Working and homeschooling, any advice?

[raganfamily]

I am having trouble balancing working and homeschooling.  There seems to be only so many hours in the day.  I have 4 and one in college, but lives at home.  I am finding that we are continuously playing catch up.

 

I have thought about letting everything be self-paced instead of everything being scheduled out.  (ie Math 45-60 min, Readings 45- 60 mins, etc)  Does anyone do their school in this format?

 

Their ages are 17, 16, 13 & 11  So they can handle doing work on their own and do not need me sitting beside them.  (But,they still need help from me)

 

Does anyone have advice? 

[hadera]

For what its worth, I am home a little before 2pm each day and my husband is off Thursdays and Fridays but doesn't really do school with them.

My kids are 10(almost 11) and 13 and I leave them a checklist of things to do in any order they please with no time limits. When I return home I check in with them and check their work. Sometimes, they still have things to finish when I get home, which is fine. We do group work together and I work with them individually on most days of the week. We also do some group work and one on one work on the weekends since we tend to do very light work when my husband is home.  For me the most helpful thing is being flexible with everything. Are you having trouble with keeping up with checking their work or are they not able to get the work you leave done? 

Oh, and we are pretty new at homeschooling (pulled kids in February) and it took me having full days with them during weekends or other days off for me to gauge what the appropriate amount of work I could leave with them was. As matter of fact for awhile we just had a completely flipped day. The kids had free time while I was gone and we did all the work when I came home. Then I started with leaving my eldest with work and then added the youngest.

Edited November 14, 2016 by hadera

[raganfamily]

Do you give them checklists for each day? I have a weekly checklist and perhaps that is why I feel we are continuously behind.  I was hoping to have week 18 finished by Christmas, but we will be lucky if we get to week 15.

 

Yes, I find it difficult sometimes to check their work and they do not always get things done.  Of course, it is not always their fault.  (Family visiting, field trips, sickness, etc) 

[hadera]

Yes, I give them a checklist daily this helps me be flexible if needed...

Something like this:

 

https://amongstlovelythings.com/scope-4

 

I don't include work that I do with them on the list.

 

HTH!

 

[Milknhoney]

I work noon to five, M-Th. I do school in the mornings. Oldest works from a daily checklist independently, coming to get me when he needs help. This year I did transition from set assignments to setting the timer for him, because so many of them are time consuming and it is unrealistic to expect him to spend two hours on one subject. He checks his own work, except writing. And I'm afraid I do get behind on that. 

 

While ds is working independently, I'm working with dd. She has a short checklist of reading assignments to do while I'm at work. ds's checklist takes him the morning plus a couple hours while I'm at work. Husband is home at that time but doesn't get involved with schooling. 

 

Advice: Use open and go curriculum that doesn't take time to plan. Spend the extra money on workbooks for each kid, rather than wasting time making copies. Use curriculum that students can learn from independently. Trust your kids to grade their own assignments. Plan on spending more than 36 weeks in a year to get through it all. I don't know if we'll be at week 18 by Christmas either, but it should be close. We started end of July. We try to finish by the end of May. Don't try to do too much. Reevaluate what you're doing and see if there is a subject you need to let go of or start doing half pace. 

[MerryAtHope]

I am having trouble balancing working and homeschooling.  There seems to be only so many hours in the day.  I have 4 and one in college, but lives at home.  I am finding that we are continuously playing catch up.

 

I have thought about letting everything be self-paced instead of everything being scheduled out.  (ie Math 45-60 min, Readings 45- 60 mins, etc)  Does anyone do their school in this format?

 

Their ages are 17, 16, 13 & 11  So they can handle doing work on their own and do not need me sitting beside them.  (But,they still need help from me)

 

Does anyone have advice? 

 

I do a system that sometimes includes time as a guideline. I definitely think daily checklists are important for the 11 and 13 year-olds, and would only use a weekly system with the older two if they are ready for that/are doing well with that. I would expect the older ones to understand that they can't leave everything until Friday, that they should work a certain number of hours per day, that if they skip science today it means they should double-up on something else today which will allow them time to double up on science tomorrow--and similar scheduling ideas. If your older two are not keeping up with a weekly checklist, I would go to a daily one for them.

