Want an easy, nearly foolproof technique to improve your teaching? It takes virtually no preparation, is absolutely free, requires no supplies, and works for any topic in your homeschool. You can use it on the couch, in the van, or in a waiting room. It works with little kids and teenagers alike.
This simple yet meaningful teaching tool is asking questions. And in the spirit of asking questions, this entire post is written in a Q & A format.
That's why those clickbait titles on Facebook draw you in so well and get you to click against your better judgement—"First she grabs a pencil, and then you won't believe what she does with it." Hmmm... what did she do with that pencil? Now I really want to know!
Q: What’s one simple practice you can incorporate today to help your children learn?
A: Ask a question before you read!
Like those clickbait article titles, use "thinkbait" questions to pique your children's curiosity about the reading at hand.
Q: Where can I find questions to ask?
A: Pull from your IG or make them up on the fly.
Your Sonlight Instructor’s Guide has questions for most assignments. Rather than read these at the end of the assignment, flip the order!
Begin the assignment by asking the questions.
Do the reading.
Then talk through the answers to the original questions.
By asking questions first, your children get a heads-up about what they should listen for.
Or you can make up questions! If your child is reading Robert Fulton, Boy Craftsman (from History / Bible / Literature D) and comes to the chapter titled Discovery at Conestoga Creek, each of you can guess what you think the discovery will be. It is highly unlikely that any of you will guess what the discover actually is—black lead for a pencil—because that is a random discovery, and there would be no way to predict that from the previous text. But if you get answers like, “Gold!” or “A runaway slave!” or “A puppy!” you are all a little more invested in finding out who was right. (Or who was closest!)
Q: What about wrong answers?
A: In short, whether the answer is right or wrong is largely irrelevant (especially the questions at the start).
If you ask a question before you’ve done the reading, there should be zero expectation that you’ll get the right answer. You’re being questioned on something you haven’t learned yet! These questions are for predicting, guessing, estimating, being creative, and overall activating the brain.
As for the questions after you’ve done the reading, those both help the student solidify what they were learning and help you gauge what they have learned. Of course it’s lovelyif your student is able to give the right answer to your questions. But if not, all is not lost. Your teaching method has not failed! Now you, the teacher, have valuable information about what your children don't understand.
So you talk about it.
You clarify their understanding.
You re-read a confusing passage or discuss new vocabulary.
Or you summarize the reading and determine to ask questions more frequently to make sure your children are learning.
Q: So how can you begin?
A: Just start!
Before your next reading, ask a question, and then start to read.
Enjoy!
Sonlight integrates Q&A into each program. See for yourself—try three weeks of any Sonlight Instructor's Guide for free. Click here to get one for any level, preschool through twelfth grade.
This post originally appeared on Soaring Arrows and is reprinted here with permission from the author.
One of the best things we have done to have a more restful homeschool is to have a 4 day homeschool week. Some people hear that and think I am crazy, they ask, how do you get through enough work? Well we homeschool, we make our own rules! Who said schooling has to be done within five days instead of four? In that four days each week we get through a lot of school work.
Since our kids were young I would clean our house every Friday, it was part of our home routine that my husband & I both had come to adore. We started our weekend with a clean house and loved it.
When I was ready to begin homeschooling our kids I would wonder, how am I going to keep up with the housework and homeschool? Because I used Sonlight in high school and loved it, I planned to use it with my kids right from preschool age. What I did not know is that Sonlight had the option for a four or five day schedule for the elementary packages!
From the time my oldest was in first grade I have used the four day schedule and it has been such a relief to our homeschool routine.
After using Sonlight from the very first year I started homeschooling, last year I was approached by them to write for the Sonlight Curriculum Blog which has been a great joy for me. This year we are using HBL levels B & E and loving it as always. (Disclosure: As a Sonlight Ambassador, I’ve received curriculum in exchange for my guest posts.)
