Wow! Beau will be officially homeschooling the 1st of July! I am very excited!! I have decided what all I am teaching, and I am really excited about this year! However, I have a couple of questions about hours... I live in Missouri, you know, and I have to have 1000 hours of instruction a year. Just teaching the basics, roughly (depending on the day) it's 2 hours per day. Easy. But it's not enough hours to meet the 1000 hour quota. My questions are: Does going to church count as instruction? I definitely don't count our Sacrament meeting, but what about their ~2 hour Primary classes? Would those count? I mean, it's Bible instruction/Book of Mormon instruction? How precise do I have to be in my record keeping? What do you all do? Is a journal enough, or do you actually have to have like...a teacher's record keeping book? What about grades? Do I have to keep track of actual grades? Like, "Oh, you have an A in this class but a B- in this class, Beau..."? I just want to make sure I have all of my ducks in a row before I get going! Ha! Thank you so much for the help!!!!! Looks like I'm going to be on here pretty regularly now! LOL :lol:
I would definitely count the primary class as instruction. I would also count anything else remotely educational. 1000 hours is a lot for a 6 year old!
I'm in Missouri as well and the 1000 hours sounds scary but it isn't. Count church instruction for sure. Also, helping in the kitchen is home ec, interviewing family members with a toy microphone is lang arts, watching the news is civics, a day at the nature center is science, building a tower and finding ways to make it stronger is engineering (science), and so on. Just keep a calendar and write the number of hours on each day with a little note about what subjects. i.e.- on June 18th little box write 1 hour reading, .25 math, .5 geography, 1.5 science and then continue on that way. You do not need to keep grades of any sort (especially at his age) but you do need either a test at the end of the year or some other sort of assessment or portfolio on hand. It doesn't need to be turned in to anyone just needs to be available should questions arise.
Oh good! I was really worried about grades! I thought, "Kids this age shouldn't have to worry about grades, but what if I had to have them?!" Whew! I figured after each unit I did I would have a quiz, and then at the end of the year I would have a test and file it away. I was also going to do a picture book of activities, like museums we visited and projects we have done. Proof, you know, that we did them. Thank you!!!
The educational photo diary is a great idea. Not only is it great evidence that you're a wonderful home schooler...it's something your kids will love to keep as adults.
You can count just about anything you want to. I count AWANA (bible club) as bible. I also count recreational soccer as gym. If you have kids help cook/clean/help with younger kids, you can count that as home ec. You decide!
I would add in time watching educational videos -- easy to keep track of at 30 or 60 minutes each. You could read a book, then watch a movie made of it, and discuss the two -- and count it as literature. A movie's about 90 minutes, and however long a read-aloud takes - that's a bunch of minutes to add up to your 1000 hours! Going to the grocery store can be lesson time too - talking about prices, counting out 6 peaches or weighing a pound of green beans, discussing where bananas come from, talking about what you will make from these ingredients... math, geography, home ec.
Love all the suggestions you got!!!! GREAT ONES....can't think of any to add - unless they do outside sports - i.e. baseball, etc. count those hours, too. Camps? VBS? That sorta stuff, too.
