Parents who are schooling 4 or more --

[Colleen in SEVA]

ON AVERAGE (of course every week is a little bit different), how many hours per day do YOU spend schooling 4 or more kids? I don't mean your kids, but how much OF YOUR TIME is spent on schoolwork-related activities?

 

Include:

weekly/daily planning time (but not long term or summer planning)

instruction time

read alouds

checking/correcting

listening to kids read out loud

 

Do not include:

games you would be playing with the kids anyways

baby/toddler time you would be spending anyways

cleaning/household stuff you would be doing anyways

[BakersDozen]

7 hours/day spent with everyone 4yo-12yo. This is direct instruction, listening to reading, correcting work, etc.

 

I also spend 2 hours meeting with my high schoolers checking work and another 2 hours on Geometry, however those times are total for the week.

 

Planning time...egads, I have no idea! I do most of my planning up front before the school year begins. I don't think I spend even 15 minutes/week planning once our year starts.

 

ETA: Forgot our read-aloud time which is another 20 minutes/day.

Edited September 30, 2012 by LuvnMySvn

[JudoMom]

This year, I'm teaching/directing/instructing/discussing about 7-8 hours a day. There is about an hours worth of work to grade a day (though I don't grade/check work daily). I spend another 3-4 hours on the weekend assigning work in HST+, printing out assignment sheets for the week, adjusting plans, and doing other miscellaneous school stuff. Oh, if all is going well, I spend about 30 minutes a day reading ahead of my older boys so I know what we're to discuss.

[Beth S]

It's a full-time job.

 

However, after graduating two of our five, the pressure has decreased. I'm more prepared. Once we get through Math, I can begin to relax each day.

 

Hang in there!:001_smile:

[speedmom4]

I feel like our days are really long right now. We start between 8-9 a.m. and many days I'm not done until 5. Most days I don't finish everything I need to do. This is my last year of homeschooling all four. I LOVE the days when we finish early!!!!!

 

HTH,

Elise in NC

[....]

Maybe 4-6 hours? Total for me. It stretches out all day, though. Also, we school year-round and on the weekends sometimes.

[missmoe]

All day! When I had five at home, we schooled from 8 until 4 and also two evenings a week. It is a full time job.

[Pink Fairy]

All freakin' day. And it's probably going to kill me.

[Sharon37127]

Well, I have a 6th, 3rd, 1st,& K. I break it down like this:

 

1. aprox 1 hour for K/1st. First thing in the morning. Other kids have tasks- my advanced math kid does independent online work with aleks.com, 6th grader walks on the treadmill for about 45 min (his choice- he gets to watch videos while on it).

 

*at some point, my math- struggler does 30 minutes on math on aleks.com (with help) while we are having break time.

 

2. then simultaneous independent Language Arts for 1 hour with mom running back and forth between 2 kids (while K/1st play).

 

3. Then 1 hour from group work- alternating history, science- reading about it everyday every day (outside research- this isn't literature), but another "content task" to go with it- notebook work or media/website or project/experiment.

 

So that looks like 4-5 hours of active time, but then interspersed through out the day, I am calling on different children to get a little more 1 on 1 time with them. Like if we are doing extracurriculars and some aren't participating. or nap time or while I'm prepping a meal.

 

*Reading: (not figured in above) they have independent assigned reading based on what we are studying in history or science- literature or biography. And DH does imaginative literature read- aloud (carryover from bed time stories) for big kids.

 

My goal when, everyone is 3rd grade and above, is to have 30 min- 1 hour indep time alone with each child PLUS 1 hour of group time (history and science) PLUS their independent assignments that they can do whenever (with me checking and helping). That should be about 5-6 hours. But then we would do group stuff every other day.

[Renee in NC]

Last year I was homeschooling 5, and I spent roughly 8 hours a day doing those things. Sometimes more.

[Renee in NC]

All freakin' day. And it's probably going to kill me.

 

:iagree: That is how I felt. I have to admit that the fact that I am no longer responsible for everything for 5 dc at 5 different levels anymore was a little bit of relief.

[Juniper]

7-8 hrs per day....and I am using a virtual academy. That said, I have found I am much calmer about the actual teaching of the children now that I am not also responsible for the full planning.

 

I still edit out or allow them to breeze through certain assignments, and I make then repeat others or pull extra practice from other resources. I found that I really burned out between the planning and the implementing. This has been a really nice break for me, while at the same time I am doing more actual teaching.

 

I have a 3rd, two 5ths, and a 6th.

Edited: I added an hour for planning. Someday's it is more someday's it is less, but every day I am doing some planning and entering of attendance for their subjects.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Juniper

[Oakblossoms]

I want to say 4 hours. And, I wish I could put in more. I think I should probably be getting another 2 hours in there with my older two. But, our present situation is making this difficult for me.