1. Extracurricular Classes
Each week we have a drama class, American Heritage Girls, piano lessons & baseball in the spring. It can be a challenge to fit all the extra curricular classes into our homeschool routine, I know we will likely add even more to our schedule as my younger kids get older.
When I was homeschooled my parents always made time for us to be involved in outside activities, especially homeschool classes. As an adult I am especially grateful my mom made the time to drive us to our activities, in addition to our homeschool schedule. As important as reading, writing & math are these additional skills are the ones I carried joyfully into adulthood. I still play the piano, gained confidence performing drama on stage and writing has become a huge part of my life. These skills were nurtured through extra lessons, teachers & classes.
Leaving margin for those extra curricular activities is also important for your kids developing friendships with other kids. I don’t think socialization is a problem for most homeschoolers but we do have to be intentional. The journey is a lot more fun with others who are like minded and following the same journey!
2. A Day for Cleaning & Life Skills
Getting through these years homeschooling many young children all at once, it has become my saving grace that I still have a day to clean every Friday. It allows me to focus as much as I can on teaching my kids during those four days each week. I give them everything I’ve got and then on Friday, I recover our home.
Now it is part of our home routine, we all wake up and practice life skills while getting things clean at the same time. Because I’ve already had four solid days teaching school, I am completely focused on cleaning and teaching my kids how to clean as well. My two oldest kids are now fully capable of decluttering their own rooms, folding laundry, vacuuming and wiping down the bathrooms. The youngest two kids get their own little jobs to do but they are all learning skills that are important as they get older. So many kids grow up never knowing how to wash a load of laundry, but it’s not going to be my kids!
3. The Ability to Survive the Early Years
Homeschooling with babies eager to be held or toddlers eating the busy bags isn’t for the faint of heart. The last two years I have taught my kids under the most chaotic of toddler trouble and noise. Honestly stretching our lessons out to five days each week would do me in. We won’t always have the loud, bustling activity of a toddler among our lessons but right now we do and I am very glad to simplify our schedule.
The four day schedule leaves me enough time to teach my older kids and care for my younger kids as well. I always encourage moms with young children not to stress over maxed out school days. Less work done with quality and focus is often much more productive anyway.
4. Time for Unstructured Education
During these early elementary years it is important that we are giving our kids time to have unstructured play time. Because we are reading such high quality literature from Sonlight each day, it spurs this amazing creativity in their play. When I give them a few hours to have unstructured playtime I am amazed at the things they are teaching themselves. I think they could put me out of a job sometimes. Even a movie night turns into my kids creating a movie theater complete with a cash register, money, menus for snacks and stuffed animal customers. They write stories & design comic books. Having a four day schedule simply leaves more time for this kind of organic education to happen every day.
When we remember to add margin in our homeschool schedule it gives us the freedom to include other benefits to our life as well.
How Does Sonlight Fit all the Subjects Into Only 4 Days?
For some subjects your kids just do a few extra pages during your 4 days, getting the extra day of work done during other parts of the week! For the read alouds, it simply includes a few less books to read each year. Since we love the read aloud books so much we typically order them anyway and read them over the Summer at our own pace. For subjects we don’t have scheduled in our Sonlight Instructors Guide, we just do them for four days and finish it when we finish. We may not finish the entire book but that is OK too, traditional schools do not finish all their curriculum either.
Once you reach the higher levels in Sonlight, past elementary school, the only option for your schedule is a five day schedule. But by then I expect my kids will be working more independently! When I was using Sonlightin high school I was able to do most of it on my own. My Mom would discuss the books and read them along with us, but I am pretty sure she wanted to anyway! I know I am looking forward to reading those books with my kids when they are older and revisit childhood memories I have of reading such awesome literature!
Sonlight has given this homeschool Mom an incredible blessing with our more relaxed homeschool weeks. Instead of taking away, it has added to our homeschool week! A home routine that works, time for educational extras and a chance to focus on my younger kids! Did I mention I am more sane as a result of all of this? Just an added bonus.
