Project vs. Content

Tomorrow we'll have a finish day: finish up the outstanding work, and make it truly outstanding (instead of it standing out for not being finished!). As I have mentioned a few times before, I struggle balancing moving kids along versus letting them work through content and programs to finish really good projects. A great example is our Best Explorer Project. For a few it was a zip, and they moved through it rather quickly. But for the majority it was a slow crawl through the content, project planning and implementation process. At some point 2 days becomes 3, becomes 5, becomes two weeks! The length of time is not for lack of understanding. The vast majority understand the task, comprehend the content, and are working through putting it together. But when it was planned (by me!) the amount of time anticipated for completing the project was vastly different than the amount actually required. Great learning moment(s), but not so great currently. What do you do? I have gone through the list of 3 different items that have projects/work that needs to be turned in, and created a list of those needing to submit work. Tomorrow we'll work on a brief piece of work for our novel study books, then turn our attention to completing those projects and moving on. Some of this is rooted in the netbooks we have, and the blessing/curse that they provide. We have them so we use them. They have been a great tool, and allow kids to do a variety of publishing and research projects. But they also end up being the ultimate distraction- can I add another animation? can I add some music? do I need to change the start/end location on the picture with PhotoStory? Great for allowing kids to create visual media, but also great at extending projects from 2 days to 10 (particularly when you don't want to!). Not a problem with my kids, since they are trying to make really good projects... not to mention the fact that they are trying to understand how to use different programs. But a learning experience for me.