Hi all, due to child demand I am beginning homeschool for dd4. As a newbie to kids this age and homeschool I'm unsure as to how much time I should be devoting to this. I know I shouldn't push too much, it's the other way, I'm not sure I want to be up all night forming lesson plans and exciting environments etc and then letting her take my time all day as she is a non reader at present. I have a 1 year old and a house to run - any tips? I kind of feel like I'm being steamrolled a bit here. Def when she is older, but 4 seems a wee bit soon to take it all so seriously!!!

I havent the foggiest notion how to homeschool, living in a country with universal preschool and mandatory brick and mortar schooling, but if my four year old wanted to do "school", this is what I would do:
Take her to the library, non-fiction section, discuss what you want to learn about and take a stack home. Make a big deal about choosing to read one to her "todaaay - a lesson about volcanoes." Choose books with lots of pictures and flaps so she can amuse herself leafing through it afterwards while you diaper or feed the youngest.
Then, fiction section, for reading. Choose a few books she wants to read with you, then read slowly while following the words with your finger. Thats reading lessons covered. Have her look for easy sight words. And if you need a bit of time for other stuff, let her go to town with starfall.
For writing: lots of fridge magnet letters, give her letters to find, words to compose, while you make dinner.
For science: take her to the grocery store, teach her about fruit, veggies, meat and fish. then protein, carbs, fat. make sure some of the non-fiction books you choose from the library are about farming, food production and the human body. Follow her lead. And have some kiddie science videos ready for when you nead an uninterrupted half hour. Dinosaur lesson!
For geography: sit down with google maps and earth.
For maths and fine motor:
Print our dot-to-dot and mazes.
Thats quite a few lessons covered, no? I bet you are doing most of this anyway, as this is really just how to parent any bright and curious child, you may just have to be a lot faster with having stuff ready for her. It can all be an organic part of your day, and will pleasantly feel like school to her if you structure it like school.

You probably already aware of this but just in case...

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com (specifically the K - 8 / Pre k - K & the Accelerated Learners boards)

Thanks to you both, should have prob specified it's not the planning of lessons/ what to teach so much as time involved. Like you say Tigerle that pretty much sums up our days for the past year now it's, mum I want to know about meerkats, I need a show, books, activities, crafts and quizzes oh and I also want the same for the solar system and elephants, today would be good. At what point do we go from facilitating to over indulging? I found myself setting up an impromptu scavenger hunt this afternoon ( complete with literacy extras) instead of making dinner. Now I have cranky hungry household, too much mess and god knows how much prep to do for the morning. I have looked previously at some if the downloadable packs but they are too simplistic and repetitive for dd. the higher lever ones are fine if I can sit down and read to her for extended times but I just can't plus the formats don't seem so bright to a 4 yo.
I guess I just want to know if other moms go along with it or start saying no? I'll def Check out the wtm forum

Heh heh, that could have been me. Though I can't really let the food go in our household, I am the crankiest of them all on low blood sugar. What I let go is all non-organic mess, and sometimes laundry. But, yes, I do say no a lot, I have to. It helps that our oldest is now very independent with seeking out knowledge, but my four year old is in an extreme reading aloud phase, so much so that my youngest will get between us physically because he wants to play. I make it all up as i go along. Starfall and science videos have saved me many a time, also Pocoyo videos - as English is not our first language, anything in English is educational for us!

Kind of worked out for me, as we homeschool all of them, and when the youngest one was that age, the oldest was capable/interested enough to "do school" for me! Although it did interfere a bit with the tween's own rate of work completion...

Anyway, I think the key was having our own little table for work, our own little math workbook (we used Singapore Math Essential Math K), our own little set of Bob books, our own little set of crayons, pencils, protractor/compass set (apparently an essential of "real school"!), our own set of math manipulatives (mostly not specially-purchased). You get the picture.

I work full time and homeschool the older ones, too, so we definitely have to say no quite often. But as I said, I can also delegate some activities to the older ones. And, yes, if we have no vermin, then the house is considered clean.

Sorry, wrong thread!

At age 4 we did no "schooling" whatsoever. They were free to do what they want. They still learned.

DC liked to play school at that age too. While I would indulge for a set period of time, and not every day, it sounds like you are feeling steamrolled and you are not able to get your regular work done.

Yes, it is okay to say no to a learning activity.

I think it sounds like you need to set some limits to what is reasonable to you. During times you need to do something, you could give choices of what your child could do during that time by herself, but she is not to bother you. Maybe you could have her set up school for her stuffed animals. In addition, maybe you could involve your daughter in chores. If she wants to make it a game, you could pretend you are maid service or restaurant. Your daughter will probably enjoy that responsibility.

I hope this answers your original question. Just my two cents.

Yes! I burn out on indulging my DS's intellectual side. It's important to nurture it but there's a balance you have to strike. I have become comfortable saying "I can't read to you right now, try to read this yourself or just look at the pictures." Or, "I'm busy, go play with your toys." So far as I can tell, my DS's brain has not shriveled up.

As others have said, look for ways to help her learn that aren't labor intensive for you. I like the leapfrog discovery sets because the "pen" does all the reading for you. My DS will spend quite a bit of time with the world and US maps and the solar system sets. For now, apps and videos have outlived their usefulness for us. But I've been thinking of setting up a cheap desktop for DS4 and finding some good software for kids. I don't know what yet, but probably a children's encyclopedia and such.

I've tried to streamline my food preparation, as that was my biggest household time suck. I shop once per week, and on grocery day, I break down all the fruits, vegetables, and proteins into ready-to-cook portions. Because I rely heavily on roasting or steaming veggies, it takes less than a minute to prep those. I braise most of my meats, which requires only as much time as is needed to brown the outside of the meat and pop it in the oven. Most evenings, it takes me under 5 minutes of active work to get dinner ready, thanks to my advance prep work.

My DW formally homeschooled our DD at age 8 through 2nd and 3rd grade in a single year, with a target of passing the state assessment test at the end, and they still spent less than three hours a day doing it. Given that there's no pressure on your situation, as your DD will be ready for K whether you homeschool her or not, you could budget yourself a lot less time than that. Maybe a half hour of reading to her, and another half hour discussing a topic of her choice, per day? Done.

This could be supplemented by age/ability appropriate workbooks, so she can do school work on her own, and your prep work is reduced to, "read the directions, and show DD how to do it." My DD was always delighted when DW brought a new one home. "Mommy, can I work on my math book?" is another one of those phrases you rarely hear outside of households with a little giftie.

Topic-of-the-day stuff in our case got punted to me by DW, and I'd come home from work to a question ambush, so there was no time to prepare. My solution was to sit down with DD in my lap at the computer, pull up some images on the topic from a web search, and describe what we were looking at. That was enough to satisfy her curiosity at that age.

I would do a bunch of read alouds and tons of play at age four. I'm currently homeschooling my 6.5 year old and I also have a 4 and 3 year old at home. It is amazing what they have picked up just from the read alouds alone. Kids are little sponges

Thanks all, some great advice. I think I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment, I'm sure it will pass!

Dude, topic of the day sounds so much more achievable than the weekly stuff I come across on HS sites. I keep thinking, well this is going to last an hour, the what....