How many days a week do you homeschool? Do you have a day off each week? If yes, what do you do with that extra day?
I would love to hear your thoughts!
On March 29, 2018, 4-day programs will be available in most History / Bible / Literature, Language Arts and Science levels. Request a catalog to see your 4-day options.
When I started homeschooling my daughter, I read a small excerpt in the Instructor’s Guide (IG) of my curriculum about how to track progress. The recommendation was to place a checkmark after each completed activity. Adding the date was optional. If homeschooling multiple children, it was suggested that the child's initials be used instead of checkmarks. This plan worked really well until life started to serve up various other learning opportunities that deserved our attention:
Through Sonlight's all new History / Bible / Literature and Language Arts J: History of Science, you'll follow the path of scientific inquiry over the last 4,000 years. This fantastic new program shows you physicists, astronomers, and chemists throughout history as they explore the nature of the world in which we live...and of the universe itself. And it tells the story in Sonlight's signature style: through top-notch, award-winning literature.
When Sarita read through the books, she kept saying, “I am getting so much smarter!” That’s the same feeling you and your children will have, too, as you work through the program:
When you follow Pythagoras as he proves his famous theorem without using mathematical digits, only clear thinking and a stick in sand.
Or when you read how the ancients accurately calculated the size of the world using the angle of sunlight in a well on June 21.
Or when you consider that Newton compared the trajectory of an apple, a small terrestrial object, with the moon, a heavenly body, and wondered if maybe they were both subjected to the same force.
Or when you accompany Einstein as he does his thought experiments about rockets traveling at near light-speed.
Explore the curiosity, egos, quirks, and flashes of brilliance from 4,000 years of people seeking answers to how the world works. As your students read the stories of how scientists discovered scientific and mathematical laws, they acquire a deeper understanding of scientific concepts in physics, astronomy, and chemistry. And they will be intrigued by fun facts like Tycho Brahe’s metal nose!
The History in HBL J: History of Science
The foundation of the course, the spine, is the three volume set of lavishly illustrated books by Joy Hakim. She obviously loves her subject and does an outstanding job of explaining challenging concepts, finding the fascinating details about the scientists themselves, and keeping the big picture. (It’s a little bit like reading Humans of New York, those shimmering vignettes that compel you to want to keep reading.)
Hakim’s books focus primarily on the advance of scientific thought in physics, especially. This is not the story of biology or geology, but a bit of chemistry and astronomy, along with the study of light, motion, energy, and quantum mechanics. How does the world work?
Of course, that’s not all! In History, you’ll enjoy almost a dozen additional books.
In String, Straight-Edge, and Shadow, you’ll read about the earliest scientists, from unnamed Egyptians through Euclid and their ability to figure out basic math using only the three items in the title:
the proof of Pythagoras on his basic theorem
the discovery of the root five rectangle (the Golden Mean) by Eudoxus
and how, a couple hundred years before Christ, Eratosthenes accurately calculated the size of the world using the angle of sunlight in a well on the summer solstice
These people didn’t have mathematical digit symbols! Can you imagine figuring out these complex proofs without using math, just logic? It’s unbelievable what they were able to reason out!
Moving forward in time a few millennia, in The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern Way, the author explains how a science club called the Royal Society changed the way we think of the world. It’s a marvelously entertaining look at the early scientists who went about their scientific enquiry with collaboration and curiosity.
Continuing with nonfiction titles, in The Mystery of the Periodic Table, you’ll read how people looked at the diverse world and put the elements into the clear chart we know today. So much brilliance, to make something as intricate and varied as the world into something as orderly as the Periodic Table!
The thrilling real-life spy story Bomb tells about the race to build—and steal—the world’s most dangerous weapon. It’s a marvelous retelling of the spy network and sabotage teams of the Los Alamos top secret lab and the incredible collaboration behind the first atomic bomb. The countdown to the Trinity explosion is one of the best examples of writing you’ll ever read; you’ll understand why this nonfiction book won the Newbery Medal.
