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Guys, just wondering how to adjust my thinking. I know I shouldn't be a slave to any curriculum, but I feel like the BLHFHG builds on itself each day. SO...any tips or advice on how to skip a day, or adjust my schedule without it messing up my DD too much? And I'm asking because we have a new verse each week, etc. I felt I had to "catch up" this week from missing Friday. So, any advice for this "I like to stay on schedule, but I like to be flexible Mom"? And have a wonderful day to all, and thanks for your input. Love, Kelly

I am also doing BLHFHG.
If I need to skip a day, for example.. . skip day 3 on Wednesday, then I would just do day 3 on Thursday instead. If I felt as though I needed to finish up the week in order to start with Day 1 the following Monday. . . then I just make sure that I got everything done before we started on Monday.

I would not, however, skip anything or leave it out altogether. I'd just find a way to get it all done. I am a stay on schedule kind of a gal. Flexibility is not my strong suit. So, I tend to arrange my life, so that I don't have to skip. That said. . .there are going to be days for sure that we just aren't able to do it, or we have a field trip planned.

I agree with the pp. Just pick back up the next day with where you left off. I worked every Thursday last year, so I was never on the "right" day. It never was a problem.
Laura

I agree - we just pick up with whatever day we stopped on and there hasn't been a problem. We have deliberately only done the left side one day, and the right side the next, if I know we have an appointment or errand that can't be rescheduled and I don't want to stop entirely. Or we've just done math/phonics/handwriting because we're on a different page for math anyhow, and pick up HOD where we left off the next day. HTH

We do the Bible and history first so that I'm sure to get that in every day... everything else is second to stay on schedule in my mind.

Science, math, spelling, poetry, copywork, etc. can fairly easily be caught up just by doing a little extra one day. The one thing in Beyond that I leave out if necessary and don't stress about is the emerging readers box. DD1 reads a lot on her own and talks about what she's read, so I don't feel like that is one to play catch up with. I just move on with it to whatever day we are on and skip what we may have missed.

On that same note, if I KNOW I'm going to have to miss a day later in the week I'll have them do a little extra BEFORE then. Like do one extra page of math or extra copy work/handwriting.

Or we'll devote a Saturday to just doing catch up... we'll have to do that this week because life has happened this week. And I'm not going to "punish" them in the evenings when their friends are out because of *MY* not keeping up... now if they've dawdled around that's different, we don't play until mommy and daddy say school is done.

Lora Beth

We also never let the unit day be an actual day of the week. Too many things happen in life. In fact I had this same thought about the fact this year we will be on a 4 day schedule and started worrying again what will I do until I realized that I will just do the same thing. We will have a four day week and keep Fridays our days for extra things as planned even if Thursday was day 3 or 2 for some reason. I know it will still flow because it did with Bigger and LHFHG. I just know if I obsess over having it fall perfect more things will happen so it never does and that will take my joy out of a program that flows well no matter what day I end my week as long as I just do it in the order it is written.

"We also never let the unit day be an actual day of the week."
This is what we do too. It allows us to have the freedom to go at our own pace w/o the pressure of always trying to play catch-up and making sure all our boxes our checked. Especially at times like this past week, when we took a day off for Labor Day, we will still go full pace for the rest of the week and not feel like we have to get all 5 days of a Unit in, in 4 days. Day 1 of each Unit does not need to start on a Monday.

We've also done Bigger without finishing a unit within a week. Even though you are learning a different Bible verse the next week, it really doesn't mess anything up not to start a new verse on Monday. We thought it worked great the way it was! I know in our house, if we were towards the end of the unit on Monday, Grant easily remembered the verse. If we were towards the beginning of the unit, the plans have you practicing it anyway so it wasn't a big deal to not already have it down.

I'm sure that Beyond will work well with Monday being any of the days of the unit, too. (I'm planning on doing a 4-day week when I get there with my younger 2. )

Kathleen

Agreeing. I never thought I'd be able to do this as we used 2 different curriculums previously with week-at-a-glance grids and I just simply could not break up a week But so far with HOD this seems to work really well!

Ditto! We don't make Day 1 be Monday every time anymore. I have done the Day 1 is Monday, Day 2 is Tuesday, etc. thing in the past when my schedule allowed it and enjoyed it, but I've found it doesn't really matter if we do this or not. This year, we'll be doing CTC (which is a 4 day plan) 5 days a week - so the first week, we'll get through the first unit and the first day of the second unit. I'm not worried about it in the least. In the past, we've done 4 day schedules with 5 day planned guides, done half-speed plans taking 2 weeks to get through 1 week of plans, done 3 day plans with daily fingerplays for LHTH which is a 5 day plan for a year and half or so - and all of that has worked great! But one thing we DON'T do is skip plans. I feel a huge sense of relief knowing my dc are learning all of the skills they need to for their age, and that peace comes from completing all of the plans. This allows me to enjoy the schooling knowing nothing else needs to be done - what a relief.

In Christ,
Julie

Wow...what a blessing this group is by the way. Thank you SO much for your responses. I'm going to TRY to relax about things (not my best gift), and what you're saying is that I shouldn't worry if I miss something, right? Thanks again guys!!!

I think the gist of the respones was to NOT skip any of the plans, but just work your way through them in the schedule that works best for your family...

We also do the plans as is but don't worry about being on Day 1 on Monday. We've not had any trouble with a unit being split up by a weekend as time passes. This is because the whole guide flows chronologically, making it seamless to just go from one day to the next, and then pick it back up after the weekend.

Blessings,
Carrie