time to look back over the past academic year, evaluating what worked, what didn’t and what exactly did you do all year, anyway?

Our family tends to keep homeschooling year round, but our summers are much more sporadic and relaxed than structured. After a couple of months of that change of pace, I’m usually in a pretty good frame of mind to realistically assess the past year. Without fail, my first inclination is to think of all the things we didn’t get to, the books we didn’t finish, the field trips that never happened, and so on. It is more productive to start by focusing on the positive, so I nudge my brain in the right direction by making a list of all the topics that I can remember that we did cover. By “cover”, I mean topics that we addressed, either via curricula, books, TV, movies, vacations, field trips, or perhaps most of all, everyday discussion.

If you want to try this, you can jog your memory by thinking about your children’s development in all the traditional academic disciplines – Math, Science, Language Arts, History, Foreign Language, Art, Music, Crafts and Handwork, and so on. Under each broad heading, list the main concepts and topics that your child addressed at some point during the year. You can use adjectives like “introduced”, “reviewed”, “extensively explored”, “repeatedly reinforced”, and so on, to indicate the relative depth with which the topic was treated.

For further memory jogging, think back over any travel or field trips you did. You may even find it helpful to refer to your calendar, to remind yourself of what you were doing each month. If your child keeps scrapbooks, or notebooks, or makes lapbooks, you can also refer to those for help.

Now think of progress in maturity, capability, character, or attitude that your child has made. For instance, our twins got off to a slow start with their reading progression, but I’m happy to say that they have ended the year excited about learning to read, and anxious to make progress as quickly as possible. (It helps that they figured out they could play more complicated Nintendo games if they could read. Hey, whatever it takes, right?)

If you take an hour or so to really write it all down, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised, and encouraged, too. You may not have gotten to “everything” during the year, but do try to remember what you did do, and then you can build from that next year.

Gotta go, now. One of the kids wants a reading lesson . . .

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