How long did you wear your teacher hat today?

[Mandylubug]

I have 4 kids, all of which require some individualized, personal time with me. Some days fly by others like today, drag on.

 

I taught for 9 hours today. That is after I subtracted our dinner hour. Now one kid alone wasn't taught that long but me rotating through individual teaching times.

 

I have claimed the t.v. and kicked the kids out of the room, haha.

 

How long were you wearing your teacher cap today, officially?

[lexi]

I have 5 kids. Only 3 are officially schooling I taught or read aloud to someone all day. I'm working with someone from 6 AM until 4:30 PM daily and then sometimes at night.

 

I put the kids to bed and am hiding in the office with Chocolate Therapy ice cream.

 

Between discipline things, house upkeep, cooking, schooling, and reading to my kids my days seem so very long right now.

[Critterfixer]

I put it on at nine and took it off at three. But I only have two, and even their individualized times get some overlap with brother, since they are in the same grade and roughly doing the same thing.

I'd say you've earned a good cuppa hot cocoa. Nine hours! Yikes!

[Mandylubug]

I have 5 kids. Only 3 are officially schooling I taught or read aloud to someone all day. I'm working with someone from 6 AM until 4:30 PM daily and then sometimes at night.

 

I put the kids to bed and am hiding in the office with Chocolate Therapy ice cream.

 

Between discipline things, house upkeep, cooking, schooling, and reading to my kids my days seem so very long right now.

I have a frozen cheesecake whispering to me.

[lexi]

Yummy!

 

I sometimes keep a secret stash of m&ms on hand for long days. Those and I've cream are huge treats because we have two kids allergic to dairy so I have to keep all those foods hidden and away from them. But I do have a hiding place for them!

 

This year seems so hard because I have two kids learning to read and two toddlers. I spend hours keeping my toddlers out of trouble and hours helping my emerging readers. No one is independent in my house! Ugh!!

[5LittleMonkeys]

Well, today we went to the zoo with dh... BUT....I have 5 dc and on average I wear my teacher hat for about 9 hours a day, Monday through Friday if I include my own dc, the PreK child I babysit and do PreK stuff with, the art class I teach, the literature group I lead, and the 4th grader that I tutor for 4 hours twice a week.   If you include academic things I do on the weekend then it would probably add another 4 hours or so.   

 

Some days I notice every. single. minute, while others aren't nearly as bad and the time flies by. 

 

Edited to add:  All those commitments kind of creept up on me one at a time, but now that I've typed it out and see it all in one sentence I realize it looks like I'm a nut job for taking on so much!  Luckily, the tutoring is about to get cut in half and I only have 4 more art classes to teach.  I think I'll let the 11yo take over the PreK stuff too...she wants to do it anyway. :)  

[Mandylubug]

Yummy!

 

I sometimes keep a secret stash of m&ms on hand for long days. Those and I've cream are huge treats because we have two kids allergic to dairy so I have to keep all those foods hidden and away from them. But I do have a hiding place for them!

 

This year seems so hard because I have two kids learning to read and two toddlers. I spend hours keeping my toddlers out of trouble and hours helping my emerging readers. No one is independent in my house! Ugh!!

I thankfully have 2 that are somewhat independent. I teach their math and grammar individually.

 

Teaching reading will be the death of me, though. I have 2 dyslexics and dream of the days where we aren't struggling so much. We just trudge through! I think listening to two read is like a lullaby...I yawn so much during reading lessons and then feel so badly about it haha

[Mandylubug]

Well, today we went to the zoo with dh... BUT....I have 5 dc and on average I wear my teacher hat for about 9 hours a day, Monday through Friday if I include my own dc, the PreK child I babysit and do PreK stuff with, the art class I teach, the literature group I lead, and the 4th grader that I tutor for 4 hours twice a week. If you include academic things I do on the weekend then it would probably add another 4 hours or so.

 

Some days I notice every. single. minute, while others aren't nearly as bad and the time flies by.

 

Edited to add: All those commitments kind of creept up on me one at a time, but now that I've typed it out and see it all in one sentence I realize it looks like I'm a nut job for taking on so much! Luckily, the tutoring is about to get cut in half and I only have 4 more art classes to teach. I think I'll let the 11yo take over the PreK stuff too...she wants to do it anyway. :)

Man, I hope you have a secret stash of chocolate or something!

[5LittleMonkeys]

Let's just say that my last big decision for each day (even the days that go well) is whether to have chocolate syrup on my chocolate ice cream or just skip the ice cream and put a baby bottle nipple straight on the syrup bottle.  :tongue_smilie:

[Shellydon]

I taught 3 co-op classes from 8:30-2:30 today

[5LittleMonkeys]

I taught 3 co-op classes from 8:30-2:30 today

 

That's 6 hours per child. You should be on overtime the rest of the week.    Oh, wait....we don't get paid do we?  :001_rolleyes:

[Mandylubug]

I get paid. In piles of dirty laundry and dishes. I have an abundance and willing to share!

