One of my problems with being a homeschooling mom is that I hate it when the kids whine. So sometimes we get behind just because I can’t stand to hear them. Eventually, of course, we make the work up, most often by working in the summer as well. They can’t move forward unless they have finished the full year and they have to move forward each August.

I often give them a bit of work to do when I’m going to be gone for two hours. While I am gone, one of them usually finishes the prescribed work and one of them doesn’t. The youngest doesn’t want to do the work unless I am sitting with him and making him. When I am, he does just fine at it. Letting him do it on his own, however, means not getting it done.

I realized today that we (the youngest and I) are a bit behind in grammar and mathematics. It is day 21 of school. We are ahead in literature, history, and science. Of course, what I am behind in makes more of an impression. M and I worked a “double shift” on his grammar and mathematics today, once I determined we were behind. We will catch up with math tomorrow. It may take till the end of the week to catch up in grammar. I am not going to drop back on lit, history, science, or spelling (where we are on schedule). Sometime we might get sick, or whatever, and it’s better to be ahead and finish early than behind and finish late.

Home education is supposed to allow students to progress at their own rate. In a way it does. If M is having trouble with his multiplication tables, we can spend a lot of time on the multiplication tables, working with flashcards, etc. Since we have more time in the day, because there are only two students in my classroom, I can do this extra work with them. But we still have to maintain a specific level of quality in the work and progress. Actually, technically, that is not true. The laws in Texas do not require that my sons pass their grade level and progress to the next higher level. I require that, though. So, in a way home education allows your child to progress at their own rate, because they can do more work with subjects they are having trouble with and move ahead in subjects which are easy for them, but in another way, it’s a required progression. I want my son to move up at least one grade each year. If I thought my child were unable to progress, then I would not require that. Remediation can be done in the homeschool of course. But if my kids were allowed to progress at their own rate, meaning the rate at which they wanted to do school work, I don’t think we’d be getting anything done.