How Long Do PS really spend learning and is HS really more rigorous?

[Soror]

I am using BCP lesson plans for our Science and Lit, we are doing First Grade this coming year. It seems I have heard from many that First Grade should be about an hour or so, maybe 2 hrs. Looking at the BCP plans I don't think there would be any way to do all they have planned and only spend that long and that is not even including skill area. Even accounting for the fact that doing it individually would cut out time.

 

Looking at what they have planned it all looks like good , educational and fun things I think my son would enjoy doing. It falls in-line with our goals. It is the reading of fair tales and fables. Science is discussing real concepts with activities to reinforce what is learned and some things that just seem like good fun. There is no dumbing down and some would be busy work but the biggest chunk seems to be reading of real living books about the different subjects. History appears the same to me, yet covers some of American History concurrently.

 

A big part of the reason I am hs'ing is to give him a better and more enjoyable education but I think looking at these plans it would certainly be a blast for him and I wonder how much I am humoring myself here to think I can do it better trying to reinvent the wheel.

 

Of course there are other reasons I am hs'ing but which I still have no answer. However, I am seeing that traditionally schooling doesn't have to be traditional and I am still curious as to the timelines for hs'ers. It seems to me that they could handle a lot more than we give them credit for sometimes.

[Chris in VA]

I personally don't think an hour is enough for first grade. Just putting that out there.

 

But I do think that the issue isn't really "can they handle more," it's just that a lot of what is done in a typical classroom is management related--it takes more time to handle a large group than it does to teach one at home. Homeschooling is terribly efficient! So, often homeschoolers are doing just as much as ps but in a much shorter time. It would be overload to do 6 hours, because the time is not used in the same way.

 

Does that make sense?

 

Another point--I see all of life as learning opportunities--so homeschooling affords the opportunity to do academic work AND have lots of time for "natural learning." Sometimes, schools use part of the day to teach what comes naturally at home. We as homeschoolers don't really count that as school time, so it doesn't factor into the hour or two that we say we do school.

[TheCoffeeChick]

I personally don't think an hour is enough for first grade. Just putting that out there.

 

:iagree: I've never been able to do our schooling in only an hour. Even during preschool years it took more than an hour. (And that was just all fun stuff! :tongue_smilie:)

[....]

I don't follow that hour per grade guideline and never did. We usually start school around 9 or 10 and finish around 2 (or even later when my kids take enrichment classes). I can be cooking dinner and have the one of my kids working on something at the counter with me. The 1st grader that I have now can't really do much sit-down work, so we do a lot of unschooling activities. But, yeah, we pretty much school most of the day.

 

Also, we school year-round. We take small breaks during the school year, but we are one continuous operation. :D

 

As far as comparing ps to hs...it depends on whether the parent is working with the kids and consistency. I was wondering how my kids would compare to the ps kids here (ya' know the nagging worry that your kid is behind). My 9 yro was helping the neighbor's daughter with math homework one day and the neighbor told me that they thought my daughter was roughly a year ahead of the ps in math. That's just anecdotal, tho. I don't know. I know all 3 of my kids are at least "on" grade level.

 

You asked how long ps spend on learning...my oldest went to 1st grade at a ps and there seemed to be lots of interruptions. Also, lots of shuttling them around inside the building...fundraisers...special assemblies...testing...snack, lunch, recess... Her teacher was a really nice lady, tho. :)

[brehon]

I have no idea what BCP is; so, I can't comment on the program. My 1st graders generally spend around 2-3 total hours on their work. This includes the skill areas (math, phonics/reading, penmanship/content) and content areas (everything else). I piece together my sources and don't use a full program.

 

I agree with Chris that it's probably more a time management and herding the cats type issue with a classroom and not necessarily a PSer's can't do the work issue.

 

As long as your ds is having fun and doesn't feel overloaded then go for it. Just know that you don't have to finish everything every day. As in other things, just gauge your child's interest level and ability to focus -- which at this age is variable. I heartily agree with Chris that home educated 1st graders shouldn't do 5-6 hours of seat work every day. Have fun and enjoy this age!

 

ETA: We homeschool year round taking breaks when we want/need. We are also in a state which requires absolutely no reporting ever for anything. So, we don't worry about comparing ourselves to PS.

Edited July 8, 2011 by brehon
additional thought

[Carrie12345]

Another point--I see all of life as learning opportunities--so homeschooling affords the opportunity to do academic work AND have lots of time for "natural learning." Sometimes, schools use part of the day to teach what comes naturally at home. We as homeschoolers don't really count that as school time, so it doesn't factor into the hour or two that we say we do school.

 

:iagree:

 

My daughter had to do standardized testing this past year (3rd grade). She wasn't required to take the science and social studies sections, but I had her do it since it was there. We haven't spent a single day doing either of those subjects the way schools teach them. She's "studied" ancient and medieval history, and science has been about real books and getting dirty. Yet she scored insanely high on the science and ss portions without ever having those topics/concepts specifically taught to her.

