For the
homeschooling family, balancing school with life is a cinch compared
to trying to
If you are
just starting to think about homeschooling, the question of how to
balance this with life may be a big question mark. After all, if your
children have been in public or private school then the school has
laid out the schedule, and your task, difficult as it can be, is one
that you are accustomed to – squeezing in the other aspects of your
child's life wherever you can.
Or,
perhaps you've been homeschooling a while and are finding that too
much of your child's day (and yours) is consumed by schoolwork. It
can happen, but the good news is that you have control of this time.
If you happen to be unlucky enough to live in a state that makes
strict demands on homeschooling families (such as requiring mastery
of specific subjects at certain ages), you may want to consider
making some changes – either in where you live or by seeking legal
counsel to fight for your homeschooling rights.
That said,
in most cases there is a great deal of freedom in how you can balance
school and life, and even if you are under the thumb of a restrictive
state, you still have the say in how you plan your days.
If you're
new to homeschooling, then you may be overwhelmed just thinking about
how on earth you can teach for 8 hours a day, spend time lesson
planning and assessing your child's work, and even have time for
life!
Let's set
those worries to rest. First of all, you will not need to mimic the
school's hours. It's no secret the time it takes to learn at home is
far less than the time it takes to learn at school. Even teachers are
told in their education courses that they will spend very little time
actually teaching. Most of the time is spent on "off task"
matters such as getting the class to settle down at the beginning of
a day, transitioning from activity to another, getting the class to
settle down after recesses and lunch, dealing with numerous
interruptions, doing busy work for nothing more than the sake of
order in the classroom, and then after every long vacation, spending
days settling down again and days to weeks in review because
retention was lost.
It's
estimated only 1/2 hour to 2 hours is spent on task in school. This
goes along with the estimate that on average, a child can do 8 hours
of school work in 2 hours when done at home.
You will
also have the huge advantage of knowing your child's strengths and
weaknesses and learning style. This means that when you child is
stuck on a problem you will be much more able to effectively help
your child figure it out then a teacher who doesn't know your child
very well, if at all. This is of course another big time saver.
Given that
your child may spend a couple hours a day on formal school work,
Monday
through Friday, even with vacations. You may spend, depending on the
curriculum used, around 1/2 to one hour daily, Monday through Friday
on lesson planning, assessing, etc. If your child enjoys learning and
wants to do more, then you can adjust for this.
As you can
see, this leaves plenty of time for the rest of life. With many
activities out there that your child may want to explore from dance
to martial arts classes, just be sure that your child (and you) has
plenty of free time – just for thinking, daydreaming, and just
being.
If you are looking for a science project to use you can have a look at my Hub:
| Science Fair Projects, Grade One To Seven |
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