“How to” for Home-School Parents Catching Up When You Fall Behind

March 15, 2024
home school

How many of you have ever fallen behind while home-schooling your children? It’s easy to do, so I’m sure you are not alone. As is said, “Life Happens.” Unfortunately, it can happen to all of us, usually in the most inconvenient moments. In my classroom experiences, too many ago years to admit to, I would have a pretty good idea of where we needed to be in all subjects by the end of each month. Sometimes my relentless planning worked perfectly, but most of the time, I continually had to adjust. It’s okay to change the plan and not feel guilty.


Here are some of the ways you might get behind.


Unexpected Field Trip for Home-School Students


There are times that something unexpected is tossed your way and there is absolutely nothing that you can do about it. It might be as simple as a field trip opportunity that is suddenly made available for home-school students and it is perfect for what you are studying. It takes a day away from your plan. That’s not too hard to pick up the little bit of extra work to stay on track, and the trip is well-worth the effort. I always loved field trips. They give a fresh perspective to a subject that otherwise might become mundane and boring. You may want to plan for a number of field trip days in advance.


Sickness and Disaster


How could any of us forget COVID? Most of us get sick from time to time. We get over the illness and move on with our lives and our learning. COVID was different. The entire nation was reeling with its effects on so many levels. Many adults were very sick, even if their children were not. Much learning was lost. It’s almost impossible to keep to any kind of learning schedule with a pandemic raging. As a result, many children got way behind.


When the schools reopened, I subbed in a fourth-grade classroom in Paradise, California where some of the children cried when I handed out a subtraction fact worksheet. These children were very behind. They had suffered through the Camp Fire in November of 2018, which displaced school aged children through most of 2019, and then came COVID. Two years of learning loss occurred for these children.


There are other disasters besides fire. Areas suffer from tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, and earthquakes – all of which can bring devastation and learning loss.


Death in the Family


There are times we might experience an expected, or worse yet, an unexpected death in our family. I have first-hand knowledge of how this affects everything. I am fortunate that I no longer have young children as I navigate the recent death of my husband. The emotional, physical, and practical aspects of being the one left to take care of the business end of things, as well as the everyday chores, can take its toll. If I was a home-school parent as well, I’m sure we would be way behind. (I’m only behind on my blogs and curriculum writing).


I’m sure there are many other valid reasons that students get behind in schoolwork. Whatever the reason may be, to get back on track, check out my methods

below.


Recalculating

If you are old enough to remember the early navigation systems, you might also remember the voice coming through the system saying: ”recalculating,” every time you missed a turn or didn’t turn when it was directing you through a locked gate on someone’s ranch. It was frustrating, but it did eventually get you to where you were going.


Recalculating is the key to catching up when you fall behind in schoolwork. There are several ways to do this.


If your curriculum has a test every week, consider combining the tests and giving them every other week or every third week. I have used this method by stapling them together and crossing out the sections that are redundant, to bring the overall test to a reasonable length. This can save 1 day each week if these were weekly tests.


Another way to catch up, especially if you are teaching older students, is to shorten the daily written assignments so more material can be covered each day, and make tests timed open book. I did this in a classroom that I took over at 2nd semester. They were only finishing chapter 3 at the time. This was a science class at the high school level. I talked to the principal about my plan to teach this class as an information retrieval class. My goal was to at least make them aware of the elements of the subject, so when they took the next class, they would be familiar with the subject matter. There was no time for me to expect them to memorize anything. I paced the balance of the book to be able to finish when school was done for the year. It worked. Years later one of my students from that class told me that he didn’t know how anyone could get them caught up, but we did it. Today he’s a doctor.


When younger students are behind, pick out the most important concepts to teach. These are the foundational concepts like math facts, learning the sight words and how to sound out the other words. If they can sound out words, they can spell them correctly one sound at a time. Don’t buy into the “creative spelling.” Make sure they know how to write a complete sentence with proper capitalization and punctuation. You can pick up the rest of grammar, like parts of speech and more advanced punctuation and capitalization, during the next year. Other subjects like science and social studies can stand alone. If you are extremely behind, choose one science lesson and one history/social studies lesson each week, but keep your focus on reading and math because both of these subjects build on the essential concepts they have already learned. There is no skipping these fundamental concepts. They always repeat over and over and are needed to master the next new concept. An example of this would be, if a child doesn’t learn their “times tables,” division and fractions will be extremely difficult and frustrating for them to learn.


In Closing

Remember, it is possible to catch up, but it takes careful planning and choosing the essential things that need to be learned so the next year your child can move on to the next grade level and not be behind.

Ten Things to Help Your Child Be Prepared to Learn

August 6, 2025
Do you remember the beginning of each school year when you were young? I do! I loved school, or at least elementary and junior high. High school was not as much fun because of all of the drama probably due to raging hormones. During the summers, as kids, we would play school. Actually, it was a good thing. It helped us remember our math skills, and kept us reading throughout the summer. I’m of the age that home computers did not exist yet, and you were lucky if you had a wall phone without a party-line (when you share your phone line with someone else because there weren’t enough lines to go around). Obviously, we didn’t have cell phones to distract us. We played some of the standard games of that time period like Monopoly and Scrabble, but mostly we made up our own games to play outside. But today is much different. Hopefully our children are still excited about a new school year, but our children today face challenges that did not exist when I was in school. We have technology in most classrooms that can either be a huge blessing or for some a curse. But regardless of how our classrooms are structured, either at school or at home (for homeschool families), one thing remains the same, our children are there to learn. We, as the adults in the room, need to bring structure and the cohesiveness needed for the best learning outcomes. So, here are 10 things that parents can do to help their children be prepared to learn? Make sure they have enough school clothes that fit so that they are not self-conscious about how they look. If you can only afford one week’s worth of clothes that’s okay. Laundry can be done on the weekend, and the order in which they wear their clothes or the way they pair shirts and pants can change for new combinations. Get the most important school supplies ahead of time and have them in their backpack. Other supplies can be purchased as needed. (In many places the two or three weeks before school starts, all school supplies are really cheap comparatively, so if you can afford it, it’s nice to stock up on what you know will be needed.) Have a plan for an easy, healthy, high-protein, low-sugar breakfast they can eat each morning. If they take lunch, it’s helpful to fix it the night before and put it in the refrigerator to eliminate a lot of morning stress. Make sure homework or anything else that needs to go to school the next day is in the backpack the night before. Arrive at school a little early, so they won’t feel embarrassed by walking in late. You want them to get off to a good calm start every day. In the evenings, talk about what your child learned that day. Ask appropriate questions about each subject. If they need help, it’s okay to help them. Children learn in all different ways. Sometimes they may need some input from you to be able to do the assignment. If you feel they are struggling in school in general, schedule an appointment to meet with the teacher right away. If it’s just one subject that’s hard for them, I would personally schedule an appointment to meet with the teacher. Most teachers want to know if there is a struggle, so they can meet that individual need. Be aware of what your child is learning in school. If you have questions, ask the teacher, but don’t be a “helicopter” parent. The best place to do homework for a younger child is the dining room table. It helps them stay on track, and it lets you know what they should be learning. Actually, in my home we all did homework at the dining room table all the way through high school. It eliminates isolation and provides immediate help when needed. Happy New School Year!
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