Homeschoolers--Do You Know What Spare Time Is?

[chicksgalore]

This question is for homeschoolers in any stage. We are leaning toward homeschooling and don't have a whole lot longer to decide but I'm just wondering if your days are totally consumed with school and chores. Do you have ANY time to do something YOU want to do? If we do homeschooling, we are gearing toward unit studies so I feel like that would be more flexible but it's hard to judge at this point. Any help?

 

[moms_pantry]

I home schooled for a lot of years. We didn't do unit studies, but we were not totally consumed with school work and chores all day. There were days when my oldest (he's now 22) was determined that he didn't want to do his work and he was still working on it after dinner at night, but he quickly decided that he liked his free time and he got his work done. My daughter is now in college. We joined a home school group and they arranged educational field trips and they really enjoyed it. They also offered a P.E. class, as well as band. I really enjoyed the time we did that. Kids grow up too fast.

 

[The Chicken Lady]

I imagine that homeschoolers have a much more flexible schedule than classroom teachers do. For example, you could choose to homeschool year-round for half days rather than teach full-time every day. You could also take days off for family events and field trips and make up the teaching time on your own.

For me as a full-time teacher, I get up, I teach all day, come home, cook and do chores, correct papers, plan lessons, relax a little, then go to bed.

 

[willowcol]

My kids use Switched on schoolhouse, this is the first year. Not sure I am crazy about it yet. However we have plenty of time to do whatever we want. It takes them about 2- 3 hours for the SOS, depending on how long the lessons are. Then we add fun things like making the incubator, we hatched frog eggs and watched them turn into frogs, ect. The best part about homeschooling is you set the schedule you will be as busy as you plan it to be.

 

[mrsengeseth]

nah, just the opposite for my dd. She finishes her stuff fast and is off playing, helping with the animals, playing with her little brother, we head out on impromptu field trips when the mood strikes. DS spends a great deal of time with his school work, but really, that's because he hasn't realized the sooner he gets it done the sooner he can do other things. Unit studies didn't seem to work for us. But they work beautifully for other families.

 

[Sequin]

We try to make everything fun And part of the studies. Such as, when we were going to eat our first eggs from our chickens. We took a store bought egg and compared it in every way possible to our egg. We recorded our findings and then my son wrote a report on it. So, it was some science, some math, with charting and graphing etc. Same thing with gardening or planting things. We do a lot of estimating and then learning all about how plants grow etc. So you see, you can do an online program and once they are done with their days course work they are done for the day(say 4-5 hrs vs. 6 hrs at school and an additional 2 hrs of homework). My son is doing geometry in the 6th grade vs. multiplication and division. He enjoys his learning so much more now, than having to go to school. We have enrolled him in guitar lessons, and he runs around with the dogs for p.e. He will also go with me to the gym and we work out etc. So, there is learning in everything. However, he also gets regular breaks, takes vacations with us('cause school can come with us), etc. so yeah, there is down time and probably more so than if they were in school all day. I give homeschooling 2 thumbs up!

 

[amamaofmany]

We have eight kids, seven home school, one is a commuter at a local university.

Our days vary. I have a five year old son who is kind of Asperger-y/Autistic-y and although he's making pretty good progress in learning, he doesn't sleep well. So I'm up until the wee hours with him waiting for him to drop over, and doing Montessori with him when he can focus on it.

Blessedly, I have a 15 year old daughter who gets up with the three year old so I can sleep in. She does her studies and gets the littlest some breakfast so I'm not a drooling veggie from no sleep (as one is going to bed by 3 the other waking up by 6) She likes being done with her work early because it leaves her time to pursue her passion, which is baking from scratch.

The sixteen year old son is of the personality type that needs to be pried off his bed with a crowbar and WD-40 and will maintain a deathgrip on any electronic device he holds onto, but even he manages to get his work done by the end of the day. Most of the time.

We have had years of unit studies, especially when there were only 5 kids all learning at elementary levels, but when some kids began higher grade levels it was much more difficult to manage that. There were too many kids doing too many different subjects for me to keep everything in order to do unit studies. I'd say the only subjects that we always keep together would be history with map/geography and literature.

All of the kids know that NOT getting their work done means no weekend fun (Saturday can be a school day, too, if need be, and so can the week of Christmas!) and there have been a few around here who have had to school one subject through summer because they didn't quite manage to finish that Biology book.

We have a very flexible day, and most of my kids are finished with all their work before noon (then off to do some chores) I also begin school in early August to allow for extra vacation days as well as sick days and 'mental health days' for me & them too. We begin with two weeks of just Math and Grammar to ease into the year, and then move to full schedules. The middle to end of May are days designated for 'catching up' on anything needing to be finished, so those are either vacation days or half days depending on the child.

Our first year, I was constantly fretting that we weren't 'doing enough' and had a teacher friend review their half-year work to be certain. She said my kids did more in half a year than hers would manage all year! I quit worrying about it after that. I must say that I love home schooling and so do the kids.

 

[WriterofWords]

I homeschooled Steven for a lot of years, but being a teacher myself made it easier in a lot of ways, but harder in some too. The best thing to do is a copy of your state's standards so you can make sure you are teaching what your state requires you to teach. Too many see something neat online or in Barnes and Noble and buy it and find out later it didn't meet the state standards.

I didn't have him on a schedule of 8 - 3 you WILL be doing studies, I set up a schedule that gave us 1/4 of the "school year" at a time to meet certain goals. When I was off at school, he was off too so we could travel, vacation, or whatever. When you do travel or take a vacation or go to the zoo, you can align it with your standards and turn into a very fun school outing. But remember,, you need to go places for fun too, don't get caught up in trying to turn everytime you leave home into a "field trip".

 

[chicksgalore]

Thank you all so much for your input. I really really like the idea of doing it--I just wonder sometimes if I will be able to handle it with multiple kids and different stages and all--I guess there are good days and bad days either way though.

amamaofmany, one of the things I worry about too is that I won't be doing enough but I really don't want to overdo it either--just have a nice balance. Also, with so many neat things out there and so much info. online, I wonder if I'll drive myself crazy trying to do so much research.

Here's one more question for all of you: would you still homeschool if you had a private school (affiliated with your church) to send your kids to?

 

[momma's chickens]

We are doing IDVA which is Idaho virtual academy, I think most states have one and we are liking it. My ds is down in just a couple of hours, my dd is only eight so it is taking her much longer because she has not got the concept to get it done so you have the day to play. My ds wants to go back to public school next year, he misses the social, we will see. My dd is going to continue to do this next year.

If I had a decent church school and it went along with my religious beliefs and I could afford it, yes, they would probably go there.

Amamaofmany, my youngest has Rett Syndrome and we have very bad nights too. Have you heard of melatonin, we found some in a liquid form, over-the-counter and a LIFESAVER.

Pm me, if you want to discuss it.

My older kids are great with helping me with her so I can sleep too, I think God has blessed us by allowing us to care for a special needs child, they are great teachers.