 

(Disclaimer: I don't "believe in" standardized testing, but I do think the above says *something.)

 

It's entirely possible to homeschool poorly and mess your kids up worse than public schools. It's also entirely possible to produce exceptionally home-educated kids. Time doesn't have all that much to do with it. I can make a delicious, nutritious meal in 30 minutes, or I can spend hours making an unhealthy meal... and then burn it!

[Dinsfamily]

It took us between 2-3 hours for 1st grade plus another hour for read alouds. I will have to limit my K'er to an hour of sit-down work because he has a shorter attention span for that but that doesn't include reading aloud, learning games, or hands-on activities like science experiments.

 

I try hard not to compare my hs to ps. It's just so different.

[twoforjoy]

I'm one of those people who did manage to do first grade work in an hour or an hour and a half. I don't count, in that, the time DS spends doing educational play--doing experiments, writing/reading for fun, art and music for fun, etc.--or the time we spend reading together at night. That's for sit-down work.

 

I don't think more time = more rigorous or more challenging. Part of the problem with a traditional classroom setting, IMO, is that for more advanced kids, they are stuck spending long periods of time filling in worksheets that are easy for them. I know this was my DS's experience in kindy. He would be doing worksheet after worksheet on topics that he already fully understood, because many students in the class hadn't grasped those concepts and needed the extra practice. He was putting in lots of hours, but it wasn't challenging for him.

 

A lot of it, I think, depends on what you want your child to get out of their education. For me, personally, I feel like there is certainly a value in learning to sit down and work hard for long periods of time, but that early elementary school is not the time for that. At the age my DS is, my interest is in making sure he has a solid foundations in the basics--language arts and math--and then giving him space to play, explore topics that interest him, and spend time with his family and friends. When he's older (later elementary school and up), we'll shift to spending more of our day on formal academics.

 

In my case, though, I've got a kid who is really, really solid academically but a real challenge behaviorally. So much of my focus is on his behavior and attitude. To me, putting that time in now--learning how to play well with others, to be respectful to family and friends, to contribute to the household by doing chores, to have a good attitude--is really important, especially since he's already working well above grade level. So, really, I see my main focus until about fourth grade or so being on laying foundations for later academics through a couple of hours of formal schooling a day and then really working hard to build family relationships and positive peer relationships and nurturing good attitudes, so that when it is time to buckle down and spend more time on formal academics, we're not constantly distracted by behavioral issues. We'll see how that goes, I guess.

Edited July 8, 2011 by twoforjoy

[stripe]

It also depends how you calculate time spent. Some kids spend their spare time reading science books, watching PBS nature shows, and exploring stuff in the backyard, in addition to or instead of classroom science. I suspect such kids will know more about science. I also think some parents don't include x hours a day of read alouds and any individual reading in the 'one hour a day' of school business. I don't take forever to do things, but I sure take more than 15 min a day for math.

 

I think it's entirely possible that some hsers do very little, compared to ps kids, but it's couched in 'oh, we're so much more efficient.' I sure don't always feel efficient!

[Parrothead]

Back in the day when dd was in 1st, we did school in an hour. But what I was counting as school was the skills - math, reading, handwriting practice. Everything else simply fun stuff. Science was done outside. History was really social studies and was done while we were running errands and literature was taken care of at bedtime.

 

We homeschool for academic reasons.

 

Can't comment or compare because I don't know what BCP is.

[angela in ohio]

When I count "school time" for first graders, that doesn't include science or history, since I don't do those in a formal way. I just count "sit down and write this" time. :001_smile: So I could spend hours a day doing science and reading literature with them; it just wouldn't be in a sit-down, formal way. So sometimes we used a curriculum (I don't know the one you describe, but probably similar) for a while and sometimes we went on field trips a lot and sometiems we just read piles of books, depending on what we were interested in.

 

Whether homeschooling is more rigorous will depend on the family, just as whether a school is rigorous will depend on the school/class.

[Dobela]

When I taught 6th grade we estimated that 5 of the 7 hours in school were actually working on the academics. The rest of the time was lunch, recess, time required for housekeeping (taking attendance, listening to school announcements, gathering lunch money, checking homework, dealing with discipline, and so on). I also taught kindergarten. When homeschooling my son for K I was able to cover the same material I covered in the classroom in 1 day in about 2 hours. Why? I didn't have 20 kids I was constantly checking and including in lessons. I also didn't have as many interruptions. I could move as fast or slow as he needed.

[KarenC]

When someone says they take an hour to do first grade, that may mean an hour of seatwork. The "extra" stuff may not be counted in that hour.

