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I'm a newbie to HOD, we are finishing our 2nd week and I can't say thank you enough for this wonderful curriculum. Well, it just so happened that our 2nd week was a hectic one, my parents went out of town and I have 2 younger siblings, one in highschool, one who is handicapped who I had to chauffer around to school and work and other things, and that both needed a lot of my time, and no matter how hard we tried, I wasn't able to get every single day completely finished, so now we're on Friday and we are about 2 days behind. We got part of Day 3 completed yesterday, and still have all of day 4 and 5 to do. So what do you do, do you just get it all caught up in one day, do you spread it out over a few days, or do you just do the important (math, reading, etc) stuff and skip the rest? I could just take next week to get caught up, but I really don't want to get behind, as we're planning to be done a week or two before Christmas with our current schedule. The type A in my can't really bring myself to skip anything, but I don't know how we can catch up without working all day or moving it in to Saturday which is usually pretty full for us. If it helps we are using LHTH and BLHFHG. Thanks a bunch!

Sara

I wouldn't suggest skipping anything ... maybe you could take the next week or so to play catch up. For example, on Monday you could do an extra day of Math, on Tuesday you could do extra LA, on Wednesday you could do extra History, etc.
Enjoy HOD!

I say just continue on one day at a time. Take your scheduled breaks, and just know that unplanned "breaks" are bound to happen....to all of us! If you don't finish all of a guide by your end date, just finish the remaining units when you start back up and the move on to the next guide. I'm often doing day 3 on a monday or a day 1 on a friday. If you rush to catch up, especially in the 3R's, you may find the learning and retention to be lessened, thus leaving you possibly having to slow down or back up later. Just enjoy the ease of the daily plans of HOD! That's what I'd do, and I stress over it just like you ...but in the end, of all the times this has happened in my home, what I mentioned has worked best for my own sanity and my kids love of school.

I also second not skipping and not doing too much at once. We are almost always off on days in terms of day 1 being Monday and so on, but it doesn't really matter with this curriculum. You may find chances along the way to catch up a little by fitting an extra day in here or there.

I agree with Mom2Monkeys and tjswaine...
Don't sweat it..
Currently we are doing CTC.. due to my mom's health issues our school days have slowed down to a half-speed crawl. We manage to do maybe 2 days out of the 4 days each week.
We start with i.e. day 1 and work left to right..then whatever is not completed we simply pick up and do the next day. Now if she only had one thing left do from day 1, I will sometimes throw in an extra grammar lesson, IYW or DITHOR just to keep the flow going, but we don't start the next day until the previous one has been completed. This way I am not flipping back and forth trying to figure out what was done and what wasn't done.
I used to get so bent out of shape when everything wasn't done in one day...then realized that was just causing stress on me, the kiddos and dh (since he's the one who would get the earful of my day at the end of his day).
If you feel you got to catch up.. then as time allows, work in an extra lesson of math or science, or read that extra set of read-aloud pages... but don't sweat it... HOD is forgiving and flexible.
Do what works for you and your kiddos

I so get the wanting to be on Day 1 on Monday, and Day 2 on Tuesday, but I have now thrown that concept out the window, and I have to tell you, it's super freeing! I would do as the other wise ladies have suggested here and don't skip or rush. The important thing I'm considering in this advice is you are just a few days off. If you were say 6 months off, we'd have to figure out what was causing that to happen and how you could make a better game plan for the future. Being a few days off is not an indication of a pattern of not getting school done. It is just an indication you are a living breathing busy loving mom. So, if you get to Christmas Break, and you're not where you want to be, either finish it after Christmas break, or finish out the readings for the core areas, as well as the LA/math, and omit the activities/experiments at that point if you have to. (I really dislike missing activities, but if it's only a week of them, I don't think that's life threatening. I'm not advocating doing this if a person has a lot of the guide left, as there is learning in the activities too, and too much would be missed. ). Or, if you cannot do this (I do understand being at that point if you are), and that little voice whispering "your 2 days behind" won't quiet down , with LHTH and Beyond it would not be hard at all to have 2 power days, where you do one day's worth of plans in the morning, and one day's worth of plans in the afternoon. Two days of that would catch you up nicely. But, give the other alternative some thought first. You'll know what fits you best right now! Any of these plans will work.

In Christ,
Julie

P.S. Welcome to the HOD Board, Sara! We're a pretty upbeat kind of group of gals here. I think you'll love being here and will fit right in!

I also wouldn't skip anything. What we do is if we know we probaby won't get it all done, we do hAlf a day. If we get a little bit more than half done that day , then the next day we will finish up AND do the next day in the Unit. Does that make sense? if we only get half, then the next day we only do the other half. Half is better than nothing and so you aren't as behind. Life happens... We have occasionally done a lesson on Saturdays. the kids don't seem to mind and we get it done faster if say, they are going to Grandma and Grandpa's that day.
That's how we do it.

Jenn D

As some of the other ladies have said, it's okay to be behind a day or so. That happens to me a LOT! But, you know what I find is that in a few weeks or a month there will be another activity or field trip and the next thing you know, we're back to having "day one" be on Monday. I will say this, that as you progress through the year you may find that you don't need to spend as much time on "school", mainly because the children's skills have caught up to the expectations of the guide and at that point you might want to double up some subjects to get caught up. We've actually been doing that over the last two weeks, I got behind because I suddenly had to work 4 nights a week and so doing school had to go on the back-burner but now that my schedule has slackened up we have been hitting the books and getting caught up. But that's only because there are a bunch of field trips and activites I want us to be able to do and still be done school by the middle of May. I run our school year from late July-May, with several breaks through-out the year, so I'm on fire to get 'er done. HTH!!

I have my own "minimal school" that I've decided we have to get done no matter what. We even took it on vacation because we were having a lot of drive time, and we'd taken several days off school getting ready for the trip. For us, it's 1 page math, 1 small reader (for the younger), 1 passage of dictation (for the older), and 1 page of handwriting book. These subjects don't get us "off" in the HOD guide--we just pick back up where we left off. Honestly, we don't even get to these things occasionally, but by focusing on that, I feel that we'll stay on track with the minimal basics, and can pick back up with all the history and science and grammar the next day.

Wow, thank you all so very much! You are all so sweet and so helpful. We decided to not stress ourselves to getting caught up and will follow what you all were talking about doing and just doing the next day and not stressing it. Because most likely there will be more days in our future that put us a little behind (sickness and other emergencies) and there's no sense in working overtime to get caught up right now. That's the beauty of homeschooling. Thanks again everyone!

Blessings,
sara

I second Julie's advice! Once we through the day number out the window and just did the guide one day at a time, life became so much easier!

I agree that we do not play catch-up here either. We just pick the guide back up and do the next day. I am almost never on Day 1 on Monday, and it does not change how the curriculum works at all. You'll find as you move through your years with HOD that slow, steady, systematic progress from guide to guide really builds the learning and love for learning that you will treasure. We work for steady forward motion. There's no need to feel stressed, as Day 1 does not mean Monday! Last year, we even started school on Wednesday, so we were on Day 1 on Wednesday from the beginning. Enjoy your journey.

Blessings,
Carrie