Balancing schoolwork and outside activities

[napualani]

I'm curious to know how much time your children devote to daily studies vs extra classes and activities? My 10 yo daughter is *very* social, and she likes having several classes a week that allow her to be with other children. My son is in middle school, and yesterday she shadowed at his school. Her immediate response was that she absolutely loved it, misses school (We have been homeschooling for about a year now), and especially misses being with other children all day. Upon deeper investigation, she misses being with other children all day more than she enjoys the daily routine of school.

 

I love classical education but I find it takes so much time. I'm trying to help her find a good balance of work and extra activities. If I add one or two more activities, then we need to figure out where schoolwork fits in.

 

I'd love to hear what others have found works well for their social child.

 

Darlene

[TarynB]

:bigear:

[Mandy in TN]

I can't help. I can only commiserate.

 

My little man is not a social butterfly, but he really likes his down time. He likes video games and tv and just being. After over an hour of music practice and closer to two hours of math each day, junior orchestra once a week for 1.5-2 hours, two 30 minute private music lessons, one 45 minute private math lesson, and two trips to the Kumon center (all that he wants to do) and a once a week play group (that I really want him to do), I have no idea how to squeeze in both adequate study in other subjects and down time. There is a constant conflict.

 

So, not particularly about the child who needs more social interaction, but generally speaking there never seem to be enough hours to do it all. Logically, I know that it is about priorities. Math and music are my ds's priorities as far as education. He knows what he likes and I have chosen to support that. I also know that beyond this there are only so many hours in the day and I must choose what can fit into those hours. Sure, I could schedule every minute, but he would burn out. He would unwillingly go through the motions putting in as little effort as possible to call it done while battling me every step of the way and mainly learning to dislike learning. I know that I have to make choices in order to get the best output and retention.

 

Setting priorities and making those choices is difficult regardless of whether it has to do with including downtime or social time. For me, these decisions are much more difficult than choosing curriculum. :grouphug:

 

Good luck on finding a priority line-up that encompasses your education goals while taking into account your child's personal needs.

Mandy

[AnnaM]

I am sometimes not sure how we do it. Over the last 10 weeks we have been going from 3 gymnastics classes, 2 soccer practices (with two different teams), an average of 2 soccer games (per child so really a total of 4 games a week), and our weekly meet up every week. It is all a bit of a blur, but I decided when we started that we WOULD get school done. PERIOD. Sometimes it was squeezed into the cracks and crevices of our free time, but we did it and I am glad we did. Now that soccer season is coming to a close we will have more room in our schedule and I am ready for that. In fact today and tomorrow are the first two consecutive days that we have had no activities in quite a while and I am almost unsure what to do with it! Anyways, my point is, it is doable you just have to put your foot down and determine to do it. It may take some tweeking, but you will find your stride.

[Trillian]

It's something we have struggled with every year, some years we're too much out of the house, some years we don't have enough. This year we seem to have a good balance, knock on wood.

 

Tues and Thurs: in the entire school day, if something comes up 5 or later, he can go

 

Mon: park day at 2

 

Weds: every other week class at 11, alternating weeks field trips or friends at the park (after school 3ish)

 

Fri: varies, appts, field trips, nothing

 

Sat: just starting, hockey

 

Sun: home

 

He is considering adding an outside, for fun science class Tues evenings. In general, my policy is do something for a full month so we can get used to the new schedule before adding something else. In the past, I have made the mistake of letting him add thngs because they sound good - and they might be good - but we both get burnt out from a schedule that's too full. So, we need to add, get used to the rhythm, decide if we have room for more.

 

We also school year round, so right now we're on break and doing lots of field trips and things that might not fit into the schedule normally.

 

Also, I only have one (no other schedule to juggle), so the advice may be of less value.

[Just Jane]

I had a long post typed out but something happened. :glare: Generally speaking here are a couple things..

*We school year round

*Activities start after 3pm with the exception of an occasional field trip

*Squeeze in school work when you can - for us it's usually on the road. They mostly do a lot of their reading.

*Wake up earlier. Ds15 wakes up at 7am daily so he can finish his work by 2ish.

*Each kids only (ha!) gets 2 activities per season on top of that we do family activities and field trips.

*Bring the social kid along to everything, we've found that even if it's not their activity just getting out of the house helps the anxiousness.

 

And then I'll just commiserate because I struggle with it still. :001_huh:

[MinivanMom]

My oldest is my social butterfly. She would love to be at school for purely social reasons. I make the effort to ensure that she gets out of the house to spend time with other kids pretty much every single day of the week. It isn't easy, but she is so much happier that way. I make sure that everything is scheduled for after 3 pm, except for the occasional fieldtrip. We get up early in the morning and get started on schoolwork right away, so that there is plenty of time to finish work and piano practice before we head out for activities in the afternoon.

[Ellie]

One of the many advantages of homeschooling is children *not* becoming peer dependent. The more our young children spend time with their age peers, the more dependent they become. It is why I would not have my dc involved in any outside, academic activities on a regular basis, not until they were older, 12ish or so.

 

Dance and sports, if they're in the afternoons, worked well for us; my dds were able to spend time with friends in mixed-age, close-adult-supervised, focussed activities. Monthly park days with other homeschoolers--again, children of all ages--worked for us, too. :-)