And in Stuff Matters, the author describes ten everyday materials. Here are a few questions he asks and answers:
What is so special about the experience of eating chocolate?
How does opaque sand becomes transparent glass?
How long does it take concrete to dry out (or even if it does)?
This book is an absolute delight!
Biographies in HBL J: History of Science
HBL J, of course, includes several biographies, too. Archimedes and the Door of Science tells about the Greek mathematician. Longitude, by Dava Sobel, tells the story of John Harrison, the man who invented clocks that told precise time at sea—vitally important so that sailors could more accurately plot their location. His development of the chronometer took forty years and a whole lot of tinkering. It’s a great story.
Almost all Sonlight programs include at least one missionary biography, and this one has a an inspiring one!
Ida Scudder, for example, grew up in India, the daughter of missionaries, but she didn’t want to be a missionary and she certainly didn’t want to live in India as an adult. But Ida went to India as a young adult in order to help her sick mother. One night—yes, all in one night—three men came to ask Ida if she would help their wives, all of whom were struggling in labor. Ida’s father was a doctor, but all three men refused the help of Ida’s father. It turned out that they would prefer to let their wives die than break religious taboos against a man seeing a woman in such condition. And, as it turned out, all three wives, and all three babies, did die.
The events of that evening changed Ida’s heart and the course of her life. Ida is nowhere near as well-known as Mother Teresa, but she probably ought to be! But you’ll have to read her biography to find out why.
Enjoy the best of STEM and liberal arts in this complete curriculum for ages 13 and up.
Moving from missionary biographies to Christian thought in general, the Hakim books and The Clockwork Universe assume Darwinian evolution is true, with the underlying assumption that no thinking person still believes those silly myths about God. This perspective runs through these books, even though nothing in the books is specifically about evolution. (As previously noted: these books don’t deal with biology.)
And yet, the scientific findings are not so monolithic. Even if Hakim suggests that there is scientific certainty, that is not true—there are other scientific studies, other areas of inquiry, that suggest a different interpretation of the data.
Sonlight’s program includes two such books.
Censored Science offers a smorgasbord of studies, all of which seem to put holes in the generally accepted model. Author Bruce Malone writes from a Young-Earth Creation point of view. Whatever your current belief about the origins of life, you should find this book interesting, filled with fascinating information and helpful explanations.
And in Evolution 2.0, we find a different perspective from a different Christian author. Faced with his missionary brother's move toward atheism, author Perry Marshall had to figure out what he really believed about the origin of the earth. This is by far the most technical book in the program, but it is still understandable, filled with important information, thought-provoking and well researched.
The Bible in HBL J: History of Science
Bible J includes daily Bible readings and weekly memory verses scheduled in the Instructor's Guide (IG). Designed to prepare your students for faithfulness in high school and beyond, the program includes Disappointment with God, Finding Truth, and What’s So Amazing About Grace—award-winning books that are beautifully written and a joy to read.
If your students haven’t already experienced some setbacks in life, you know that they will at some point. Philip Yancey’s Disappointment with God takes on the big questions, "Is God unfair? Is God silent? Is God hidden?" He points out that the Israelites in the desert had a fair, vocal, visible God . . . and it didn't help them to live more righteously.
How do you deal with disappointment? Yancey says,
“One bold message in the book of Job is that you can say anything to God. Throw at Him your grief, your anger, your doubt, your bitterness, your betrayal, your disappointment—He can absorb them all. As often as not, spiritual giants of the Bible are shown contending with God. They prefer to go away limping, like Jacob, rather than to shut God out. In this respect, the Bible prefigures a tenant of modern psychology: you can't really deny your feelings or make them disappear, so you might as well express them. God can deal with every human response save one. He cannot abide the response I fall back on instinctively: an attempt to ignore Him or treat Him as though He does not exist. That response never once occurred to Job."