[swellmomma]

Include:

weekly/daily planning time (but not long term or summer planning) I spend about an hour every Sunday preparing materials for the week. I do planning for 9 weeks at a time during time off (like summer or xmas break so I won't include that)

 

instruction time for DD5 about 1.5 hours/day, DS9 around 2.5 hours/day + another 1 hour with him on his online class once a week, Big kids between 5-8 hours/day depending if they have an online class that day or not (I monitor their class and I am the one that makes sure their homework for it is done, so I include that in the time)

 

read alouds about an hour a day. We do a morning basket and do the read alouds at that time.

 

checking/correcting about 20-30 minutes at the end of each day IF I did not do it while they did their work

 

listening to kids read out loud I only do this with my 9 year old so only about 15 minutes a day

 

So for the 4 kids I actually do about 7-8 hours a day (including morning basket and marking) since some kids overlap etc.

 

We do not always finish before 3 pm, so when we get home from dance or cadets or kids church/youth group we sometimes do more, or on weekends. I am hoping once we actually hit our groove this year and get used to the new demands that this years extra currics is bringing that the time will become less as we will have a routine going.

Edited October 1, 2012 by swellmomma

[Excelsior! Academy]

4-5 hours daily. Really it doesn't feel like much. We start around 8:30 and break for lunch. Then we spend another couple of hours after lunch during naps. The children sometimes work on things later at night, but it doesn't always actively involve me. If you include that time it would add another hour or so.

 

I have a tenth grader, eighth, sixth, fourth, third, first, k, Pre-k, and toddler.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Excelsior! Academy

[Firestar Academy]

All freakin' day. And it's probably going to kill me.

 

:lol::001_huh:

[CalicoKat]

Daily it's 5-6 hours of my time for teaching.

 

My 8th grader does an additional 2 hours on homework finishing up.

[AmyontheFarm]

Full time job here and I try to make it easy on myself by using technology as much as possible. Timed math drills are done on computer and I check their scores once a week. Math assignments are marked daily. Spelling again on line, I check in on them progress twice a week. We also use S.O.S. for Language arts and for one of their science programs.

[Colleen in SEVA]

Thanks everyone, you are making me feel better. *sniff*

 

Today is our first day with a FULL load for all 5 kids (well... for the youngest 2 it's only a small, age-appropriate load, of course) as we spent 6 weeks gradually adding things in this year (we have more time commitments than ever before, so we slowly added things in to keep from burning out and/or blowing up LOL).

 

As I was looking at my schedule and plans last night, it just seemed like... a lot. Not TOO much, I feel like we finally have a good balance with our school work for the first time since... well... probably EVER. :)

 

I just needed a reality check, I think. YES schooling 5 kids takes a lot of hours. It just DOES. And I know that. That's why I consider myself a full time mom, right? :)

[Murphy101]

It's a full time job for me, which I think is a reasonable expectation for caring for and educating 10 kids.

 

Two are just on the cusp of being completely on their own academically. But we had to choose between paying for college classes or adding them to our car insurance, so I very literally spend from 7 or 9 am to 3 or 9pm three days a week just driving all over the city for the oldest 6s various activities.

 

Next year, I'm drastically cutting or changing their activities because I want more time sitting with the youngers schooling. And to have some energy at the end of the day that my olders can have some time to talk life and girls and movies with me. :)

 

The non high school kids are usually done by dinner, but I* am not. Most of my planning, grading and such is done in spurts between things during the day or when dh or grown kids can take over fort duty once in a while at night or weekend. But mostly? I stay up late and get up early.

 

Some years are just like that.

 

When it becomes too much, we take a reality check and make a plan to lessen the load the next year. It's an ebb and flow kind of thing, which makes it much easier to cope with when you're staring at doing this job with love and dedication for the next 10 years. Or in my case, knowing that 12 years in, I'm only approx 1/3 way through. :)

[I.Dup.]

About 20 minutes a day? My oldest is in 5th grade, my second is in 2nd grade, my third is in kindergarten. The others are not technically school age yet (still preschoolers/toddlers/infants). My 5th and 2nd grader know their assignments for the day, right now we are doing open and go for the 3 R's. The 20 minutes comes in when I need to help them through something. My kindergartener is not doing anything formal.

 

The beginning of this school year looked much more rigorous. lol

[twoxcell]

I spend about 5-6 hours per school day teaching and about 1 hour a day getting things ready and/or planning.

[SilverMoon]

All day. Well, I do spend some time with coffee and my computer to attempt waking up first. (*not* a morning person) I have four ranging from 2nd-8th grades this year, and a tag-a-long preschooler who insists on her own daily lessons.

 

My cleaning is generally done in spurts while a kid or three are doing independent work.

 

I try to do the vast majority of the lesson planning in the summer. Plans are made for each individual subject that's not open and go style, which makes them more open and go. That way it only takes moments to put the coming week together.