 

Karen

[Soror]

BCP- Is Baltimore Curriculum Project- Based on the Core Knowledge books by E.D. Hirsch- ie What Your X Grader Needs to Know. They have free draft lesson plans on their site.

[Soror]

I do want to emulate the good though. I don't know reading these plans is just a revelation to me that it can be really good and not be specific hs things. It can be a fun and interesting literary approach. I also don't have to be spontaneous or be complete interest-driven for the kids to find it interesting.

[Parrothead]

BCP- Is Baltimore Curriculum Project- Based on the Core Knowledge books by E.D. Hirsch- ie What Your X Grader Needs to Know. They have free draft lesson plans on their site.

Oh, okay. I actually did a lot of that for 1st grade since I hadn't heard of TWTM at that point. I made the switch in 2nd grade.

[dangermom]

It can be more rigorous, or not. One thing I've been thinking about lately is that homeschooling can be more developmentally appropriate (or not) for a particular child, or just for the age--which ends up both easier and more effective.

 

I've been thinking about SWB's philosophy on teaching writing--how in the early grades you break up the tasks and really, until well into the logic stage, the child does lots of short assignments to build skills--no book reports or research reports like PSs often require. I've seen people boast that their local PS requires a long "research paper" in 3rd grade!

 

PS seems to have a philosophy that if children aren't learning writing well, they should do more of it earlier, whereas SWB says to work on basic skills for a long time until the child is ready to integrate them together. IMO the SWB approach is more age-appropriate, gentler, and more effective in the long term.

[Ellie]

I don't think I've ever used the word "rigorous" in my head when pondering the reasons I think that learning at home is better learning in school.

 

I suppose if I had homeschooled for purely academic reasons I might have considered hours sitting in front of textbooks/lectures/writing reports/churning out papers and measured homeschooling against classroom but I didn't.

 

For me, the important thing was that my children were learning all.the.time. Sometimes what they were learning looked Just Like School; sometimes what they were learning did not. But it was all learning, it was all valuable, it was all precious.

 

FTR, both of my children were taking classes at the local community college when they were 14yo; in fact, they did c.c. instead of high school. But for many years when they were young, I only planned Official School Stuff two days a week (year round, but still...). The other days were library and field trip. Dds participated in 4-H, Camp Fire, Scottish Highland dance, ballet, marching band, and more.

 

So I'm not concerned with exactly how much time homeschooled children might spend sitting at desks with their little noses in workbooks and doing copywork and memorizing and whatnot. I have no doubt that the worst day of homeschooling is better than the best day in school, regardless of how much actual time they spend doing things that Look Like School. I don't even care if their homeschool activities are "rigorous." There's much more to learning than "rigorous.":001_smile:

[catz]

My first grader did maybe an hour a day and tested as a late 3rd/early 4th grader at the end of the year across the boards. And she's young for grade (many kids her age here would be held back). So an hour CAN be enough IMHO. It depends on your own child and what else you're doing outside the house. We did a bunch out of the house in terms of field trips and enrichment.

 

My son went to kindergarten and 1st grade and I volunteered in class room as much as possible. SO much time was put into classroom management and "herding cats". And my son was already ahead so he learned very little. Especially in first grade after he had made huge leaps in reading.

 

Honestly, my 4th grader last year put in maybe 3 hours a day and tests WAY ahead of grade level. He tested as an 11th grader in math and not lower than 8th in anything. For the record, the test we use is open ended K-12. It is not a grade level test. My kids also tend to read quite a bit on their own. When my kids work though it is very targeted to exactly where their at and I would call it intense. We do not do any busy work, filling in workbooks, etc. So I think it's more how you spend your time than how much time you spend.

[veggiegal]

As others have said, re: rigor, it depends on the school and the homeschool; and for 1st grade in an hour, depends what you count at "homeschooling time". In general I try not to compare public school to homeschool, except for the following, which is my standard reply to parents worried about not being able to give their homeschooled child the educational attention they may need. Have you ever stopped to consider how much one-one-one time is available to a student in public school? Let's assume a class size of 30 kids, and school day with 300 minutes of class time (5 hours--roughly 9:00-3:00 with an hour off for lunch). That works out to 10 minutes per day of one-on-one time a teacher can give each student--and that's assuming no time spent in group teaching, classroom management, assemblies, listening to announcements, fire drills, and the like! With a smaller class size, like 20 that some have in early elementary, you're up to a 15 minutes / day / pupil, assuming no teacher time spent doing anything else. Even the busiest of us homeschooling parents can find more than 10-15 minutes per day to spend one-on-one with our kids on their learning, and in that way, I think homeschooling can be more rigorous, as well as more tailored and hence efficient, to our individual child's needs. That said, it's not the right option for every family, and I am very grateful where I live to have a very broad range of educational choices.

