Rounding Out the Year

We're are |  | this close to the end of our school year.  We have just over 20 days left.  We're starting to finish some of books, so we'll either be moving up to the next grade level or rounding out our days with a little extra history or social studies.  We have a smidge of ground to make up in those two subjects.  That is mostly because I bought an astronomy text to use this semester and when we got into it I found it was supposed to be a full year class and we alternate the two subjects by day.  We're making excellent progress, considering!  We're starting Saturn tomorrow, so I think we'll get it!  I hated never finishing our texts in school, so that was one of my goals as a home schooler--get to that very last chapter and find out what happened at the end of all those periods of history.

I've tried a couple of different strategies for our daily 'list' of activities, but this has been the surest method.

I tried making a list to be checked, but honestly, it was just repetition of the stack!  Either it is a book that I need to be involved in (going over the text in math or giving a dictation) or they girls know to go on to the next page in the book if it is fairly independent work, so the list, even with page numbers was redundant.  As they finish it they 'check it off' by putting it in a new stack.  The books that they both use (currently history and science) are both in Kate's stack--part of the reason her's is so tall!

We're not planning to take much of a break over the summer, instead opting to use that time in the fall with the baby.  We found an umbrella school that will work with us on that, so we'll take a little break, but not like we usually do.  One of the joys of homeschooling is the joyous flexibility.  I'm so glad we'll have that special time.