Goals - hours or content learned?

[lgliser]

We are new to HS - my kids are in public school kindergarten and we'll HS for 1st grade in the fall.

 

We're trying to find out all of the different groups we can be involved in and I'm finding a lot. I found one thing where the kids go from 9-3 every Tuesday for enrichment classes. Looks so neat and fun. I had thought about CC but picked this other thing instead. Then there are other co-ops and activities (for example a scouting group called Explorers Club meets every other Wed from 10-12) and while I LOVE that they are during the day (leaving our evenings open for family time or sports that only meet in the evenings), I worry that if we get too involved in social things that we won't have time for our school work! I obviously won't actually let that happen.

 

But my question is - like on days where we have no activities during the day, can I double up on lessons so that we are sure to get through our books by the end of our school year? Or is that not good...? We are in MO and I know that there are laws about how many hours are spent on education for homeschoolers. But if we are doing the same amount of actual hours, just less spread out, is it still ok? Lawfully and practically?

[regentrude]

Legally in MO, it does not matter how you spend your hours and whether you compress them or stretch them out.

Practically: your children are young. they may not have the attention span and inclination for long days of seat work. Try out how it goes, and take your cues from your kids. At this age, they really do not need that much formal school work, and you probably won't want to fill the required 1,000 hours with worksheets in the core subjects. Think outside the box and include field trips, PE, music, art, nature hikes, activities.

[Arcadia]

I go for content on all the subjects. So if an hour of math takes them 10mins to do, than it is done. The only thing I go for hours is I require my kids to do one hour of leisure reading everyday. It is like a quiet time for them and I get to do my own reading too. For 1st grade, both my kids took 1-2 hours per day to get done.

[Farrar]

I don't set time goals, I set progress goals and adjust our time as needed. Or I make allowances if I see our time was well spent, but that we didn't accomplish all I wanted. I don't set content goals in terms of content learned - more like content covered. I'm more worried about skills. But my kids are young, so for high school it could be very different.

[Farrar]

I don't set time goals, I set progress goals and adjust our time as needed. Or I make allowances if I see our time was well spent, but that we didn't accomplish all I wanted. I don't set content goals in terms of content learned - more like content covered. I'm more worried about skills. But my kids are young, so for high school it could be very different.

[Guest go lower]

Burnout can and does exist even in young ones. I have found that we definitely accomplish the most in the morning hours and anything that happens after lunch (with my K & 2nd grader) is pretty light and enjoyable. I've noticed that on the days that we do try to accomplish the "meat" of our work in the afternoon, these are the days when there might be tears or complaints.

[justasque]

Don't forget your curriculum does not just consist of what you do sitting down at the kitchen table with your school books. It also includes your enrichment co-op, scouts, physical activities like swimming, hiking, biking, sports, and informal outside play, family activities like reading aloud, bedtime stories, visiting museums with dad, and traveling, visiting the library, summer camps, watching plays and music performances, pretend play around academic themes (like putting on a backyard play about Greek myths), playing board games, artistic endeavors, building things, and so on. This is especially true for first grade.

 

For example, if you read a book about Japan, you might also have a family meal at a Japanese restaurant, try painting some Japanese calligraphy, do some origami, visit a Japanese garden, see some Japanese dance, listen to Japanese music, build a model of a Japanese-style building, put on a Japanese-style puppet show, etc. - all of this is part of your Japanese "unit study", even if it comes up organically rather than being formally planned as part of "school".

 

You might want to plan your lessons throughout the year so you can have a 4-day "seatwork" week, so you don't feel "off schedule" all the time. Or just work through the lessons when you can, and see how you go. Remember that the "seatwork" curriculum you have purchased is a tool - you can skip things that don't feel worthwhile, or do more in a sitting if you're on a roll. You aren't obligated to finish a workbook, though we are all tempted to try!

 

Also, pay attention to the natural rhythms of the year. Ease into things in August, and get some good work done in Sept/Oct. Plan to back off between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and take time to celebrate the season in whatever ways suit your family. Remember you'll have extra tasks this time of year - don't burn yourself out. Hit the books hard in Jan/Feb/Mar. As the spring weather calls, plan to spend some time outside and start winding down the formal work. Plan some enrichment activities over the summer, with lots of outside play, summer camp, and/or family outings. Spend some time curled up with some library books.

 

See how it goes. You will have to adjust the balance as you go along, but you will find your groove.

 

ETA: To be clear - ALL of this kind of thing counts as "school". It doesn't have to be written seat work, it doesn't have to be on a weekday, it doesn't have to be during the day. The idea that in a homeschool family there is "school" and "not school" is to completely misunderstand how homeschooling works. The idea that you can measure the education in a homeschool by counting "school hours" is inaccurate at best. DO NOT STRESS OVER THIS.

