I live in Missouri which is a pretty lax state in regards to homeschooling standards. I am required to log hours though and according to the HSLDA website, we need 1000 hours per year. That seems like an awful lot of hours to me. I just started homeschooling my almost 4yo dd in kindergarten and we usually "do school" about 1 1/2 hours per day. There is a lot of work packed into that time. For example, in that amount of time the other day, she completed 7 math worksheets (which is over a whole week's worth of worksheets in our curriculum), 2 phonics lessons (2 day's worth), 2 handwriting worksheets, plus several read-alouds. All that only took an hour. The other 30 minutes consisted of making and playing with homemade playdough. She's doing all her lessons perfectly, too, so it's not like we're blowing through them haphazardly. We add science and history in a few days a week, too. At this rate, we'll be done with her kindergarten year in about half the time it should take us! Is that typical? And how am I going to get my 1000 hours in at this age without adding way too much curriculum? Do you log everything you typically do during a day that I normally wouldn't consider "school" such as baking with mommy, playing board games, coloring, etc?
baking with mommy = math, science playing a board game = math, following directions, listening skills, some language arts coloring = hand eye coordination, pre handwiritng. all those are definitely school and could / should count in your hours.
Count or double the time as much as possible. For example, if your child works on history for an hour, count this as two hours. One hour for history and one hour for reading since reading is involved in history. Add this on top of the assigned reading. Count going to the store and counting money as time. Your child is learning social skills, life skills, and how to count. The list is endless. If your child likes coloring during the day, add this as art. As homeschoolers, learning is part of our lives. It is 24/7.
Hi In WI we are suppose to be logging 875 hours a school year, so a lot less than your state. That's only required for ages 6-18 in my state though. Also, those hours are for required subjects including Reading, Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, Science and Health. I have heard from other homeschool parents that they log other activities that are not seat work. It's a must. Some parents might count the length of an educational video that their child watched or the time spent listening to an audio book while in the car. I count educational games that we play, nature hikes when we discuss types of birds or trees or something like that, baking when we are going over fractions and the importance of measuring, gardening when we go over how things grow or parts of a certain plant and sometimes I even count trips to the grocery store if we have taken the time to talk about price comparisons or about healthy food vs. junk food etc. etc. Sometimes parents will put down time spent on an activity and what the child is learning. They put an educational spin on it (educationese?). Here is a bit of edcucationese I found on cooking/baking # Develop concepts of measurement * Benchmarks supported include: o Explore the process of measuring. o Develop vocabulary of measurement (e.g., more/less, tall/short, heavy/light, wide/narrow). o Compare relative characteristics of objects (e.g., heavier/lighter, longer/shorter, less/more). o Begin to measure for balance, capacity, temperature, time, etc. # Explore the concept that materials can exist in several states, and the concept that these states can change. * A benchmark supported in particular is: o Describe physical characteristics of materials. # Explore properties of liquids and solids. * A benchmark supported in particular is: o Observe and discuss effects of heat and cold. # Explore the concept of chemical (i.e., irreversible) changes in materials. * Benchmarks supported include: o Mix materials to make different substances. o Observe and discuss changes when water is added. o Take part in cooking and observe/ describe what happens when liquid, heat, or cold is added. o Experiment with dissolving materials in liquid. Health, Physical Education, and Safety: * Cultivate healthful eating habits o Benchmarks supported include: + Try new foods. + Eat balanced diet. + Understand food is necessary for health and growth. I've found when logging hours (especially with a young child) that you really have to get creative on what you put down. As long as your child is learning and you are following your state's law you are doing great! I wish you all the best!
Are you sure a 4 yo is required to have that many hours? usually K has less required hours than other grades! My younger two did K and 1st in one year. K is a year, often, that they are in high gear for learning and can really blaze through the work, so finishing those things, as you mentioned, is fairly common. I'm thinking that she's getting much more REAL education than kids going to a public K! She doesn't ahve to wait in lines to go to the bathroom, wash hands, ahve recess, sharpen pencils, etc.! That stuff right there takes up a lot of time during a K's school day! PLEASE don't give her more work to make up the hours! She IS doing the required work, and more! It would eventually discourage her to be "rewarded" for doing good work, but being given more work! The advice of the other ladies is good, because they learn so much more than just one thing at a time while schooling at home! Best wishes!
Thanks for all the replies! It's so helpful because I didn't think of some of that stuff especially logging history or science hours as double in reading! I guess it felt like I was "cheating" if I logged hours for stuff that we typically do as a family and would do even if we weren't homeschooling! I have a lot to learn about this whole process! OK...so WIMom's repsonse that the hours for her state only apply to a specific age group. I know we're starting WAY early for kindergarten, and thecompulsory attendance age for MO is from 7-16 years old. Does that typically mean I don't have to follow any "rules" until my dd is 7 even if it means she'll be at a 3rd grade level by then?