[mama2cntrykids]

I'm one of those people who did manage to do first grade work in an hour or an hour and a half. I don't count, in that, the time DS spends doing educational play--doing experiments, writing/reading for fun, art and music for fun, etc.--or the time we spend reading together at night. That's for sit-down work.

 

I don't think more time = more rigorous or more challenging. Part of the problem with a traditional classroom setting, IMO, is that for more advanced kids, they are stuck spending long periods of time filling in worksheets that are easy for them. I know this was my DS's experience in kindy. He would be doing worksheet after worksheet on topics that he already fully understood, because many students in the class hadn't grasped those concepts and needed the extra practice. He was putting in lots of hours, but it wasn't challenging for him.

 

A lot of it, I think, depends on what you want your child to get out of their education. For me, personally, I feel like there is certainly a value in learning to sit down and work hard for long periods of time, but that early elementary school is not the time for that. At the age my DS is, my interest is in making sure he has a solid foundations in the basics--language arts and math--and then giving him space to play, explore topics that interest him, and spend time with his family and friends. When he's older (later elementary school and up), we'll shift to spending more of our day on formal academics.

 

In my case, though, I've got a kid who is really, really solid academically but a real challenge behaviorally. So much of my focus is on his behavior and attitude. To me, putting that time in now--learning how to play well with others, to be respectful to family and friends, to contribute to the household by doing chores, to have a good attitude--is really important, especially since he's already working well above grade level. So, really, I see my main focus until about fourth grade or so being on laying foundations for later academics through a couple of hours of formal schooling a day and then really working hard to build family relationships and positive peer relationships and nurturing good attitudes, so that when it is time to buckle down and spend more time on formal academics, we're not constantly distracted by behavioral issues. We'll see how that goes, I guess.

:iagree:totally.

[silliness7]

I think maybe the dumbing down when it happens isn't found in the curriculum itself so much as the teacher's implementation of it and the expectations she puts on her students.

[justasque]

It seems I have heard from many that First Grade should be about an hour or so, maybe 2 hrs.

 

Well it really depends on what you count as "school". For example, most people don't count bedtime stories (which can take about an hour), or going to the library ('cause you'd be doing that anyway), or dance lessons, or piano lessons, or a trip to the zoo, or a visit to a museum on the weekend with dad, or getting together with hsed friends to put on a play about a Greek myth, or baking, or looking at insects from the back yard, or playing board games (which may have math or science or history or geography built-in), or preparing for an upcoming holiday, etc.

 

What most people count is time spent on math worksheets, handwriting, spelling, grammar (which many don't do until around 3rd), and any learn-to-read activities. All the rest just blends in with real life.

[sbgrace]

I tried to keep sit down content type subjects short--usually under 20 minutes at a time. I think I probably did those things (phonics, handwriting, composition, math for example) in an hour though I did it with two and never watched the clock.

 

I used BCP for our other subjects. They are wonderful lesson plans and we had a great year! I never considered those subjects (read alouds, science, history, art, etc.) the same as the content areas. In other words, history might take an hour on a given day. However, that's an hour with reading a story, doing a craft, acting out the history, then a narration for example. It's different and it doesn't seem like work at all to my kids.

 

I think you could do "school" well in first grade in an hour but I don't think you could do lots of extras in that time.

 

As far as a more rigorous education I suppose it depends on the public school with which you're comparing. My kids are getting a superior education in many areas--phonics rather than whole word, conceptual math, more history exposure, lots of time for reading and read alouds, etc. compared to the average first grade classroom here. They are not doing as much composition type writing. I *think* we're taking a more rigorous track but right now our sequence has us writing less than the public school kids. For all I know there is a wonderful first grade teacher who does a bang up job with x subject compared to me. I'm simply trying to give the best education I can give to my kids and, so far, I feel good about our progress and that's what matters to me.

 

In general though I don't think time spent means a thing. I was a teacher in the public schools for 10 years. You simply can't compare what you can accomplish in time spent in a classroom instructing 30 kids with equivalent time spent one on one. For that matter you can't compare time spent instructing in one family/sibling/parent-child dynamic to that of another. So comparing at all isn't helpful. For these early grades anyway I think it's more helpful to set your goals and measure your progress.

Edited July 8, 2011 by sbgrace

[Ellie]

Well it really depends on what you count as "school". For example, most people don't count bedtime stories (which can take about an hour), or going to the library ('cause you'd be doing that anyway), or dance lessons, or piano lessons, or a trip to the zoo, or a visit to a museum on the weekend with dad, or getting together with hsed friends to put on a play about a Greek myth, or baking, or looking at insects from the back yard, or playing board games (which may have math or science or history or geography built-in), or preparing for an upcoming holiday, etc.

 

What most people count is time spent on math worksheets, handwriting, spelling, grammar (which many don't do until around 3rd), and any learn-to-read activities. All the rest just blends in with real life.