[mo2]

I hate, hate, HATE that MO requires us to track hours. I sometimes find myself focusing on how long things are going to take rather than just learning and having fun with it. Some days my kids can do math in 15 minutes, while other days, the very same set of problems would take them an hour. And some nights I sit in front of my log, racking my brain, trying to think of every little thing we did that day. I so wish we tracked days instead of hours. Learning and understanding are not measured by time.

[lgliser]

What fantastic advice -thanks to everyone!

[Dahliarw]

I go with mastery over time. That being said, don't sign up for too much and overextend yourselves. It's easy to do. One of the best parts about homeschooling is all the time kids have free play and independent exploration!

[abacus2]

I suggest deciding if cool school things away from home are a priority for your homeschool. If they are, and I would think they would be for first grade, plan your at home lessons accordingly. Planning to be away from home 2 days a week while planning lessons at home for 5 days a week is a recipe for frustration. If you will be home 3 days a week, plan seatwork lessons 3 days a week.

[Incognito]

I am nearing the end of a K and 1st year. We did quite a few things outside the home this year. We ended up having about 2 days where we were out the whole day (or the whole school day anyways). It worked fine for us to do things in chunks. We didn't get as far as I had hoped/planned in some of our curricular resources, but we have already mastered K and 1st grade level content, so I'm not fretting over it. We could have done another science lesson from the book I have - but we were at the zoo, holding emu and ostrich eggs. It's that type of stuff that you can't plan, but is powerful for learning, that homeschooling gives you the freedom for. Don't let the hours thing keep you from that.

 

Since you have to log hours - you just have to shift the way you see learning hours. If I only considered the time we used curriculum and they were in classes, then we'd be quite short of what is expected where we live. But if I count all the hours we read books together, go explore outside, etc., then we have more than what is expected by hundreds of hours.

 

HTH

[lewelma]

At that age, I required 1 1/2 hours of seat work per day (writing and math and learning to read). Then I kept a notebook which had 6 boxes per week - social studies, science, pe, the arts, home ec, and field trips. Each week I put every single thing that we did into a category. I really brainstormed and included it ALL. Walking in the woods looking at plants - science; cooking or cleaning the house - home ec; swimming or the playground - PE; playing a game - social studies or math; discussing how a law is made - social studies; any youtube videos or docos or reading - science or social studies. ETC. Each week the boxes were really full. Seems to me that you could then backtrack and figure hours spent educating, which I am sure would be plenty.

 

Ruth in NZ

[regentrude]

At that age, I required 1 1/2 hours of seat work per day (writing and math and learning to read). Then I kept a notebook which had 6 boxes per week - social studies, science, pe, the arts, home ec, and field trips. Each week I put every single thing that we did into a category. I really brainstormed and included it ALL. Walking in the woods looking at plants - science; cooking or cleaning the house - home ec; swimming or the playground - PE; playing a game - social studies or math; discussing how a law is made - social studies; any youtube videos or docos or reading - science or social studies. ETC. Each week the boxes were really full. Seems to me that you could then backtrack and figure hours spent educating, which I am sure would be plenty.

 

 

I do a similar thing - only I keep an excel spreadsheet with columns for subjects and rows for days. It is programmed to add the time per day as well as the time per subject and total up at the end of the month without any effort on my part.

I have never found it difficult to come up with those times, for exactly the reason lewelma describes: learning happens all the time and is not restricted to worksheets and math problems.

[boscopup]

But my question is - like on days where we have no activities during the day, can I double up on lessons so that we are sure to get through our books by the end of our school year? Or is that not good...? We are in MO and I know that there are laws about how many hours are spent on education for homeschoolers. But if we are doing the same amount of actual hours, just less spread out, is it still ok? Lawfully and practically?

 

 

While you can sometimes get away with doubling up on lessons some days, your kids may burn out quickly doing that. My middle son is the same age as yours, and he is good with one 30 minute seatwork session right now for K. Next year in first, I'll be adding some extra stuff, but not a whole lot. Our total school time, including read-alouds, will likely be about an hour and a half. I don't have to track hours, but if I did, I'd probably just put down x number of hours each day, because a 1st grader is always learning the entire time they're awake. :tongue_smilie: I would absolutely count co-op time with the school hours as well.

 

As far as getting through the books by the end of the school year... You may have to skip some lessons (go through ahead of time and see what you can safely skip), but that's ok. You want to teach a certain amount of content, not a certain amount of lessons.

 

At first grade age, I'd put content goals before hours, for sure.

 

You may also want to just try one of the activities this year, and if you think it would work out well, add the other one later. When I started homeschooling, I purposely avoided co-ops and still do. I don't want to be forced into a 4-day school week. But that's just me. There is nothing wrong with co-ops, and you may be the type of person that gets a lot out of them. :) Just don't think that you HAVE to do one in order to homeschool properly. ;) Do it because you think it's what you and your kids need. It is easy to overload yourself that first year, both with activities AND curriculum, so be careful about that.