NCJessieRN Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 How many hours do you "school" your K child? I told my friend that K only takes about an hour and she was appalled! She said there is NO WAY they can learn enough in an hour and was asking why kids need to be in ps for so long and we can hs so short! Am I doing something wrong if K only takes 1hr of actual "schooling"? Is there a site (something official that I could link her to) that has recommendations for grade/hrs of hs? Thanks for any help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newlifemom Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 I don't know about official sites, but yes K can only take an hour. That is seat work. I also read to mine, and had them play games as well. Plus, I let them do a lot of free play which imho is still so very important at the age. I did 2 and it took about 1 1/2 hours from start to finish and that was with lots of stops. My 6th grader, now that's another story. :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erica in PA Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 How many hours do you "school" your K child? I told my friend that K only takes about an hour and she was appalled! She said there is NO WAY they can learn enough in an hour and was asking why kids need to be in ps for so long and we can hs so short! Am I doing something wrong if K only takes 1hr of actual "schooling"? Is there a site (something official that I could link her to) that has recommendations for grade/hrs of hs? Thanks for any help! No, I agree with you that reading, writing, math, and science/history on alternating days needn't take much more than an hour in kindergarten. Especially if that child has Mom's full attention and guidance during that time. Hopefully there are other educational activities that go on in the home during the day as well, that you might not call "school time," but learning is still taking place, like reading, going to the library, going on a field trip to the zoo, museum, etc., drawing, crafts, listening to music, etc. All of those things are part of a young child's education. But an hour of seatwork is often enough for K, I agree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1bassoon Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Um. First child, or fifth child? ;) First child - at least 2 hours. Maybe three. Fifth child - "Isn't Kindergarten optional?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheryl Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Hi fellow Charlotte, NC! We enjoy living here! I think you are of sound mind here! :D There are many well meaning people on this board and "out there" who will differ and say give him/her more instruction time. WHY? It's not necessary at this tender age. Teach him/her the basics.....math: count pinecones, seashells, toy cars or dolls. Phonics: use 1-2 nice little activity books. READ, READ, and more READING! Do you belong to one of the city-wide homeschool OR church homeschool support groups, or co-op? Sheryl <>< Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the4Rs Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Our K days only take about an hour too....maybe an hour and a half tops. Public school Kers spend time in lines, waiting to be shone something by the teacher, rest time, snack time, lunch, recesses, training them to be quiet, raise hands, walk in lines quietly...basically how to get through school years ahead of them. If they scaled public school K down to the basics that NEED to be taught academically it should only take about an hour. You are doing fine. And really K never used to be needed, then when I was a kid it was a half day only, now it is all day: the reason? Day care mostly for the parents who don't have somewhere for them to go and also more time for the state to HAVE your children. I don't worry about what others think as I know my daughter is way above most Kers around us so they can get upset all they want. :tongue_smilie: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hillary in KS Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Yes, well, we do about an hour for K here - for the seat work: math, handwriting, phonics, and piano. There is a lot more time spent reading books, playing, etc. but that is all woven into the fabric of our day. It sounds like you're doing fine. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NCJessieRN Posted September 23, 2009 Author Share Posted September 23, 2009 We do other things through out the day. Read books, fun art, games, free play etc. I just don't call it official school. I know I shouldn't but I get offended when she makes statements about hs when she's never even looked into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NCJessieRN Posted September 23, 2009 Author Share Posted September 23, 2009 Um. First child, or fifth child? ;) First child - at least 2 hours. Maybe three. Fifth child - "Isn't Kindergarten optional?" :lol: She's actually #2 of 4 so maybe 1 hour is perfect! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calandalsmom Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 LOL I saw the title and thought, "HOURS? Plural? are you kidding me?" You are doing fine. Ignore your friend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NCJessieRN Posted September 23, 2009 Author Share Posted September 23, 2009 Hi fellow Charlotte, NC! We enjoy living here! I think you are of sound mind here! :D There are many well meaning people on this board and "out there" who will differ and say give him/her more instruction time. WHY? It's not necessary at this tender age. Teach him/her the basics.....math: count pinecones, seashells, toy cars or dolls. Phonics: use 1-2 nice little activity books. READ, READ, and more READING! Do you belong to one of the city-wide homeschool OR church homeschool support groups, or co-op? Sheryl <>< WINGS. and there are several families in our church who HS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nova147 Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Yeah, we do an hour, maybe an hour and half. And on long days, it's because we're doing a fun project and don't want to stop! PS takes longer partly because of the "learning to school" stuff a pp mentioned. But it also takes longer to teach a group of 20 kids the same thing as you are teaching your 1 kid. Individual teaching is much faster, which is why when kids struggle, we get them tutors -- they can catch up because they are getting that one-on-one time. This doesn't directly answer your time question, but has lots of great stuff about homeschooling kindergarten and should give you some "ammo" with your friend. (BTW, any chance your friend is thinking maybe it would be smarter to hs? I may be reading into what she said, but . . . maybe?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NCJessieRN Posted September 23, 2009 Author Share Posted September 23, 2009 Forgot to mention...She has a son who was reading at 3, excels in math and he's only 4. He LOVES to do "school" so he goes to school and comes home and does more school and LOVES it. Maybe that's why she doesn't understand?Thanks. I'm feeling "normal"! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nova147 Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Forgot to mention...She has a son who was reading at 3, excels in math and he's only 4. He LOVES to do "school" so he goes to school and comes home and does more school and LOVES it. Maybe that's why she doesn't understand?Thanks. I'm feeling "normal"! Oh. Just wait a year until her son is IN kindergarten. And tells her how boring it is. How he already knows that stuff. Oh. I'll stop now before I start a rant, but . . . yeah. I wish her luck. She'll need it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChristusG Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 It takes us about 1 - 2 hours to do everything. And then we have reading time together and my two year old joins in as well. It may take closer to two hours if we are doing an experiment in science. Or if we are going over a new concept in math, or something like that. Plus, it is based on how cooperative my K'er is being too. Usually, she'd do school well past the two hours though....she loves it. We do phonics/reading, math, science, Bible, practice speech (she's in therapy so we go over what the therapist is doing that week), and work on memorizing her Bible verse for AWANA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IsabelC Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 (edited) I'm not going to try to tell you how long to do school with your little person each day. But I did read somewhere a long time ago that the average elementary school student gets only 30-40 minutes of direct good quality teaching per day at school. The rest of the time is spent on breaks, housekeeping, moving around from one location to the next, waiting in line, waiting while the teacher disciplines or assists other children, repeating things they already understand because other children didn't 'get it' the first time, and so on and so forth. So if you're doing an hour of really productive one on one stuff, chances are your child is already getting more than a conventionally schooled child. ETA, has your friend read any of the research on the vital importance of allowing unstructured PLAY, especially for the littler children? I would far rather my children progress a little more slowly doing a couple of hours a day and working up as they get older, than risk compromising their development by scheduling out all their free playing time. Edited September 23, 2009 by Hotdrink Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrissiK Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Last year we did kinder and it took 1 to 1 1/2 hrs. a day, depending on if we did a lot of art projects or other hands-on stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverMoon Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 The words "kindy" and "hours" don't even belong in the same sentence IMO.:tongue_smilie: At home they can learn twice as much in less than half the time and kindy kids don't need to learn that bloody much. My K level kids daily load looks something like: -write name -phonics lesson -counting practice -few workbook pages that include writing practice (those big chunky workbooks from Costco are perfect for workbook lovers, and they're cheaper than printer ink) -memory work (small poem or nursery rhyme) That took them a whopping twenty minutes most of the time, not accounting for all the reading we do on the side. They all started first grade more than able of doing first grade work. (Not counting the toddler obviously) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 I didn't tell anyone but my homeschooling friends how long we spent until the end of the year when my daughter could read just about anything. We spent 30 minutes a day, 10 minutes a day on Webster's Speller was a very powerful 10 minutes. 