More is going on in the heavenlies than is visible, and we don't know what our faith is doing on a cosmic level, so be faithful. Disappointment with God is an outstanding, helpful book.
Nancy Pearcey’s Finding Truth offers an excellent worldview overview, so that students will be alert and prepared when they come across such views in the world.
And What’s So Amazing About Grace is a book-length treatment of one of the basics of Christianity, something we believers don’t talk about enough. The world can’t duplicate grace, and yet it craves the hope and transformation that grace brings. Explore the church’s great distinctive in action: shocking, scandalous, and amazing.
This is a preparation-for-life Bible program, beautifully written and a joy to read.
The Literature in HBL J: History of Science
The Readers and Read-Alouds for HBL J’s Literature are loosely gathered under the theme “Award-Winning Titles and Authors.”
As you can tell, the History portion of this program is not light reading—it is beautiful and comprehensible but also includes many new, thought-provoking topics and ideas. In order to balance this intensity, the Literature is compelling and interesting, and the Instructor’s Guide is full of excellent discussion questions and introductory literary analysis. These books are not, for the most part, stretching or challenging in the way that, say, Hamlet is stretching and challenging. These are thoughtful books that don’t require slow reading to ensure comprehension. There’s enough of that in the History.
You’ll find a lovely array of genres:
memoir
fantasy
gothic horror (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
adventure
survivalist tale
a Christmas seasonal novel
sci fi
dystopian
mystery
mythology
coming-of-age
historical fiction
missionary biography
poetry
You’ll read Newbery Honor and Newbery Medal books, and more titles by authors who have either won those awards or others (like Joan Aiken, author of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, who won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. This award is given annually, can only be won once per author, and is selected from a panel of British children’s writers. Quite the honor!)
The J Literature is such a good collection!
Add-on Language Arts for J
HBL J does not include—you are not required to purchase—a Language Arts program. However, it has an associated Language Arts Guide that is based on the books in the History/Bible/Literature J program. As in all the other Sonlight middle school LA IGs, you’ll find grammar and mechanics instruction and writing prompts. (There is no separate Parent and Student IG; that structure starts with the 100-level programs.)
Three Goals of Sonlight's History of Science Curriculum: HBL J
We had three goals in mind when creating this program:
Teach scientific thought to the present.
Present different perspectives. You don’t need to have all answers now, but know the questions, and engage with a curious mind.
Prepare a student for further study, equipped with both humility and enthusiasm.
So what do you get in History / Bible / Literature J?
A walk through scientific thought. Various biographies. A spy story. Three different takes on the origin of the earth (standard Darwinian evolutionist, Young Earth Creationist, and a third alternative that uses non-Darwinian evolution to demonstrate God’s greatness). Clear, concise, elegant descriptions, and gorgeous illustrations make this lavish feast for the mind both attractive and understandable.
No other homeschool provider we know of offers a similar program—one that appeals to both STEM-minded students and liberal arts lovers.
When to Use History of Science HBL J
HBL J is intended for students from about age 13 on up. It fits into the Sonlight catalog between H or W and 100—the last program before high school, or an early high school option. In format, it is similar to the other middle school programs, but in content it could work for high school. So HBL J is considered an 8th grade program, but it's flexible enough to use with older students as well.
(Note that Sonlight does not ever plan to release an HBL I. That would be indistinguishable from Roman numeral 1, and sounds vaguely pretentious as well.)
If you have older children, or a well-thought-out plan already, and now you’re wondering how you can possibly fit this program in—here’s an idea: order J and one of the high school literature courses. Do the J Readers and Read-Alouds over the summer, and use the History along with the high school literature program of your choice.
Or order J as a summer program entirely. One of Sarita’s grandsons worked through J History last summer, and the plan is to go through the Literature books he hasn’t yet read over this coming summer.
