I know that seems like a silly question but..... I think we're doing everything and more but it just doesn't take that long. I might be able to pull 2 hours of school time the rest is play time, reading and exporation. I'm covering reading, writing, grammer, cursive, keyboard, latin roots, math (Singapore and Zaccaro), logic, history and science(opposite days), art and guitar. Am I off? He's happy that it's new material from when he was in school, but he's still flying through it. Any ideas?

Hi Learningmom,

It's great that your son is working through the material and enjoying himself. Have you tried having him work on a self-guided project? You could present him with several learning style options (create a short film/commercial, design a game, write a poem/song, etc.) and have him select a topic from his studies. You could give him a mini rubric so that he knows what to include in the project. He could work on the project for 1-2 weeks and present it to family and/or friends. This would also give him an opportunity to create a portfolio.

Good luck!

One of my good friends who is homeschooling spends about 3-4 hours/day on it, but I do think that a bit more than that is probably more desirable. Our local district "requires" you to do a minimum of 4 hrs/day, I believe, although I don't imagine that they'd be able to confirm how much time you are spending.

My goal, if we manage to make hs work next year for dd9, is to spend 4 hrs/day or maybe sometimes 5. I could wind up being wrong, though !

You should do what our Independent Study teacher did with us when I was worried we weren't doing enough "school."

She sat down with me and made me list EVERYTHING we did each day that was educational. That includes all the discussions we have, the educational TV and computer games he plays, free reading time, physical activity, social interactions with other kids (like Cub Scouts and play dates), reading to him at bedtime,even imaginative play time like legos or pretend play, etc...

Once you actually get it all down on paper you will probably be astounded at how much time your kid is actually spending learning or doing "school" related activities each day. I know I was!!! We sit down and "do school" for about an hour or two each day. That includes math, root words, phonics, Mad Libs, logic, spelling and some science and social studies. Art happens when he's interested, music is in the car, typing is when he wants to and Spanish is when I have the initiative. He also reads specifically for school a little each day. I thought we were missing something and just not doing enough "school." When we wrote EVERYTHING down it turned out that he was spending between six and eight hours a day doing school related things, well over the four required hours.

The reading and exploration your kid is doing more than likely count as school. Some of the playtime probably does as well. Take some time and really list everything educational/school related he does. It should be eye-opening.

I personally think that's great. If you're moving forward and your child is happy and being challenged in some way, then carry on. We don't do much more than that on average. But my kids take on a lot of their own exploration, learning, and reading. We do a lot of field trips and outings.

My 9 year old 3rd grader spends 2-3 hours typically. My 5 year old is literally maybe 1/2 hour with maybe another 1/2 hour read aloud time. We usually have 1 longer day a week.

I totally agree with Wyldkat. If you start doing the math on social, extra curricular, educational games, free reading, etc. it really adds up. Just because you aren't sitting at a table producing paper work and output doesn't mean a lot of learning isn't just happening on it's own. My kids aren't allowed any recreational TV or computer between get up time and 3 pm. So anything they're doing during those hours tends to be learning based, whether they know it is or not. Yesterday my 5 year old "engineered" a village for her beanie baby cats in out living room out of a pile of boxes. She had me cutting doors and hooking them up. My 9 year old lately has been playing with magic tricks (hey that's research and small motor skills!) and Rube Goldberg machines (physics!).

If you think about how much time the average child in a classroom is actually engaged and learning something new, it really wouldn't be more than that generally.

Wonderful!! I so appreciate the reinforcement and great ideas. It's really tough when you're on your own and add in there I've had a cold all week! And there were snowflakes falling 2 days ago. Sheesh. I really got into the 'am I doing this right?!! All right then. I've pulled my boots back on!!!!! Thanks everyone-

Think about your goals for homeschooling. That should reassure you that you're doing fine.

My goals are to have a happy, healthy (mentally and physically) child who progresses and likes to learn. Granted those are my goals and not yours, but FWIW, it sounds to me like you're hitting all of that quite nicely.

A couple of hours a day is usually plenty for an early- to mid-level elementary student if he's covering the material efficiently and being sufficiently challenged. We usually take longer than that for DS8, but he's sloooooooow-moving!

Keep up the good work!

My bare minimum output in writing DS just produced the 'official' "How to train your dragon" book. He cataloged every dragon and wrote about their specific weapon. He then wrote/drew diagrams on how to train that dragon. I think we are up to 10 pages or so.

My kids also built a zoo yday out of lincoln logs. Perhaps I should have teamed up with KimCK in her living room so we'd only have one messy house to clean up. Today was science day with duct tape and recycled boxes (cereal, chips, granola bars, and newspaper). This was all in addition to our regular school day and field trips.

It sounds like you are right on track and doing a great job. We love Singapore math here too. Woohooo!

I"m always envious of folks with kids who are quick to get it done!!! If you're getting all that done in a couple of hours, ENJOY it! We take much, much longer than that. I'm HSing a 4th grader and a 1st grader and a 3yr old. There are so many interruptions in the day. I added up the actual time spent on task for my 1st grader and it averaged 2hrs/day. Time for my 4th grader averaged 4-4.5hrs. It takes about 6-7hrs though to get that time in with fixing lunch, cleaning up messes from my 3yr old, cleaning the house (house is for sale so have to prepare daily for showings).

Dazey

DS usually works for about 3 hrs a day, not including art and science experiments. He has alot of subjects (self inflicted) but it doesn't take him long to get through it. As long as they are moving forward, it's all good!

The only subjects I have to make my almost 12-year-old twice-exceptional son do are math, handwriting and a little bit of piano practice--things that require good fine motor skills and he finds frustrating because he has motor dyspraxia. I ask him to do what would take me 30 minutes and he has all day to do it and sometimes he doesn't get it done. Part of the reason is frequent headaches, but there is also procrastination. He works on the 30 minutes of work that I assign a little at a time.

The rest of the time, on his own, he is usually on his computer with two monitors. On one screen he has a game or interesting Youtube videos and the other something interesting to read. He goes back and forth with this. He reads more than he plays. I know this because he likes to share all of the interesting things he learns with me. He loves taking quizzes that test his knowledge. Sometimes his dad's coworker plays a game of scrabble with him via the iPhone while he is doing the play game/reading thing. Oh yes, and then he often manages to listen to a show on either the Science, Discovery, or History channel and sometimes his adult sister, who is one of his best friends, is on speaker phone talking to him while they are both on the computer. He keeps in touch with his other friends (from the musical theater group) on Facebook throughout the day. He does enough typing on his mmorpg games and facebook that he managed to do 50 wpm with 1 error on a recent typing test. He taught himself to type and it is not the way I learned to type but it works for him. He says he learns better if I just leave him alone to do things his way.

When his headaches are really bad he is of course, lying on the couch doing nothing else but trying to keep from throwing up so I don't make him do anything, but he seems to make up for the time he is not feeling well.

At night he reads for hours. His favorite books are usually history related and he loves science and technology magazines. I recently bought him three books that he really likes--The Manga Guide to Electricity, The Manga Guide to Molecular Biology and the Manga Guide to Physics.

So I am not sure how to answer the question. I can't say 30 minutes (the amount of work I assign) and I am not sure what I could count of the things he does on his own as homeschooling. One of the games he plays online involves drawing something and the other person has to guess what he drew. That is all the "art" he is doing and we gave up on cursive for a while. It sounds like you have it all covered better than I do.