Yes! I live in Washington state. Our compulory age is 8, and we don't need to file with the district or anything until they're that age!
Deena - That's exactly what I was thinking about the amount of work we do in 1 1/2 hours vs. what she would be doing in public school. I figured my dd probably completed her 7 math worksheets in the amount of time it would take the teacher to just pass out 1 worksheet at a public school Oh, and I definitely didn't want to add more work for her which is why I was wondering what I needed to do for the rest of the hours. I know it sounds like I'm making her do a lot of worksheets, but she begs for them and gets upset when I say we're finished. It's a good problem to have though!
As a fellow Missourian I can tell you, the compulsory school age is 7. You don't have to start logging hours until then. Even then remember only 600 of those are core hours (Reading, Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies). The other 400 can be anything you want her to study which at young ages may include home ec (playing dolls, shopping or cooking with mom) etc. Feel free to be creative when they are young. When they are older 1000 hours is easy! We've already made it with a month of school left to go . Debbie
First, as others said, don't log ANYTHING until you have to. Then, keep in mind all the "extra" things you can add, and you can do this all summer. Example: We took a trip to New England a few years back. We visited Minute Man National Park, Ethan Allen's birthplace, and walked Boston's Freedom Trail. Yes, it was during the summer, but we marked it as history. And Geography, because they were reading maps, etc. We visited two Science Museums, so we marked that as science. We did extensive hiking and swimming, which was PE. We took naturalist-guided hikes at Acadia National Park and went on a Whale Watching boat for Nature Studies. Plus, we mark brushing teeth/baths/etc. as Health and Hygiene. Trips to the doctor/dentist fall under this, too. I've two kids that play soccer and one that rides horses, which is marked down as PE. Helping cook dinner involves math, as well as Home Economics. Helping to clean the house can also be Home Ec. Church/Sunday School/AWANAS is marked down as Bible. I believe that kids are ALWAYS learning, so EVERY MINUTE can be included SOMEHOW! (OK, maybe not the wasted time watching cartoons in front of the TV, lol!!!)
back when we had to regulate our hours here I set up a schedule of school work. Thats when I started it, then if we finished a class early we could either go to the next or play until the next. It worked good for me because I was teaching three at different levels and the teaching time took up the whole scheduled time. and even in ps when you finish early you dont do more work, you get to read, color or clean out your desk hahh
Thanks so much ladies! I'm not going to stress about logging hours anymore...at least not for a few more years!
Since 4 yrs old is not a mandatory attendance age, you should not have to log hours yet. But when you do, everything down to lunch time and bathroom breaks and recess should be logged, as well as field trips, driving time in between, going to "specials" like art class, gymnastics, etc.
I totally understand that--my younger two were that way too! They LOVED doing school stuff, that's why they got so much done in one year of schooling! As they get older, they tend to slow down. So I tried to go with the flow---faster when they got it and wanted to keep moving, and slower when they struggled, or just wanted to do that much. It worked out well. I'm glad you've figured out you don't have to keep hours for awhile! That's a relief, I'm sure! By the time you DO have to keep hours, you'll have a better handle on things and it will be easier to understand what to do!
I would think that if you figured out what the AVG kindergartener or whatever would do in a day...and you need however many days to make up 1000 hours. (wow that is a lot...I am glad we just do days) at 6 hours a day it would be 166 days... (ok maybe hours aren't so bad.) So a lesson plan is 6 hours...if it only takes her 2...good for her. I agree with those who say don't punish her with more work. I suppose it would depend on how much documentation your state requires. We do days...and pretty much if we read and do math it counts as a day. If we go to a museum...that is a day. I also count camping. Especially right now as we are doing a survival unit...but still nature study...did you discuss what that catapillar is doing?? Science! I also "save up stuff" In other words I have a lesson plan...if it takes 3 days to do it, it counts as a day... Soooo for example, one saturday you build a fort with your brother, I make it a math/ home ec project and another afternoon you cook dinner and another Saturday you write a letter to your grandmother and watch a show about history...that would all go on a lesson plan and count as a day. (I have lesson plans I make myself and they have a day count...like day 134.) We counted the day we went to the Alamo, even though it was "Christmas break" We will count our trip to Carlsbad Caverns as a day...and might count Lincoln County as two, even if we only spend one day actually there. (can I count being in their sisters wedding? Drama, social science, character development??? grin)
I think I would like to log days rather than hours. For some reason I get all caught up in timing minutes and such. Sometimes my son will get a page of math done, 2 language arts worksheets and a short book read and it has only taken up 40 minutes. I'll read to my son for 10-15 minutes too. I'll also have him watch a science video or we will do an experiment and that will only add up to 20 minutes from start to finish. I have a hard time logging 4 or 5 hours in a day. I'm still working on how to add our non seat work hours. I know I posted about how to creatively do it, but sometimes I don't follow my own advice.
