To get in front of the ball, I am purposefully setting aside time to plan with realistic expectations and building in some wiggle room/grace each week.
For example:
It’s not necessary to do every activity in the curriculum!
Not every child needs to do a detailed geography lesson each week!
Not every child needs to do a fine arts project every week!
And so on…
For my 10th grader, his focus will be on History/Literature with critical thinking and Socratic Discussion. He’s already strong in geography, so this won’t be a major component for him. In addition, I'll only require 1 hands-on project from him per unit.
For my 7th grader, his focus will be on History/Literature as well. We will introduce Socratic Discussion with some of the literature analysis sheets too. We will do Geography as needed with a sprinkling of hands-on projects per unit.
For my 4th/5th grader, her focus will primarily be on Reading/Literature and History will be secondary. We will forgo a good deal of the worksheets in favor of narration, spending more time on geography than her siblings. Hands-on projects will prevail throughout the unit!
In coming back to this curriculum, I gave myself the freedom to pick and choose activities/emphasis per child. I also gave myself freedom in evaluating the book selections for Rhetoric (high school) level, picking and choosing as needed, and stretching some weeks out over a longer time period. (Schooling year around affords us this luxury!) Next time I'll talk about the actual scheduling of TOG. This post written and property of Homeschool Circus and can be found at: www.upatdawnreadytowork.com.