Pauline, I love you. :001_wub:

[Momof3littles]

It also depends how you calculate time spent. Some kids spend their spare time reading science books, watching PBS nature shows, and exploring stuff in the backyard, in addition to or instead of classroom science. I suspect such kids will know more about science. I also think some parents don't include x hours a day of read alouds and any individual reading in the 'one hour a day' of school business. I don't take forever to do things, but I sure take more than 15 min a day for math.

 

I think it's entirely possible that some hsers do very little, compared to ps kids, but it's couched in 'oh, we're so much more efficient.' I sure don't always feel efficient!

:iagree:

 

My son was an early reader and was reading quality literature during his free time, sometimes for 2-3 hours a day. Is that "school" time? I don't count it as such. We keep resources like bird and tree guides, etc. available to our kids at all times. During their free time they pick up the bionoculars and observe a bird and then look it up in a bird guide. They work on their garden and make observations. I think it is easy to HS a first grader in an hour per day, but I think of that as more direct one-on-one parent involvement. My child spent hours and hours a day of his "free" time doing things that are educational.

[Momof3littles]

Well it really depends on what you count as "school". For example, most people don't count bedtime stories (which can take about an hour), or going to the library ('cause you'd be doing that anyway), or dance lessons, or piano lessons, or a trip to the zoo, or a visit to a museum on the weekend with dad, or getting together with hsed friends to put on a play about a Greek myth, or baking, or looking at insects from the back yard, or playing board games (which may have math or science or history or geography built-in), or preparing for an upcoming holiday, etc.

 

What most people count is time spent on math worksheets, handwriting, spelling, grammar (which many don't do until around 3rd), and any learn-to-read activities. All the rest just blends in with real life.

:iagree:

[Soror]

Aha, well part of it is I didn't realize that this was supposed to be just the basics. Well, we could do those in about 1.5 hrs. That of course depends, we sometimes spend an hour on math, actually it has just gotten shorter as of late.

 

But I cannot separate out the 'extras'. I mean we do somethings just for fun, obviously. For my brain and organization I like to know what we are covering, I like to have an end somewhat. I don't want to feel like I am always schooling or I'm always "on." It does get easier as things become more natural to me but it is a process. Like we do Math quizzes for fun, or play strategy games, or some Science subject comes up and we talk about it.

 

Mine is not an early reader either besides I like our read-aloud time. That is how we started our 'schooling' and to me the best part of the day, whether or not you count it, it still takes time from the day. But because he doesn't read independently all those History and Science things are together, which I don't think is bad, it just is at this point. I don't want to not do those things though just because he cannot read, his comprehension is more than there and he loves it. Obviously, we focus heavy on skills and those are non-negotiable, even if we cannot get to anything else, that gets done.

 

I think sbgrace is right and hit part of the nail on the head for me, it is superior for *my* kids in the skills area. I can teach him one-on-one and he would likely fall through the cracks in the system and really miss all the wonderful activities.

 

But I don't think time necessarily equals rigor. But it does take time to go through things. Time in ps doesn't necessarily mean worksheets either. Most of the lessons I am using don't really have worksheets. There are some lap books for the Science but that is the written part for the most part, most of it is reading real books and discussing them. I think sometimes it seems to be assumed that those things cannot be in PS and it certainly is the case for the BCP lessons.

[Soror]

excuse the rambling, seemingly non-related thoughts.

 

Just thinking this out. Part of this is me figuring out my style. I am just shocked to see all these great lit units in PS plans. I am thrilled to have Science that is rigorous, interesting, planned out for me, and even better free. I love it, it is like BFSU without the work.

[Soror]

The art lessons as well I have noticed correspond with the History. There is study of opera and ballet, Masterpieces, classical and folk music. Wonderful classic poetry, fables, fairy tales. And it, to me, does mesh with Classical, as I see Classical as the how to- these lesson don't address writing or Grammar, we are using SWB resources. We are using SOTW for history but I am contemplating add in BCP American History alongside it. We are also doing Logic and such as well. I am just really loving how it is all coming together and I think they complement each other well. I also look at the plans and think that they would provide a great foundation, just where they are with the addition of good LA and Math.

[angela in ohio]

But I don't think time necessarily equals rigor. But it does take time to go through things.

 

Time does not necessarily indicate rigor, but it's very hard to have rigor without at least a decent amount of time. :001_smile: I have seen homeschool moms fill 7 or 8 hours a day with busy work and fluff, so long hours are no guarantee.

 

You'll see that many homeschoolers eschew anything that hints at public school, which is a shame. There are good things that happen in school (as you are seeing in those lesson plans): teachers teaching and students doing interesting activities. A lot of people just subtract anything that looks like school and call it homeschooling. You end up with children sitting in front of text/workbooks alone all day. That's trhowing the baby out with the bathwater. If you can find a balance of utilizing instructional methods without sliding over into busywork, you will do well. :001_smile:

[4wildberrys]

 

It's entirely possible to homeschool poorly and mess your kids up worse than public schools. It's also entirely possible to produce exceptionally home-educated kids. Time doesn't have all that much to do with it. I can make a delicious, nutritious meal in 30 minutes, or I can spend hours making an unhealthy meal... and then burn it!