And Sarita’s daughter can vouch that this is an excellent program for adults, too. If you want to know more about the fascinating history of science, you won’t find a more engaging program out there. It might take you a year or two to read through it yourself, snatching twenty minutes here and there. But it is intellectually satisfying, and, indeed, aesthetically pleasing.
He looked up at me with tears streaming down his face. He threw his pencil on the table in frustration. He had been trying, but it just wasn’t working. He was done, and I was done. We were both defeated.
It was at that moment I realized that a rigorous education isn’t always a better education.
My youngest son came to us through adoption. A product of a broken home, an absent father, and a mother in and out of jail, our son was broken. His spirit was broken, and I was pushing him academically as if he were whole. It was a prime example of when rigorous isn’t better.
My education philosophy changed the day my son’s tears spilled over his arithmetic paper. I realized that not every student—or every season—is made for a rigorous education. Although I want the best education for my children, there are four situations when rigorous is not the best choice.
1. When It Saps the Love of Learning
I’m not sure that my son had ever experienced a love of learning. His seven short years were full of survival instincts. I not only needed to make sure his education didn’t dampen his love for learning, but I needed to help him discover his love for learning.
Children need opportunities to be amazed by the world around them—to be given material to pique their curiosity and spark the desire to learn.
When your child isn’t seeing the wonderment of learning because you are pushing too hard, rigorous isn’t better.
If they experience failure after failure, they will eventually stop trying.
My son needed me to build his confidence more than he needed me to teach him arithmetic. After the trauma of his early years, he needed to feel valued and believed in.
When your child feels like a failure in school, rigorous isn’t better.
3. When It’s Too Advanced (Even If It’s On Grade Level)
Sometimes children aren’t developmentally ready for concepts, even concepts that are considered “on grade level.” In this case, it doesn’t pay to forge ahead regardless of your child’s readiness.
My oldest son has dysgraphia, and I had him begin learning cursive in third grade because that’s what third graders do. It turned out to be an agonizing thirty minutes of tears and whining every day until I realized that I didn’t have to put him through that. Instead, we got him help from an occupational therapist. After his years of OT exercises, finally in fifth grade, he was ready to learn cursive. Now, he prefers writing in cursive. However, if I had ignored my child’s signal that he wasn’t ready, I would have caused unnecessary pain and a permanent distaste for cursive.
When you’re requiring your child to do advanced work when your child isn’t ready, rigorous isn’t better.
4. When You’re Worried About What Others Think
The friendly neighbor or stranger in the grocery store starts musing and then directs his question towards my child, “Oh, you're in fifth grade huh? Let’s see, I bet you’re reading big chapter books and working on fractions and division, right?” I’ve endured it more times than I’d like to count.
A well-meaning friend or stranger finds out you’re homeschooling and slyly tests your child to see if they are keeping up with public school kids. Your friend whose kids go to an elaborate co-op with tons of reading and memorization may raise her eyebrow at your enjoyable Read-Alouds and slow pace through a math program. Your teacher friend at church questions if your kids are "on track."
Hey, if you’re a homeschooler, I know you’ve heard it too. The question is how do those comments affect your homeschool? If you are worried about what others think, you might be tempted to present a rigorous education just to keep up appearances with others.
If impressing others is your motivation, rigorous isn't better.
Children should be challenged to stretch themselves. When we have high standards for our children, they will typically rise to meet the expectation.
And some children are voracious learners, devouring reference books and biology experiments in their spare time. They will thrive under a rigorous education and should have the benefit of all the enrichment we can offer them!
So here’s the thing...a rigorous education is great if it fits your child and the season of your child's life. But there are situations when a rigorous education is not better. It's up to you as the parent to decide if your child needs a more relaxed pace or more rigorous one. If the four situations above don't apply to you and your child is thriving under the rigorous route, super! But if your child is floundering, take this article as permission to slow down and back off for a more gentle education at least for a season.
