I have decided to homeschool my son in the fall and I'm a bit curious about how much time everyone spends working on it each day. I will continue to do daycare and will most likely hire someone to help me from 9am-3pm each day. Thanks in advance for all of your help. Monique
We go roughly from 7:30 to 3:00, with an hour at lunch. Your son will be kindergarten, so you really won't be doing much more than two or three hours. My 6YO son does a lesson in math and reading (which are over in less than a half-hour), does some reading/copy work with me (maybe another half-hour), and sits in on his sisters' history and science, for maybe another hour's work of listening/activity. So that's about 2 hours a day. My older ones are doing more and take a lot more time. Their math can take up to an hour, language is done more independently and again is more time consuming, they have to look up/write up information in history and science that isn't part of the lesson my son listens in to.
Yep, what Jackie said is about right... Every family has a different schedule...Here we homeschool from 9:00 to 3:00 but I too have older kids. My little guy schools about 1/2 an hour for math, then he is ready to play. I teach him while the other 2 are doing math that is about an hour for them. Then he does a craft and some language arts work with me. I read aloud in the afternoon and they have their time to read also.. All and all he probably does about a 1 hr to 1 1/2 *sit down* work, if that, and the rest is fun play.. It is very easy in the beginning, you can do it. They will be trained to sit longer and you too Their attention span will increase to match their heavier academic load. Hope that helps!
Depending on what i have to do for the day it can last from 9 AM -- 12 PM or 1 PM. If its not a lot of work, or easy work, i can be done before noon. If i dont get most of it done before noon, i save it for nighttime before i go to bed.
We usually have about 3 hours total work. At least that's how long it should take but there are days when my son will drag it out to all day up to bedtime. We usually get up, have breakfast, get chores done then time for schoolwork. the idea is that he'll be done by lunchtime so his afternoons are free. Around 4:00 pm his public school friends usually come over wanting him to go play. He gets to only if his work for the day is done, chores included.
We usually work (book work) for 3-4 hours. I try to get most work done before lunch or shortly after. We have other activities in the afternoons (dance, karate, scouts--of course, this is "school" too ). We are very flexible and change our days around if needed. By law (TN), we are required to complete 4 hours a day. There are so many things that can be counted as school that the 4 hrs. are never a problem.
Oh, yes! Thanks, Tina, for reminding me!!! We also do a half-hour of silent reading, followed by me reading aloud. I strongly suggest you do that half-hour of silent reading! Do it when you first put your younger ones down for a nap, and that is a much-needed "mommy time". No housework or grading papers! Sit down and RELAX!!! Then as your younger ones grow out of their naps, they can also go to their rooms and look at/read books.
we do about 4 hours. 2 in the morning which is when we do indepent work and while the daycare kids sleep we do one on one in the afternoon about 2 hours.
Sami is doing 1st grade but is only 4. I give her about 1/2 hour worth of math and writing and she draws it out till it's from 1pm -3pm most days. by draws it out I mean she will sit and "think" for at least half and hour, go potty for a long time.. get distracted by everything. If I give her the same work and tell her if she finishes in 1/2 an hour we will go to the park (or some other reward) she is always done that fast. Then I have a bedtime reading rule. She has to be in bed at 7:30 She can stay awake till 8:30 IF she is reading. So 99% of the time she reads aloud for an hour at bedtime. For now we do reading writing(spelling) and math. in the fall she will still be on 1st grade level and she will start other writing and a shory phonincs lesson of sometype each day too. We won't do history or science until she can read at a 3rd grade level. But we end up doing science informally anyhow because she always has loads of questions. Yesterday she was singing Pop goes the weasel while doing her work, so she hurried and finished so I would show her online what a weasel looks like and that means we had to go into what they eat, how big they get etc etc. so if you count all of it 4 hours.. if you count how much actual work she does.. 1 1/2 hours
Okay, in my state you only have to do 3 hours legally but we do school roughly from 8 am to 2:30 with a break for lunch and recess. I do one hour of math and one hour of Lang arts. This is aside from any spelling books I have added or worksheets I have printed for the day. Science and History we do half to forty five minutes of actual work in. We add to that by books we read from library an occasional PBS shows. Then we have Bible for half to forty five mins too. The rest is filled up with either fighting with one kid or the other to stay focused and do the work, to stop fighting, or stop talking. NO they can not have something out of the fridge, no they can not get a drink of juice during school... etc. And of course quiet reading which my kids do in bed at night as well as whenever I tell them they can read until the next class etc. I have avid readers and have not pushed hour of reading during school because they read so much at night I have to actually force them to put the book down and go to sleep! I hear things like " Just one more chapter? Or the end of one etc too!" (ds8&dd12 that is) In K garden my kids did half day, and I made sure I made Playing with Playdoh and leggos part of the curriculium plan. Play is part of Kgarden and it helps them enjoy school as a concept to get them enjoying it. Teacher Mom
TeacherMom, my kids are avid readers, too, but of course all they want to read are the mysteries, etc. Now there's nothing wrong with mysteries, but I'd like to broaden this a bit. So their half-hour of reading during the day is from a list *I* have input on! It may include a book that ties in with the time period we're studying in history, or a non-fiction history, science or nature book, or a biography. I also tie this in to my "Book-It" goals...so many history, science, nature, etc. per month. Then when they read at night (yes, they can "stay up later" if they are reading, too!) is their own choice.
Thats a good idea , re your list. My dd reads a larger variety this year, but in the past I had been choosing books for her as well. The Library books we choose are usually the books of choice for my ds so he gets the ones I chose 90% of. Of course this is a little boy who actually read the books on Washington and Texas when we studied each of those. He really loves geography so I choose the story type books of the state he is studying and tell him its part of his history assignment. he likes the easy reading type of chapter books for just fun reading, which is that fill in the space reading I have them do. My dd is one who likes babysitter club books, and then also American Girl , and right now Narnia is the seriese she is on. She will go to Anne of Green Gables next, and follow the series to the end of all the books by the author each time. IT is so wonderful that kids are liking reading isn't it? I guess I unoficially have my own list for them too, I just stick them in the library bag as they search for whatever stubject or author they are looking for this month. Johnny likes Dogs so I get him as many Dog books, not all at once, but dog related to the subject I am looking at enhancing that month. Speaking of < its library day! Weee! Tmom
