Jump to content

Menu

Sharing teaching with spouse?


Alice
 Share

Recommended Posts

Does anyone here share teaching responsibilities with your husband/wife? My husband and I both work part-time, although I work much less than he does. Our ultimate plan for homeschooling would have us both teaching. However, as our kids are still very young, I would anticipate that for awhile we will be able to have me doing all the teaching as the lessons wouldn't take more than 1/2 a day.

 

I'm interested in hearing if others share responsibilities and how it works for you. Do you have one person "in charge"? Do each of you take certain subjects?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My husband works full-time with every Thursday off. I work outside the home 7:30-5:00 on Thursday so my husband takes over the lessons that day. He has not been totally "on board" with HSing from the beginning, but he has seen the great strides we have made and the quality of the education. He has commented on the thorough coverage of grammar in Rod and Staff ("I never learned this in school!") and has memorized a few Latin sayings.

 

I prepare the day's lessons and have the schedule written out on a large whiteboard. All the materials he may need are there for him. He appreciates this and I appreciate his willingness to take this on when he would like to relax on his day off.

 

Cyrena

Link to comment
Share on other sites

in learning more about shared teaching as well. Currently we are after schooling, but we are seriously considering moving to full-time homeschooling. Doing so would require both of us teaching on alternate mornings and then doing some evening work as well. Suggestions from those who have BTDT would be helpful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, my husband teaches Greek, oversees science experiments & projects, and monitors the boys' PE improvement. DH actually plans out their Greek for the year, and I input the information in Edu-track. I make sure the daily workbook lessons are done, but DH grades their work and teaches Greek at night or on the weekends. He's also my substitute teacher if I'm sick or have an appointment to go to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

teaches Spanish and he also does science experiments with the kids. He is gone all day and he gives me some Spanish assignments to do with the kids during the day but he does most of it at night. He will also teach them random things like a certain math concept or geography or something. He also helps me to set the vision of what we want although I mostly am the one to choose the curriculum.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My dw and I have done a bit of this and may do more in the future depending on the direction our respective careers take. I choose the curriculum and have developed the overall plan for our homeschool, so at this stage, I generally leave specific assignments for dw to do with dd. But that is not written in stone, and if there were a subject that my dw took over entirely, I would be happy to let her teach it in whatever way worked best for her.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Although I wish dh helped... *Ü* he does prefer school to be done during the day... but, I sometimes leave some subjects for the evening so we can side track and do something else during the day. He loves to listen and sit with us when we do that.

 

Last night we had our first art night. *Ü* He is very creative and artistic so he helped us with our first Sketch Tuesday. I’m hoping I can encourage this more from him. It was a lot of fun.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My dh does all the science experiments since I dislike hands-on projects. In addition, he teaches science when I find it to be too technical or unpleasant (mostly the physical sciences.) Since he works full time +, he usually helps out only on weekends. I've tried to have him help during the week, but he either gets home too late or is too tired.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

She's here 3 days a week (6 hours) to school. I choose the curricula and set expectations. She executes and of course contributes her ideas, etc. as well. Works great for us and could work great for a husband/wife team.

 

I think one thing that makes it work well for us is to largely split subjects. My governess handles most of the Sonlight history and reading and LA on the days she's here. Sometimes she'll give the kids homework of reading on the days she's off. I might even add in some map work or projects on my days if I feel it's a good idea. She also handles all the spelling, handwriting, logic and latin. Three days a week is fine for those topics.

 

We both do topics that need done daily, such as music practice, math and reading instruction for my littlest one. We tend to get erratic about science (which I love), but in general it goes best if I do something different than my governess -- say I do a TOPS kit, while she does a parallel program, say RS4K Physics. That way we don't have to figure out what the other person did the day before and we can just plug along, improvise, tweak schedules, etc as we wish w/o worrying about communicating that. When we're doing something that requires a daily effort (say when we were growing radishes in a TOPS kit last summer), then we just let each other know that x,y,z needs done today and it will take ## min and here is the stuff. . .

 

When my eldest was working on NEM math, I handled her math every day (in the a.m. before i left for work on my working days) to ensure continuity. We don't find we need that for the earlier levels of math, but I am math-y person and my governess isn't, so I think it's best for me to handle the algebra & up math unless it is really self-teaching and progressing well (which wasn't the case for us with NEM)

 

We do have a homeschooling log where we record (well, she does a great job and I'm erratic) what we do for each child each day/week to facilitate communication and help make sure we're covering all the bases each week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For K-4th, dh was the reading/language arts teacher. He was student back then and had more time. In 5th, he took over 1/2 science (Noeo which has a schedule) and I took over language arts. This year, we are sharing science. He uses TOPS and I use Science Explorer. It works better for us to use our own curriculums, although sharing Noeo was fine. I generally research and select the curriculum, and he executes it.

 

I've always wished that he would do art with ds as he's the artistic one of us, but he's never done it.

 

Sue

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the elementary and into the middle school years, when his rotating shift permitted, he took over for 2 or 3 out of the 4 Wednesdays each month. I left schedule checklists for dh and the 2 ds, and they did school together while I went to a Bible study. I really appreciated the break, but even more, I appreciated his feedback. Since he only worked with the boys a few times a month, he could more easily see where progress was being made, or areas that needed more attention.

 

Things have shifted somewhat in late middle school/early high school for too many reasons to go into; but he now only does Logic once a week with them, and the occasional literature discussion -- or "math tutor" if I'm already working one-on-one with one boy and the other needs help.

 

I do all the research and selecting of curriculum, and all the scheduling and tracking of hours.

 

Hope that helps! Warm regards, Lori D.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And will likely teach high school American history/government/economics, too. And computer science/programming.

 

The rest is mine, all mine! BWAH HA HA HA HA HA!

 

(Oops. Um, it's late.)

 

How does it work? It drives me nuts. It's definitely a learning process for my inner control freak to watch dh teach in a way that is very different from my way. But, I'm learning.

 

I am in charge of the overall academic program.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It would be so nice to have some help when he is home, but it just isn't going to happen. They try to get through it together while I sleep in or maybe go to town by myself. But I never expect much to be done when I get back.

 

Sometimes it's just because he's so intimidated by what we're studying that he thinks he can't understand it -- which, of course, he could if he would step back for a moment and relax a bit.

 

Mostly, though, I think they just get off into that "male bonding" thing and talk about gross "guy stuff" -- I don't worry about it too much. There's plenty of time to catch up later.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks! It's so interesting to hear what others are doing. We are just setting out on this whole adventure and I feel so lucky to have so many others to learn from (both here and in "real life" friends).

 

I always joke that dh thinks that he'll be "field trip, art and PE" Dad while I'm "math, grammar and history" Mom. But in reality I think he does want to have a big role in the kids education. My bigger worry is that I'm too much of a control freak and it will be hard for me to give up any of the reins. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...