10 minutes of focused time can be more powerful than 6 hours at school, especially if outdoor recess is cancelled! I tutored a group of children at a school in Little Rock right after school with the help of volunteers from they church. They had no gym, and on rainy, cold days (luckily, not too many of those in Little Rock), they had recess inside with no chance to move around. Due to rules about how many hours each subject had to be taught, they couldn't take turns using the cafeteria to do indoor recess--crazy, better to do 20 minutes of recess and 10 minutes of math where they learn something than 30 minutes of math where no one learns a thing because they have been in a class all day long. The days that they had no outdoor recess, everyone, but especially the boys, was a mess. I don't think they learned a single thing those days. Our second class, we taught from 6 to 6:30 PM so they could decompress for a while. (We did give them a 20 to 30 minute recess before each class for the class we taught directly after school.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IsabelC Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 10 minutes of focused time can be more powerful than 6 hours at school Yes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NCJessieRN Posted September 23, 2009 Author Share Posted September 23, 2009 Thanks so much for the replies. I'm encouraged! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joannqn Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Kindergarten in my home is phonics and math. It takes 30-60 minutes at the most. We also do read alouds but we don't officially call that "school" because it is more of a fun thing. They also read to themselves; my first two were reading by then. I don't do any other subjects formally until 1st. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Georgiana Daniels Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Ahhh....I loved reading this thread because it's so reassuring! I'll hop on the bandwagon--we also do about 60 mins a day. Phonics and math, and one Bible verse per week. My biggest thing right now is getting them used to working every day and not watching TV. We do the book work, then it's time for puzzles, coloring, etc. I like to keep little hands busy:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ruby Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Um. First child, or fifth child? ;) First child - at least 2 hours. Maybe three. Fifth child - "Isn't Kindergarten optional?" I remember my first year homeschooling. I was so overwhelmed. I went to a ladies meeting where everyone homeschooled. When I shared how overwhelmed I was one of the moms said "oh honey if you are spending more than an hour or so then your doing too much" I thought she was crazy. Now with kiddo number 3 and 10 years of homeschool under my belt I would say the exact same thing to a newbie. Some things just take time and newbies need a little security. Reading, math, exploring, good books about animals, places and people. color cut paste playdough = Fun. Ruby Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tex-mex Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 (edited) As a former K teacher, the real academic time was about an hour a day. Carpet time revolved around math skills -- day of the week, counting by 2's, 10's, and calendar skills. Pledge of Allegiance. Show & Tell. Singing our ABCs with sign language. We would then discuss the topic/theme of the week (letter & color) and read a story. After that, it was center time with worksheets, social skills, developmental skills (i.e. scissors), art, recess, snack, and such. Busy work. Then we'd wrap it up with music at the piano and then dismissal. Keep in mind we also had trips weekly to the library, computer room, and P.E. teacher would come to our room to lead us in a game. Assemblies would take up a good chunk of our day (we were 1/2 day back then) and field trips. Personally, HSers get more done in an hour than I did teaching in public schools. LOL Here is another thread -- hope it helps? http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124840 Edited September 23, 2009 by tex-mex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela H in Texas Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 It all depends on what you're calling "school." 3Rs? an hour. Add an hour or two of read alouds, recess, P.E., singing, crafts, a short nap, lunch, playing with manipulatives, a library trip, etc? Then add discipline issues, lining up, taking attendance, waiting in lines, bathroom breaks, etc? Last year, on a good day (not many because of his circumstances), Goo took 2 hours to do our plan. On a bad day, we didn't finish by 3pm (not many of those). Most days ran til 12 or 1pm even though we rarely got to do everything I would hope to do with an average kindergartener (we had MUCH bigger things to work on unfortunately). My ideal for a homeschool or very small Kindy classroom (K classrooms SHOULD be very small, imo), would be half day for what *I* would call school, but compared to PS, it wouldn't look very schoolish except MAYBE an hour or so). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phathui5 Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 K can totally take an hour, usually less. Public school kids are there for so long because there are so many kids in a class + lots of wasted time on discipline issues and administrative stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thescrappyhomeschooler Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Oh. Just wait a year until her son is IN kindergarten. And tells her how boring it is. How he already knows that stuff. Oh. I'll stop now before I start a rant, but . . . yeah. I wish her luck. She'll need it. :iagree: In ds6's K class at school, most of the time was spent in "free choice". In ds5's current class, between library, tech lab, gym, music, art, recess and lunch, They probably spend 1-2 hours on actual work in the classroom, and that is not all sitting down in