 

My daily guidelines for high school:

 

Math: 1 lesson or 60 minutes. If you finish a lesson in under 30 minutes, do a second lesson (we may need extra time later with hard concepts, so work ahead now if you can). If you don't finish a lesson and it's been an hour and 15 minutes, come see me when I am home. (I don't want 2 hour math days, iow.)

 

Science: If we have a schedule, follow that (some years we do, some we don't). In Apologia, it's easy to read/work to the next "On Your Own" questions, so we usually do that. Work for an hour. 

 

English: read for 30 minutes, write for 30 minutes. If either goes over to 45 minutes, that's fine, but that's a rough guideline. In reading, I sometimes assign a chapter or pages, but if not, go by time. I encourage them to finish a chapter if possible.

 

History: read a section or a chapter or do a lesson, or work for an hour. Most of what we've used is well-paced for a day's work, but if not, use time (we use time when reading biographies, for example). 

 

Foreign language--I usually do by time, 45 minutes to an hour.

 

Electives--depends on what it is, and if it's a half credit or full credit, if we're doing it all year or just for the semester etc..., but I often go by time here too.  

 

In Junior high (13 yo), I'm more in the 45-1 hour range for subjects, in preparation for high school. For the 11 year-old, some things might be in the 30-45 minute range. 

 

We used a workbox system, which kept my kids on track and made it really clear that they had to do their work before they were done for the day.

 

I did find that daily meetings with each student were needed, especially for math or for any assignments where doing one day wrong could mess up the whole week (sometimes a writing assignment can get off track, for example). Some subjects you can check-in less frequently (discussions for history or literature, for example). If your work schedule is such that some days are heavy and others are light though, that may change how and when you are able to check in with the kids. When I have to miss a day of checking in with one of my high schoolers, I will sometimes ask them to check their math against the guide before going on, to make sure they are on the right track. I do find that it's not good to go too many days w/o checking though--that can really mess up the next test. 

 

HTH some!

[raganfamily]

Yes, I give them a checklist daily this helps me be flexible if needed...

Something like this:

 

https://amongstlovelythings.com/scope-4

 

I don't include work that I do with them on the list.

 

HTH!

 

Thank you for sharing this.   Curious what group work you do together?  We use to do a lot of group work, but it has not been so as they have gotten older. 

[raganfamily]

Yes, I give them a checklist daily this helps me be flexible if needed...

Something like this:

 

https://amongstlovelythings.com/scope-4

 

I don't include work that I do with them on the list.

 

HTH!

Thank you for sharing this article.  What items do you save for group.   We did group when they were younger, and it worked wonderfully.  Yet, as my plate has become more abundant (working) it seems hard to do this as much. 

 

 

 

Advice: Use open and go curriculum that doesn't take time to plan. Spend the extra money on workbooks for each kid, rather than wasting time making copies. Use curriculum that students can learn from independently. Trust your kids to grade their own assignments. Plan on spending more than 36 weeks in a year to get through it all. I don't know if we'll be at week 18 by Christmas either, but it should be close. We started end of July. We try to finish by the end of May. Don't try to do too much. Reevaluate what you're doing and see if there is a subject you need to let go of or start doing half pace. 

Yes, I agree that sometimes it is best to plan more than 36 weeks.  My issue has always been ignoring the "less is more" mantra. 

 

I do a system that sometimes includes time as a guideline. I definitely think daily checklists are important for the 11 and 13 year-olds, and would only use a weekly system with the older two if they are ready for that/are doing well with that. I would expect the older ones to understand that they can't leave everything until Friday, that they should work a certain number of hours per day, that if they skip science today it means they should double-up on something else today which will allow them time to double up on science tomorrow--and similar scheduling ideas. If your older two are not keeping up with a weekly checklist, I would go to a daily one for them.

 

Loved your guidelines.  This helps with putting things in perspective.  Thank goodness my older dd can pretty much do her own school.  She takes dual enrollment and never really needs my help.  My younger 3 are not the case, and might be best if I went to a daily schedule. 

 

I appreciate the advice.  This gives me something to look over this weekend.

 

It really helps and puts things in perspective to see what other people do or how they might handle it.  (My work schedule is all day one day, and nothing the next. So can be good and bad)