 

Really?! I wonder how many homeschool kids graduate reading at a 4th grade level, addicted to drugs/alcohol and promiscuity and completely apathetic about anything but Bling and Hooking Up? :tongue_smilie: Okay---just had to put my sassy sarcasm out there because there is so much more to school and homeschooling than simply academics or hours spent working in a day. In fact, it seems that character formation takes a most definite back seat to academic performance these days and it shows. I'll take the risk of 'messing' up my kids academically with our homeschooling by my weakness for switching curriculums any day over the other many ways the public schools can 'mess up' my kids ;)

[Burger]

Really?! I wonder how many homeschool kids graduate reading at a 4th grade level, addicted to drugs/alcohol and promiscuity and completely apathetic about anything but Bling and Hooking Up? :tongue_smilie: Okay---just had to put my sassy sarcasm out there because there is so much more to school and homeschooling than simply academics or hours spent working in a day. In fact, it seems that character formation takes a most definite back seat to academic performance these days and it shows. I'll take the risk of 'messing' up my kids academically with our homeschooling by my weakness for switching curriculums any day over the other many ways the public schools can 'mess up' my kids ;)

 

 

That's not how I read her post AT ALL. I think she was spot on. There are good schools and bad schools, and yes, there are good homeschools and bad homeschools. And you know what? Even if you do everything "right" with your character formation homeschool, your children are still individuals with their own free will. I wouldn't be so cocky as to believe homeschooling will prevent all the things you listed.

[Dobela]

Really?! I wonder how many homeschool kids graduate reading at a 4th grade level, addicted to drugs/alcohol and promiscuity and completely apathetic about anything but Bling and Hooking Up? :tongue_smilie: Okay---just had to put my sassy sarcasm out there because there is so much more to school and homeschooling than simply academics or hours spent working in a day. In fact, it seems that character formation takes a most definite back seat to academic performance these days and it shows. I'll take the risk of 'messing' up my kids academically with our homeschooling by my weakness for switching curriculums any day over the other many ways the public schools can 'mess up' my kids ;)

I am a former public school teacher. One reason why many homeschoolers are not liked by the PS is because there ARE families out there that are claiming to homeschool but really are not. I had one girl assigned to my class in the 5th grade that had been 'homeschooled' from the beginning. She could not do anything on a first grade level. Her mom was a prostitute and just didn't want to adhear to a ps daily schedule. The kids watched TV all day.

 

Then there was the family that told their son he was being homeschooled for 2 years while they moved around on drug and drunk binges. He ended up being on e of my special ed students because he was so very far behind, not because he had any learning difficulties.

 

My aunt teaches in ps as well and can tell you more stories of families saying they are homeschooling but everyone knows it is just an excuse to be lazy.

 

Granted, most homeschoolers are fantastic and doing a fabulous job. NOt all are though and I think we need to remember that.

[4wildberrys]

That's not how I read her post AT ALL. I think she was spot on. There are good schools and bad schools, and yes, there are good homeschools and bad homeschools. And you know what? Even if you do everything "right" with your character formation homeschool, your children are still individuals with their own free will. I wouldn't be so cocky as to believe homeschooling will prevent all the things you listed.

 

 

Exactly why I said I was being sarcastic. Of course we, as homeschoolers, have NO guarantees of our kids never getting into trouble socially or academically. But I would surmise that the amount of homeschooled kids who fail academically and get into social problems are far lower when compared to the general population. I have certainly seen quite a LOT of kids here who were homeschooled until high school, went to the local public high school and went nuts----failing in classes, getting involved in the high rate of drug/alcohol problems endemic in our town. The parent who keeps their kids home because they are prostitutes or just want to abuse them by not teaching them and then call it 'homeschooling' I am pretty sure is an extremely, extremely low number.

[Night Elf]

My children have never fallen into the typical school hour count ranges. Everytime I have read a thread about how long kids should be doing schoolwork each day, I usually leave the thread wondering if I have been shortchanging them in some way. They have always been, and still are, fast efficient workers. This would usually lead into a thread about whether or not to make a student work on more materials because they were finishing too quickly. I saw that as a quantity v. quality argument. I decided that if my child could do his math lesson in 10 minutes, he was doing great. Someone else suggested that 10 mins. is not enough, and I should buy a second math program to stretch out his daily work. That just really boggles my brain!