seats, either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JudoMom Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Um. First child, or fifth child? ;) First child - at least 2 hours. Maybe three. Fifth child - "Isn't Kindergarten optional?" :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teachermom2834 Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 I just saw one of those "teacher of the week" blurbs on TV and they were honoring a K teacher. She said "Kindergarten is about learning to raise your hand, stand in line, and stay awake." An hour is great. More than sufficient. My loose rule of thumb is in grades 1-4 an hour per day per grade level. Beyond that there are too many variables. The condition on my rule of thumb is that they are spending the rest of their day in an environment free from TV and video games. I'm okay with some educational electronic entertainment during the day. It just depends. So, yes, and hour a day in K is more than adequate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momofkhm Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 sometimes as little as 45 minutes. Sometimes as much as 75 minutes. But usually only 1 hour. I was telling a friend the other day that with MFW she could easily school her little boy while her dd was down for nap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CookieMonster Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 (edited) You know why they spend six hours a day in Kindergarten? Because parents need them to be babysat for free for that long. As well-intentioned as half-day Kindergarten programs are (because K doesn't take all day), they don't usually last long because working parents, or parents who have all their other kids in school, want all their kids out of school at the same time. We do Kindergarten in 1 and 1/2 hours everyday. We do A Bible Lesson Reading Instruction Penmanship Math (he's waaay beyond the 'just count' stage) 20 minutes of odds and ends We do a crafty project about once a week. We try to get to read-aloud reading later on in the day (with an active baby this is hard). Oh, and we only average four days a week of school. And he can read, count to 100, discuss books, etc. We use the other day of the week to go to the zoo or library or children's museum, or mother's group outing. In other words, we also get a lot more field trips in than PS does. Homeschooling generally does accomplish more than public school with less instruction time. Edited September 23, 2009 by CookieMonster Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Your friend is full of beans, even if she's a good friend and you love her dearly. Kindergarten is not mandatory, and there are no "shoulds" about time spent or anything else. "Kindergarten" is an invented term to describe children of an approximate age. A kindergartener can be 4, 5, or 6 yo at any time during the Sept.-June school year, depending on the cut-off date in your state. How can you define what children in such a wide age range "should" do? You're homeschooling. You can do whatever you want as your dc is not "in" kindergarten. You're teaching according to his abilities. The end. Even if there is a web site that gives any kind of recommendations on how long a "kindergartener" "should" do school, I wouldn't show it to your friend. It is irrelevant as she's not the boss of you. :-) And I wouldn't recommend that you read it, either. You don't need to know. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiver0f10 Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 All I worry about in K is math, penmanship and phonics/reading. We spend @ 15-20 minutes on each of these but we do breaks in between. So for me, a K day would be @ 45-1 hour at the most. The rest of the day is fun stuff like art projects, read alouds and PLAYING! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela H in Texas Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Your friend is full of beans, even if she's a good friend and you love her dearly. How sad.... Well, when my daughter was like 4-8yrs old, I put a limit on when I would do schoolishness. I also allowed her a bunch of schoolish materials to do on her own. And she ALSO did a lot of imaginative play, independent reading, experiments, following interests, researching, etc. But that doesn't mean that every young child will or should do similarly. But it most certainly doesn't mean the friend is full of bologna just because she has a child that does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PineFarmMom Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 1 1/2 hours per day, roughly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BikeBookBread Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 (edited) Um. First child, or fifth child? ;) First child - at least 2 hours. Maybe three. Fifth child - "Isn't Kindergarten optional?" I assume you are being facetious, right? I've never heard a recommendation of more than one hour a day for Kinder. Now if you are including read-alouds, and non "table-time" like manipulatives, library runs, etc., maybe it does add up to three hours. But two to three hours sitting at a table with a workbook or being actively instructed on phonics, Bible, Math, etc... that is WAY too long. We do one hour of earnest, table-time teaching, 3 days a week. I would love to do 4 or 5 days a week, but I'm easing into this HS thing. ETA: I posted a similar question over on the K-8 curriculum board a few weeks ago, but about how many days a week people do Kinder....lots of good suggestions on the thread. As for "backup", here's SWB's recommendation (see question 3.) I spend a lot of wasted energy second-guessing myself (I really need to stop crying in the shower over this!). DON'T! You choose what