Sonlight can be as rigorous or as gentle as you like, depending on which program you chose and how you schedule it. Talk to our Advisors to make an educational plan with the perfect level of rigor.
Spoiler alert: How long homeschooling takes each day is still a mystery to me! I wish I could answer with an exact number of hours. But I find it almost impossible to predict how long homeschooling will take each day.
Somehow there is an expectation that homeschoolers should match what kids in public school are doing. So if children spend seven hours a day, five days a week in a public school, the reasoning goes that we homeschoolers should be doing at least that much, too. Anything less means we are doing a bad job. But this fallacy is not true at all!
As homeschoolers, we have the advantage to do as much or as little as we want or need. It is a blessing to be in charge of our children's education, and is very convenient to accommodate learning into our own rhythms and lifestyle. With the efficiency of fewer students, we homeschoolers can also be far more diligent with our time and accomplish more in fewer hours than public schools could ever dream of.
In my experience, there are two primary factors that define how long homeschooling takes each day.
1. Homeschooling Is A Natural Part of Our Family Rhythm
When we decided to homeschool, we knew we wanted to raise lifelong learners who learn all the time, everywhere they go. So learning is a natural part of our family rhythm of life. There are always opportunities to learn some new; we are not bound by an 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. schedule. We follow a routine, not a schedule. No bells will ring for subjects to start or end.
Homeschooling gives us wings to fly. We are not confined to four walls or to a number of hours a day. Two hours visiting our local science museum can teach us more than six hours reading a science book and doing science worksheets. Some days we are so excited about a topic that we spend all day learning about it.
Other days, life gets in the way of studies:
laundry
an ill child who needs all your attention
trips to the ER
a plumbing disaster in your home that makes life a mess
In days like those, we press pause on homeschooling and attend to the crisis or immediate necessity. Learning may happen by listening to an audiobook on the way to the hospital or by watching DVDs like Mathtacular or Discover & Do. And it's okay.
2. We Respect Our Kids' Individual Pace of Learning
Our children are so unique and so different from each other. Each child can have a different learning style and learning pace. My 9 year old son often surprises me by completing his homeschool in less than an hour or two a day. He is very independent and self-driven. On Mondays, I hand him his weekly checklist, and he gladly works through it on his own.
My 7 year old daughter is the opposite. She is the dreamer of the family, often dancing, singing, and easily distracted by anything beautiful. If it were up to her, we would take a whole day to complete just a few homeschool assignments.
And then there is our youngest, who is 6 years old. She is learning to read and trying to write all she can on her own. While she is very determined, she still needs a lot of one-on-one help. And it is very important that I neither rush her nor hold her back.
With these three very different children, the "how long homeschooling takes" question is still a mystery! It's different day to day and different for each child.
So, How Long Does Homeschooling Take Each Day?
The length of your homeschool day depends on your family rhythms, your children's learning pace, and life's unpredictable circumstances. I have days when homeschool is complete by 1 p.m. Other days take until 4 p.m., and on some occasions we are roadschooling for an hour or two.
When it comes to my children's education, I have learned that it is much more important to focus on the quality than the quantity. I respect my children's pace without allowing the slow-paced to slow everyone down or the fast-paced rush everyone else. In five years of homeschooling, I've learned to be flexible and find the perfect pace for our homeschool. When you get in the groove of a homeschool routine and grasp how homeschooling works, you'll find your perfect pace, too.
Take advantage of our 100% guarantee. No other homeschooling company can match our Love to Learn, Love to Teach™ promise. You can order with confidence that either you will have a great year, or you will get a full refund.
When you’re feeling behind with homeschool, it is tempting to think the best way to catch up is to school all day long. If wintertime finds your house quite buried in snow like ours is, you may think, "Why not start cramming? We might as well do school seven solid hours a day like the brick and mortar schools. We can't get out and do much else!"
What sounds like a great solution to feeling behind turns into a mix of bad news:
