Does your HSing have a focus on one main subject? If so, how did that come about?

[melissel]

I've been wondering this for a long time now. There are so many amazing resources out there that I would love to implement, but that would take over my life if I tried to. Yet, I still secretly yearn to implement all of them! I love history and love the idea of doing SOTW full on five days a week, with all the readalouds, narration, documentaries, field trips, hands-on projects, etc. But I also want to make math a big part of our lives, not something we just do "for school." DD7 loves science, so I could see having a science-oriented household and homeschool, but then what about an immersion in Latin and language arts? I need a head-spinning emoticon here :lol:

 

So how do you decide where to place your main focus, especially when you want to eat it all up and teach your kids to do the same? Do you struggle with balance? Am I making any sense at all? :lol: I'd love to hear others' thoughts on this.

[Kareni]

We began homeschooling when my now college freshman was a 7th grader. I would say that our focus at that point was on doing history chronologically. Why? Because I was inspired by reading the Well-Trained Mind, and the idea made sense. We have not been ones to strictly follow the WTM -- we only did one sweep through history (from 7th to 9th grade); we added more science; my daughter did five years of Latin and a year of ancient Greek but no modern language. Why? Because there are only so many hours in a day and choices had/have to be made. (There's that struggle with balance that you mentioned.)

 

I've heard of some who change their focus every year. That might be an option for you to consider. Or concentrate on history when your children are younger, and then focus more on math and science (or whatever their interests are) when they are older.

 

Good luck with your decision!

Regards,

Kareni

[Rosie_0801]

It's my evil plan to pack as much of the cool stuff into their Christmas stockings as I can. :D The more there is in their stockings, the more space is freed in our school time, right?

 

Rosie

Edited January 29, 2010 by Rosie_0801

[ChristyH]

Our main focus has probably been history even though, we have jumped around with curriculum too much. It is my favorite subject, so that might have something to do with it but also I believe that a very strong base in history helps one to think critically about our culture now. It helps us to see God's hand in history. Can you not see many parallels between current American society and Ancient Roman society? I also love science and don't have any trouble teaching that. Too bad I don't enjoy teaching teaching the basics more.:tongue_smilie:

[Laboroflove]

You're singing my song! I have this ridiculously long list of what we'd accomplish every week in an ideal world. I keep it out - we do math, grammar, geography, reading, and Latin every week. Other than that I look at my list, mark what we've done, and highlight what I want to do next. It's not as structured as it should be, but at the end of the semester when I look back at what we've done, we've accomplished a lot. Over all, I'd say our focus is probably math because they're still young enough to master everything else, but math builds upon itself. I guess my personal grade as a teacher comes when they hit their next chapter in their life and we see how they turn out. No pressure.:glare:

[KristineinKS]

Our main focus has always been history (studied chronologically), because it's my passion - I love the planning, read alouds, projects, etc. & so we do a lot of it. In the warmer months, there is more emphasis on nature (in lieu of science). We go on nature walks and explore the outdoors as much as possible, learning all the while. I also try to plan major projects outdoors to keep us busy, often combining history and science for these (such as the pit greenhouse we built last fall, while studying the Romans).

 

For me at least, it's just not possible to do all things well, so I have to pick and choose what I'm going to pour the majority of my energy into. That's not to say that we ignore the basics, or other subjects, they're just much more bare bones...functional, if not fun. There's SO much I'd love to do, too, that we just don't ever get to...slowly but surely I'm learning that it's just not possible to do it ALL. Trying to do it all is guaranteed to make me crazy, LOL.

 

My advice ~ Pick a subject or two as your primary focus, add in the other basics, and prioritize whatever's left over.

[Mommyfaithe]

It's my evil plan to pack as much of the cool stuff into their Christmas stockings as I can. :D The more there is in their stockings, the more space is freed in our school time, right?

 

Rosie

 

Please share what you intend to put in there? I am curious!

 

~~Faithe

[JenneinCA]

I suppose we focus an awful lot on music in our house. It isn't that we don't do other things, but we seem to spend far more time on music than any other homeschooler I have met.

 

My oldest plays recorder and practices that daily for an hour or so a day. My middlest plays piano and is going to start recorder next week. He already practices for 45 minutes to an hour so his time on music is going to go up again. And even my little guy plays piano and spends 30 to 45 minutes a day playing it.

 

In a stressed out get the minimum done day, we do math, music and english. For us, history, science and art are done much more irregularly. We try for twice a week on history and science and once a week on art, but it doesn't always happen and I don't worry about it much.

[Georgiana Daniels]

Right now we are focusing on reading and math basics. Once they are proficient readers, I can see our focus being History, Math, Grammar....and Science, and Literature, and....and....

 

As you can see, I'm having the same problem:D

 

I like the idea of a different focus each year, until they are old enough to see where they'd like to spend more of their time.

[hsbaby]

I think I put a lot of emphasis on language. Somehow I manage to bring it into every subject:) It was the subject I really excelled in at school so I feel most comfortable teaching it. I'm REALLY bad about math. I am really trying to turn more of our focus to math...but I just HATE it. I hated it in school and it is torture for me to teach.

[MissKNG]

Though our #1 reason to home school is so the Bible can be the center of our dd's education, I found my big girl loves and excels in math. So math (second to Jesus!) is our home school focus right now.

[Ester Maria]

Definitely not History for us. :D We do it regularly, and chronologically, but I feel like it's one of the subjects on the lower end of the priority list right now. Right now what we're doing with History is trying to get the basics and the context done, but it's far from what would be my ideal for History. However, you can't emphasize everything and have to make some kind of priority list.

 

I guess that for us priorities would be centered in two areas: one would be languages and Literature, which we really study a lot and more thoroughly than other areas, and the other one would be sciences, especially for my younger one with an extra interest in it.

[Narrow Gate Academy]

So how do you decide where to place your main focus, especially when you want to eat it all up and teach your kids to do the same?

 

For K-3, I focus on the basics. Generally reading gets more emphasis in K and 1. Then the emphasis changes to math and writing once the reading is going well.

 

Do you struggle with balance?

 

To achieve a balance, I make a list of goals for each student each year. I use the goals to pick curriculum. I also set a maximum limit for how long I want each child to do school work. (Generally grade plus 1 to give me an idea of hours.) This forces me to evaluate how much time each subject requires, forces me to prioritize between subjects, and limits the number of subjects so I don't try to do so much that we all burn out.

 

HTH

[Rosie_0801]

Please share what you intend to put in there? I am curious!

 

~~Faithe

 

Oh, you know. Anything and everything. There's so many funky art kits, science kits, craft kits, books, puzzles, games etc around that we couldn't fit all of it into our school budget. It's nice, though, that I have a Christmas shopping budget too! You know how there's stuff that looks too delightful to pass up, but doesn't really fit in your school plans. Stash them and the required equipment in their Christmas stockings, and they'll play with that during their holidays without you having to organise it. My sister and I used to spend hours pouring over a detailed map of Europe that Mum gave me. Perhaps I was a weird kid, but I'd have been delighted to receive more maps for Christmas.

 

Rosie

[Heather in VA]

We focus on skills. Latin, Math and writing (via Classical Writing) are our primary focus. We do history and science. We do a lot of it actually, but we do it less intensely. We read books, discuss, do narrations, make a timeline. But I could never do something that makes history the center of our homeschool. I admire those who do but when we do that we spend too much time on history and not enough on the skills. It shifts some for my high schooler because of the need for credit-worthy studies and the shift from learning skills to applying the skills. But even then my focus is on writing and processing information, logic, rhetoric etc over a huge list of books to get through or a bunch of hands-on activities.

 

Heather

[robsiew]

That's an interesting question and I've enjoyed reading the responses. It's neat to see all the different passions out there...

 

I would have to say, since my kids are young, most of our time is spent on reading, writing and math. We love history told from a Biblical perspective, so we're probably pretty history/Bible centered here. The children are really enjoying reading literature that goes along with or is from the history period we're studying. However, we do just as much science (and we love that too) so I don't know that we are overly one thing or another. Maybe we just have a good balance right now... I LOVE history, so I'm guessing over time that will emerge as a driving force in the children's education.

[FairProspects]

I would have immediately said history (former American History teacher here) but after touring schools this week I realized for the first time that we are really math-focused!