is best for your child and then it's..."farther up and further in!!!" Edited September 23, 2009 by BikeBookBread added links Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petepie2 Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Our seatwork is less than a hour. It consists of two pages in ETC, two pages in Singapore EB Book B, and the daily assignment in Reason for Handwriting. Ideally, this would take at most a half hour, but she tends to want to color in the black&white pictures in ETC and chit-chat with her brother at the same time, so sometimes it gets drug out to 45 minutes, or rarely, an hour. We do Bible during breakfast and Scripture & Catechism memorization just after. Memorization with both kids takes me about 15 minutes. However, I don't consider this school and we would be doing it whether we homeschooled or not. When my little one takes a nap in the afternoon, we do SL p3/4 readings with both DD and DS, and the Core K and Science K readings with DD. It takes her maybe 5 minutes to answer the questions for science K. Then I do one lesson from OPGTR with DD and she reads to me from SL readers. All of this takes no more than an hour, but usually less. It mainly depends if she wants me to read more read alouds or if she wants to read more to me. Again it's hard for me to consider all of this official "school". We would be doing read-alouds regardless. We do art on some afternoons. This may consist of me just reading an art appreciation type book or she may work on a project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Rat Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Last year my kindy boy was at about 30-45 minutes of sit down work plus science and read alouds with his older brother. PS school days are longer because a lot of time is spent on crowd control. Plus, I don't count recess, snacks, lunches, etc. as part of our school day. If I did, then we're closer to PS hours. :o Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PineFarmMom Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 I was thinking about this further. We use MFW K but do some of our own stuff too. Our a.m., for K, has been spent working on writing numbers & letters, writing in our calendar and on our 100 chart, playing a game about letter sounds (20 minutes), sitting in the floor working with cuisenaire rods and a workbook and talking about the rods (20 min.), working on his singapore math, coloring (20-30 min). We'll do a reading lesson in a minute. The games and cuisenaire rods are kind of "extras" today, but we do some type of extra nearly every day. We watched a video about the moon last week and drew the phases. Absolute seat work/school work seems to take an hour at most. We do lots of enrichment type things also. I think I forget, and many others do as well, the amount of time doing learning activities that aren't scheduled, kwim? We bake things for school. We do artsy things. We read books and act them out/discuss them. Some days we do the bare bones and I'm busy with other things. I think I have a bit of a hard time calculating it because this K child is usually fit in the breaks of the older kids' school work. I also don't think I count half of the learning stuff we do each day just by living life together, kwim? Counting, cooking, going out in the world. Some of our learning isn't manufactured. Some of it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coralloyd Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 My K dd does: Either the picture or 1 sentence in- Draw Write Now (one page lasts the whole week) 1 page of Phonics Pathways 2 pages of Math-U-See Primer And reads from any book she chooses. = less than an hour Bible-we do at the breakfast table. History, Science, Picture Study - Aloud with both dds later in the afternoon. Read-Alouds -at night before bed. = 2-3 hours Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyJoy Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Subbing for a kindergarten teacher's aide earlier this year was great for me! It helped reinforce what you ladies are saying here. I subbed for a whole week at a private Christian school where I formerly taught jr. high. I can tell you that the direct instruction time/seat work did not add up to 1 hour any day that week. This school has a good reputation, uses ABEKA materials, and most kids who finish kindergarten here are writing cursive letters and many are reading. I felt sorry for the half of the kids who finished their worksheets early, then were in trouble for being bored and a bit goofy while sitting in their seats waiting for the others. It brought back flashbacks of my youth!:glare: An hour of work with mom would definitely be more than these kids were getting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 My K child is my youngest. He listens in on the big boy readers and does History with the big boys (makes his own lapbook with my help, etc...) but work for JUST HIM? Um, Language Arts and Math.....an hour or less! He is fine! Dawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radish4ever Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Agreeing with the others than 1 hour can be plenty! I don't time what or when we do our activities, but as far as actual seatwork, we do maybe 20-30 minutes.... then there is a ton of reading (usually a minimum of 3-5 books a day lately) and arts/crafts (which always seem to take my DD *forever* since she gets so engrossed in it...she's doing some 3 Billy Goats Gruff activities right now and we're going on about 30 minutes of that but I'm NOT pushing it...she just loves it!). :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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