 

A couple of more thoughts:

 

1. In the education classes I've taken at college, I was specifically taught that my daily lesson plans should not be more than 10 - 15 mins. long because I would use the rest of the time period for classroom management. There would be children who needed additional help to understand the new material, but I would also have to provide something to keep the other kids occupied so they wouldn't disrupt the classroom while I was working with the children who needed help. My youngest dd had a couple of teachers that I recognized this teaching method. All the children were required to keep library books in their school desks. When they finished a lesson, they were to sit quietly and read until the next lesson began. If someone didn't want to read, they did worksheets that reinforced basic math and grammar skills. She was in elementary school a little while each year from 2nd through 5th grade.

 

2. My children are taking high school courses now. For the very first time, they are encountering lessons that take an hour, sometimes more. It seems to be fairly balanced though. Ds14 is in Algebra 2. He has had some days where we have sat and worked for 1.5 hours, and other days where we are done in 20 mins.

 

My personal bottom line was that my children were doing the work I expected them to do regardless of how much time it took them. If their performance is measured by standardized tests, they have always gotten top scores with one exception. When ds14 took his 9th grade standardized test, his comprehension score was 62%. He reads very slowly and didn't make it through the whole section of the test. Out of 50 questions, he answered 39 and got all 39 correct. My heart hurts for kids with LDs, and I can see why IEPs can be good. I wish I had been able to give my son more time on that section. He didn't score less than a 98% in any other subject because he was able to complete every section.

[SOCKSINFOX]

We did homeschool for an hour in 1st grade, but we just did math, reading, grammar, spelling, and handwriting during that time, and we didn't do grammar and spelling on the same day, we alternated those. For us it worked out great, we started doign the other subjects but it was just too much, so we just worked in history and science throughout the day as we could.

 

You asked how much time PS spend learning, the general rule is that less than half of the time a child is in school is actually spent on learning, so 3 hrs or less in most areas. Also remember though, that when you work one on one with them they learn much faster and the learning time is much more productive. For us it was a matter of looking at what was going on with our son, who is very curious and learns very quickly but also tires very quickly, and we decided to focus on the things I felt were the most important for him at this stage of the game.

 

We homeschool year round, and have added science and history back in and he is loving that, and soaking it up, now that he is ready to have that much structure, but even then we spend only about 2 hrs a day, and I don't do them all at once, we do one hour in the morning and one in the afternoon.

 

To me, play is more important for my 6 year old than structured time, I think it all comes down to deciding on priorities for your family.

[Soror]

Time does not necessarily indicate rigor, but it's very hard to have rigor without at least a decent amount of time. :001_smile: I have seen homeschool moms fill 7 or 8 hours a day with busy work and fluff, so long hours are no guarantee.

 

You'll see that many homeschoolers eschew anything that hints at public school, which is a shame. There are good things that happen in school (as you are seeing in those lesson plans): teachers teaching and students doing interesting activities. A lot of people just subtract anything that looks like school and call it homeschooling. You end up with children sitting in front of text/workbooks alone all day. That's trhowing the baby out with the bathwater. If you can find a balance of utilizing instructional methods without sliding over into busywork, you will do well. :001_smile:

I guess that is what I am figuring out. I had this natural bias, which is pretty big in the hs'ing community, that anything from ps has to be bad. It is a shame because there is good info out there, ps that do teach as I want to teach. Ps can be so much more than workbooks. We are using a workbook for Geography and some Prufrock Press for Logic. Most of my lists are for Literature.

[Soror]

We did homeschool for an hour in 1st grade, but we just did math, reading, grammar, spelling, and handwriting during that time, and we didn't do grammar and spelling on the same day, we alternated those. For us it worked out great, we started doign the other subjects but it was just too much, so we just worked in history and science throughout the day as we could.

 

You asked how much time PS spend learning, the general rule is that less than half of the time a child is in school is actually spent on learning, so 3 hrs or less in most areas. Also remember though, that when you work one on one with them they learn much faster and the learning time is much more productive. For us it was a matter of looking at what was going on with our son, who is very curious and learns very quickly but also tires very quickly, and we decided to focus on the things I felt were the most important for him at this stage of the game.

 

We homeschool year round, and have added science and history back in and he is loving that, and soaking it up, now that he is ready to have that much structure, but even then we spend only about 2 hrs a day, and I don't do them all at once, we do one hour in the morning and one in the afternoon.

 

To me, play is more important for my 6 year old than structured time, I think it all comes down to deciding on priorities for your family.

 

We are doing year round here as well and have had times where we have just done the 3 r's as a break for myself, not as a break for them. Even at 3 or 4 hrs a day that still leaves plenty of unstructured time. Actually, it seems that they do the best with more structured time. Of course that doesn't mean all times sitting at a table or desk.