[5LittleMonkeys]

I get paid. In piles of dirty laundry and dishes. I have an abundance and willing to share!

 

If we lived closer I'd send over my laundress and dish-washer. :)

[lea_lpz]

Today not a whole lot. Maybe 2 hours total. I intentionally split up 1 planned week of worth into 2 last week once we got a day and half behind due to just my kids taking longer than I planned to get things done and then looked ahead to this week and realized we had 3 dr appts this week! Glad I did this! Now I have an expected appt tomorrow. I would have been going nuts trying to squeeze it all in! Much easier...

[PeterPan]

About 1 really FAST-PACED hour.  ;)  But I spent the rest of the day being harangued to play Star Wars with pretend light sabers, which HAS to earn me some kind of valor award.   :lol:    

[Mandylubug]

About 1 really FAST-PACED hour. ;) But I spent the rest of the day being harangued to play Star Wars with pretend light sabers, which HAS to earn me some kind of valor award. :lol:

Definitely

[sewingmama]

About 4 hours....after that I rip it off and stomp on it lol. We don't go past 4 hours otherwise It,s just too long for everybody and everyone stops listening to me anyway.

 

I don't let my days lag...if the kids are dawdling we put away unfinished work and move onto the next thing...they can finish it in their time. DD sat at the table an extra hour yesterday after school was officially done as she was protesting. I went about doing my own thing. She finally figured out it was only affecting her and finished up.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Depends on what you call my teacher hat.  I actively sat with someone or another teaching them for about 4 hours.  But then I did at least 2 hours of work on my own to grade, plan and to work through some trouble areas.  Oh wait. . . I also had to type some stuff up for school so add another 30 minutes.  So all told I'd say 6 and a half hours.  

[Orthodox6]

From the beginning, I have regarded homeschooling as a full-time job. Mentally I tthink of eight hours, minimum, then appreciate anything less!

[RootAnn]

Yesterday, I started around 9 & went until 8:40 p.m. with breaks for lunch, dinner, about an hour on the computer, and an hour making a stable for dd#2's miniature horses. Most days aren't that bad. Mondays are @&@%#(*@%&@#%#.

I'm not doing well today as I've already "escaped" to the computer twice and am currently hiding from the task of fixing lunch. I also forgot about ds#2's library story time, so we'll have to make that up on Friday.

[Loowit]

Today was less than a hour.  I have two sick kids and one that is zipping through stuff.  He is finishing writing a story right now.  I will then need to spend a few minutes reading it and going over it with him.  Writing is his area he struggles with.  Typically on a school day I am doing something school related from a little before 9 until 3 or 4 in the afternoon. 

[Slache]

This thread is making me nervous.

[Momto6inIN]

Typically my hat goes on at 9 and doesn't go off til about 5.  As others have said, it's a full time job!  The kids do all take a nice 1.5-2 hour break in the middle of the day for lunch, but somebody has to be "the cafeteria lady" lol and I'm also usually reading our current read aloud and prepping for the afternoon, etc. etc.  My younger ones finish considerably earlier than 5, but my high schooler works right up til then and sometimes later.  I'm not always right by someone's side, but I've still got my teacher hat on the whole time.

[sdobis]

We start at nine and finish around three. I spend about 45 minutes reading with the kids. Other than that I am available to help when needed. It probably averages 2 hours more, but it's hard to calculate since they may need me for 20 minutes or 5 seconds. Thankfully much of their work is independent.

[momacacia]

I am starting to create time limits on subjects and the rest is left for homework--otherwise, it just never ends! I think this will help oldest dd too.

[purpleowl]

None at all. I have been running fever ofoff and on since Sunday night. Thankfully, this is our schscheduled break week, but I do have a couple of things dd needs to finish from last week since we had a field trip.

 

Please forgive letter repeats. My tablet is being weirdweird.

[Critterfixer]

Same today-9 to 3. Only we went over into lunchtime because I gave an impromptu lecture on how parsing a paragraph for parts of speech can be useful in determining the strength of the writing. :tongue_smilie:

[Garga]

9-4:30.  I can't subtract out lunch because we watch an educational show together during lunch and I pause it from time to time to make comments.  Only 7.5 hours.  I'm pooped.  And after posting on here for a few minutes, I'll get back up and make dinner and then clean the house.  