 

Grading happens on the fly as I have time for it.

[Brooketopia]

I second the thanks for the replies to this thread! I don’t know what’s in the water these days, but I have people online and IRL sneering at how much time I spend doing school each day!

 

I think, with homeschooling becoming so mainstream and people knowing homeschoolers more frequently, that the criticism of particular educational philosophies is becoming more common. Ten years ago, no one cared if you were homeschooling using the Classical method, the Charlotte Mason method, the Unschooling method, or Online method. They were worried about homeschooling in general. Now, homeschooling is so…almost “popularâ€â€”people who aren’t in the homeschooling demographic know more about the practice and feel qualified to remark on the nitty gritty details.

 

A mother of one of my kids’ friends was astounded when she heard we did school until 3pm. “All my homeschooling friends are done by noon!†was her reply. That stung so much.

 

I have four children: 2, 5, 6, and 9 years old. It is so much work. SO much work. There’s no way to have all the one-on-one with such young children if I’m not going from 8am to 3pm. Many days I try to corral them again for some stuff after dinner, but we’re not very consistent with the practice. I had to farm out science to my DH on Saturdays in order to get everything else done. It’s been a tough year, thinking I was doing something wrong because it takes so long to get through a day.

 

So, once again, thank you for your honest responses.

[I.Dup.]

I have four children: 2, 5, 6, and 9 years old. It is so much work. SO much work. There’s no way to have all the one-on-one with such young children if I’m not going from 8am to 3pm. Many days I try to corral them again for some stuff after dinner, but we’re not very consistent with the practice. I had to farm out science to my DH on Saturdays in order to get everything else done. It’s been a tough year, thinking I was doing something wrong because it takes so long to get through a day.

 

 

If you and the family are happy with how long it takes and feel it is a good use of time, I don't see why that wouldn't be perfectly fine.

 

However, I am baffled at how much time is reported to being spent overall in this thread. At children your kids' ages, that's 2 kindergarteners and a 4th grader? Or K, 1st, and 4th?

 

I just don't get it, personally. If you're stressed and the kids are stressed, I think you can *certainly* scale back. But if it's working great, more power to you.

[mycalling]

I school a 6th, 4th, two 2nd, and a K, plus have a ps freshman, a non-schooled pre-K, 2yo, and 1yo. We school for 4hrs with a 15-20min lunch, usually from 11am-3pm.

 

I am stressed during those hours, but if I spread it out the little ones have more time of fending for themselves. I hate having the older kids share in taking care of them because we have a big family. I'm going to have to figure something out though. I am barely giving enough one-on-one tutoring time, and I should be doing more.

[stm4him]

I am teaching from 7 am-dinner (minus an hour for lunch and break) and there are still sometimes we don't get EVERYTHING done. I have 4 that I am teaching ages 11, 8, 6, and 4 plus 3 yo, 1 yo, and 3 week old. From 7 am-10 am we are doing devotions, recitations, read aloud, and Bible study which I added in the morning because when I had it at night we often didn't do it because I was too tired after dinner. So now we are doing it really early and then working until dinner and then we can do whatever we want in the evenings. Of course my younger kids are usually doing things in the background or playing in another room when I am focused on the older kids and are done earlier. When I'm not teaching I'm often reading blogs or forums about homeschooling and/or researching curriculum, etc. (though I do a LOT less of that now that I have finally settled in on what works for us). I don't do a lot of prep work during the school year, though besides printing off pages from CC Connected or typing up plans or charts here and there as I tweak things. I grade on the day we do things so I don't have a pile of stuff. The only other outside work I do is filing their papers, which usually build up before I finally get to putting them away. We have one day a week that we go to co-op and on that day I am done at 12 (and I don't teach) but next year we'll be there until 3. But that is over by mid April and then that will become a regular school day. One day a week we do just a light amount of school work which is mostly independent so I can clean and run errands that day (which for us is Monday right now). We school year round but we take off when we want to or need to and we do different things for science and history from May-August and some subjects fall off the schedule.

 

HTH!

 

It is good to see I am not alone and it is good to share with my husband that lots of other moms of many are also schooling LONG days....

[No More Perfect]

I am thinking it is around 5-6 hours though I have not actually calculated. It honestly depends on whether or not the 4yo and 2yo are cooperating for the day. Some days we can be done by naptime (1pm) and others I am lucky if I can finish by 3pm. We try and start by 9am every morning and I push them to get it done before nap so this pregnant mama can get a breather while the little girls are resting.

[TKDmom]

:bigear:

 

I'm schooling 3, plus a toddler who is starting to need some structured work. I have this mindset that I should be able to be done by noon. Which never happens. Sigh. I'm afraid I'll keel over from exhaustion once I add in that 4th student.