 

Heck, we don't even have to do Math at the table or reading, we can do that in the recliner or sitting on the floor or the porch swing. It means I have a general idea about what we are doing, even if it is reading a story, or cooking together or doing a craft. They just love those things, I just have to plan it out for myself. I notice that when we just have hrs upon hrs with nothing specific plan they don't enjoy that time near as much. As it is, the kids generally have 14 hrs wake time, meals might be 1.5 hrs total, school 3 or so, that leaves a ton of time.

 

I think when people hear hours of school it can be sometimes assumed that it is this thing were small kids are just made to be still, when that is so far from the truth. I don't see as how there has to be a choice or priority as there is plenty of time for both. It falls more in line with my goals though. I want to do those fun educational things for me and winging it doesn't necessarily work the best but planning it out doesn't mean it isn't fun and can be educational to boot.

Edited July 8, 2011 by soror

[chiguirre]

BCP plans are great! However, I don't think they reflect your typical neighborhood ps. They don't reflect mine even though the local school is rated exemplary. If you can find a school like that, I'd give it a try. If not, you can follow the plans at home or gradually develop your own style. I started out much more plan driven and as my kids have gotten older, we've become less structured in terms of science, history, music and art, while continuing being structured for math and LA. It turned out that my kids learn a lot from listening to books on tape in the car, watching educational tv, reading for fun and asking me random questions. Of all of those methods, mom quiz is probably the #1 way they learn science, geography and history. I don't count any of these things as hs time, but they've turned out to be the most important elements of introducing my kids to all the fascinating things there are to learn.

[Soror]

Ds loves the 'mom' quiz! It is a suppertime favorite- he likes to quiz dh and I as well, the other day he decided to make up word problems, it was cracking me up.

[Tarreymere]

I have heard that some home educating people don't 'count' the time they spend doing read-alouds as school time or else they don't 'count' time spent doing art or music or other activities or just plain old discussion time. Probably if all of this time was 'counted' it would even out better.

[Jan in SC]

Well it really depends on what you count as "school". For example, most people don't count bedtime stories (which can take about an hour), or going to the library ('cause you'd be doing that anyway), or dance lessons, or piano lessons, or a trip to the zoo, or a visit to a museum on the weekend with dad, or getting together with hsed friends to put on a play about a Greek myth, or baking, or looking at insects from the back yard, or playing board games (which may have math or science or history or geography built-in), or preparing for an upcoming holiday, etc.

 

What most people count is time spent on math worksheets, handwriting, spelling, grammar (which many don't do until around 3rd), and any learn-to-read activities. All the rest just blends in with real life.

 

It gets a little weird to compare what public school children and their families do. A large classroom will have very different obstacles than you will have with one child.

 

My children went to ps for two years. It was very organized and flowed quite well. There was very little down time, and as a previous poster mentioned, handwashing/bathroom time was filled with read alouds.

 

As for the above quote, all the ps parents we know, which are many, do these activities on a regular basis. They don't count it as school, but as family/parent time.

[6packofun]

Granted, most homeschoolers are fantastic and doing a fabulous job. NOt all are though and I think we need to remember that.

 

Then why would public school teachers, who don't have any rights to other people's children but sometimes seem to think they do, have an issue with homeschooling in general?

 

I think most of us get sick and tired of being lumped together with the abusive prostitute moms who aren't real homeschoolers to begin with. Same goes for the people who just don't do anything. They're not homeschoolers, so please don't call them that (This applies to everyone, not singling anyone out).

[Enough]

:iagree:

 

My son was an early reader and was reading quality literature during his free time, sometimes for 2-3 hours a day. Is that "school" time? I don't count it as such. We keep resources like bird and tree guides, etc. available to our kids at all times. During their free time they pick up the bionoculars and observe a bird and then look it up in a bird guide. They work on their garden and make observations. I think it is easy to HS a first grader in an hour per day, but I think of that as more direct one-on-one parent involvement. My child spent hours and hours a day of his "free" time doing things that are educational.

 

Ditto this and many of the similar posts above it (twoforjoy's post especially spoke to me). Our homeschool (aka LIFE) looks very much like this.

 

I keep "seatwork" to a minimum (~2 hours for my 2nd grader) but my kid is learning.all.the.time (to quote Ellie) and also doing some of the most important "work" of childhood- playing! :)

[catz]

Ditto this and many of the similar posts above it (twoforjoy's post especially spoke to me). Our homeschool (aka LIFE) looks very much like this.

 

I keep "seatwork" to a minimum (~2 hours for my 2nd grader) but my kid is learning.all.the.time (to quote Ellie) and also doing some of the most important "work" of childhood- playing! :)

 

This is how we count school time too. We call it table work. And that we keep well under control. My kid's recreational TV and computer time is limited and they are reading, exploring constantly. This summer they've collaborated with neighbor kids to build a kid's neighborhood sized obstacle course. I find value in this too (physics, team work, gym, mapping, etc.). Plenty of great learning can take place in unorthodox ways.