 

I tell the kids, "Go ahead, dawdle.  No skin off my nose.  If you dawdle, you miss out on play time.  But if you dawdle, it just means I don't have to get up and cook and clean.  I'd much rather sit here with you guys than cook and clean, so please, take your time on your schoolwork."  For some perverse reason, this usually makes them work faster.   :)

 

 

ETA:  There are a few pockets in the day where the kids work on something alone without me, but usually I'm bouncing between each ds.  I set one boy up to work on a math page, and then head to the other boy to teach him his math.  When I'm done teaching the 2nd boy, the first one is ready for me again, and so forth.  But there are tiny breaks in my day, maybe 10 - 15 minutes here or there where they're both engaged in something and don't need my help.  

[HS Mom in NC]

My homeschooled child is 9. From 9:15-10:45 I was teacher. We started 15 minutes late.

 

Short Bible reading

Latin/Greek Roots

Grammar

Logic

 

Then we went to art class and Larry was teacher from 11- 1. The kids take their lunches and eat there after class.

 

They punched circles out of copper sheeting with a hammer and other small tool and joined them together with small wires to make fancy drop earrings.

 

Now it's a play date there until 5. That's usually how it goes on the 2nd, 4th and 5th Tuesdays for us.

[Space station]

Let's just say that my last big decision for each day (even the days that go well) is whether to have chocolate syrup on my chocolate ice cream or just skip the ice cream and put a baby bottle nipple straight on the syrup bottle. :tongue_smilie:

I was getting something from the pantry for dinner today and found a Lindor chocolate ball that had been forgotten. Ah, sweet reward for a day of teaching!

[prairiewindmomma]

I spent 12h yesterday.....I had to spend a lot of one on one time with children hand-holding, cajoling, and dragging them through material. ***banging head on table***

[wintermom]

It fell off when I was napping in front of the TV this afternoon. ;)  

[idnib]

6.5 hours of school time and I guess some might count 1.5 hours for choir (does driving count?)  but I just sat there reading my phone for that while tapping my feet. I'm also counting read aloud time.

[marynamo]

Gosh - you make me feel so guilty *blush* Today not much... but does going to the library and them doing advanced paper models count?

[prairiegirl]

Well, I was only teacher for an hour yesterday when I was hit with a migraine.  From the way that I am feeling now it is looking like not much school will happen today, either.  :huh:

[Desert Strawberry]

Hmm. We were out all day yesterday. Monday, I resorted to a Good Eats marathon in the afternoon. Hey, it's science! We haven't started today. I will keep a count today and see. 

Rachel, we absolutely do not do 9 hour days. We had a year or two of that, and it was rough on all of us. Last year, I scheduled 4 hours a day for myself. This year, as little as possible. 

[idnib]

Hmm. We were out all day yesterday. Monday, I resorted to a Good Eats marathon in the afternoon. Hey, it's science! We haven't started today. I will keep a count today and see.

 

Mmm. I love me some Good Eats. Yes, it's culinary science.

[ScoutTN]

Today is a short day for us and I only have two, so about 3.5 hours of actual teaching and an hour of prep later tonight. Activities this afternoons and church tonight.

 

Tomorrow is a longer day, about 6 hours of teaching or reading with kids. Prep time is sacrificed to the campout coming up this weekend. I'd rather make up the planning on Sunday than find out my tent stakes are missing or I forgot my tea or that the flashlight batteries are dead!

[Mom22ns]

My teacher hat goes on at 7:30 and comes off at noon when I fix lunch. Two days a week a tutor someone else's child for a couple hours from noon-?. The rest of the time I usually have a break while the kids work independently, then ds and I tackle stats together for a couple more hours. Then any grading, and prep time. Stop for dinner. I usually help with homework for 1-2 hours in the evening.

 

That is a very different schedule from what we've ever done before, but it is the way things are working this year. I'd say it is typically coming out to about 8 hours/day of school + time spent tutoring. I only have 2 kids and they are both in high school, but one has multiple LDs.

[Farrar]

Six hours today.

 

But it was a rainy day so we did extra school. I guess I could take out the time making breakfast and lunch and watching an episode of NOVA. But on the other hand, I was calling instructions from the kitchen and discussing the episode, so I feel like all that counts. I did manage to finish sewing a Halloween costume while reading spelling dictations.

[Dicentra]

Between homeschooling, teaching part-time at the local college, and tutoring-for-pay?  I'm not sure it ever comes off. :D

[Desert Strawberry]

Maybe an hour. I'm a slackers.

[Dagne]

I try to keep things a little shorter on Wednesdays, but today was about 7 hours. It worked out to about an hour of prep before breakfast, a few mini-lessons here and there with Ds4, two hours with Dd7, and almost four hours jumping between my older boys. Ds12 and I finished up just in time to make it to his 5:00pm hockey practice.