Have you ever split a homeschool day between children?

[bethben]

My dd is going to public school.  While our relationship is greatly improved, I can't even begin to tell you how much I absolutely hate public school.  I am basically teaching her math because the common core math they use makes no sense most of the time.  I understand what they are trying to accomplish, but the sequence of it is way off.  When she came home with the suggestion (this is how they taught it) she skip count by 3's until she got to 102 to figure out how to divide 102 by 3, I put my foot down and decided to just teach her long division ignoring their methods.  She gets distracted easily and will make little mistakes often.  Tonight, I taught her how to write a five paragraph paper because they basically gave her an outline of what the paper should look like and that was the extent of the teaching for the most part.  They also told her she should type her paper but they have yet to teach typing (no, she didn't miss it in another grade either).  She is also pretty irritated that her classmates don't listen to the teacher which I know is a teacher issue, but you can't exactly choose your teacher each year.

 

Anyway- I am trying to figure out how to homeschool her and my ds.  She is a STRONG personality and we have butted heads because I was pretty stressed with juggling her, her brother, and my oldest ds with disabilities who is home now.  She also wears me out completely when she's with me all day.   I'm wondering if I could homeschool ds in the mornings while giving her read alouds on tape to listen to and other independent activities (typing, math fact practice, readers, etc).  This would give me some measure of peace during 1/2 of the day.  Then, after lunch when things with my oldest disabled ds seem to calm down a bit, I could homeschool her while ds does his afternoon routine which means he basically hangs out in his room.  These two really need separation from each other.  Ds and I need peace and quiet and dd loves chaos and noise.  This plan doesn't address her huge need for social interaction and I have no good solutions for that, but at least she would be well educated and I wouldn't have to be re-teaching her so much at night.  She's already in school for over 7 hours and really doesn't need the extra I am teaching her just so she can have some degree of success.  As an added bonus, next year, ds will most likely be in a university model school for at least two classes and I can add a different day at another homeschool enrichment program for dd.  

 

Does this plan even seem feasible?  Am I missing pitfalls?  

 

 

[EKS]

That is exactly what I did with my two boys--I gave the older one a math lesson first thing, and then I worked with the younger one during the rest of the morning while the older was engaged with independent work.  Then I worked with the older one in the afternoon.

Edited November 2, 2017 by EKS

[forty-two]

That's what I do with my kids, too. My oldest does independent work in the morning, while I teach the younger two (my middle also does independent work for a bit while I'm working with my youngest). And then after lunch it switches - my middle does independent work while I work with my oldest. Only issue so far is coming up with enough legitimate, non-busywork-yet-truly-independent work for my oldest to do that takes up the majority of the morning.

[MistyMountain]

That is what I do but with 3. I work one on one with one while the others do things they can accomplish in their own like audiobooks for the youngest or prodigy, free reading etc. We do some subjects together in the afternoon. If I had only two switching off would work much more smoothly.

[8filltheheart]

That is the way I have homeschooled my kids for over 20 yrs. while I work with one, the others are off doing independent work or playing (depends on the age.)

[bethben]

I wonder, though, if she'll actually peacefully comply with this plan? I have been training my kids from jumpstreet to be quiet while I work with the other one, but  my "harder than average" kid is so stress-inducing and raises the temperature about a million degrees, iykwim, when he's left to his own devices too long. He also sees any enforced reading, math, listening, etc... as him doing school (he's not wrong there, but...) and just plain resents being told to go off and do school alone.

 

In my house, I can switch off with the kids. But only single activities, not whole big chunks of time. So I can have one doing copywork while I drill the other, and visa-versa, but I can't send one off to get a sizable portion done alone without it turning into a big stressful *thing* that I have to deal with that ultimately takes school time away from the other kid.

 

But if she will go along with it, yeah your plan is totally feasible!

 

This is my concern also.  That she will have trouble doing things alone since she is so social.  Yet, I'm quickly realizing that there are not enough hours after school to teach her everything she's not learning at school and having her be overwhelmed with that.  They expect her to know how to type yet don't teach it - she never understands the confusing math lessons the first time around - they're not really teaching writing, but expecting students to just "know" (they went from "interesting sentences" daily to a five paragraph report with little to no instruction other than an outline of how their paper should look).  She comes home frustrated often because she's left to try to figure stuff out on her own.   She's an "A" student and I have no idea how she got those grades.  Her test scores that she takes on the computer are lousy/ horrible.  

[....]

Can you combine her with your son?  My kids are combined, because they do better working in groups.  They need the group discussion, competition, etc.

[Guest]

Ummm... that's pretty much what most people with more than one kid end up doing.

 

There was a time that I was homeschooling six kids. (I'm down to three this year.) Each kid had (has) an instructional time block with me each day, then they were (are) sent off to finish things up on their own. Once their assignments are done, they can use their free time however they want, as long as they aren't interrupting those who are still working.

[bethben]

I did the block thing also.  I'd start the older child on math so they could do the problem set alone and then work with the younger child.  Same with Language arts.  Then we would do history together.  The problem is - my ds 13 is needing more instruction without interruptions.  I'm not sure how long this will last.  He's getting evaluated for ASD next year (when we could get an appointment) and seems to have some trouble figuring out what a text  says.  So, we laboriously go through each section and I have him explain what it said.  Dd would constantly interrupt when I was working with him because she got frustrated easily.  She would also ask questions about whatever I was reading to both of them despite how many times I told her not to.  That frustrated ds.  I call dd the sun.  When the sun is out, it's hard to see anything else.  The sun demands attention.  My ds gets left in the dust.  

[lots of little ducklings]

We do that, so yes... it works well.  But we don't have any head-butting or major sibling issues (yet!), so....

 

...another thought: several private schools around me (Christian, mostly) are opening their classes up to homeschoolers.  You can choose what you want (though you are confined to their schedules).  Would an option like this be available for you this year? And affordable?  And maybe provide the best of both worlds, by giving her her own space for just part of the day, but giving you greater control over the teachers/curriculum she is using?

 

 

[bethben]

We do that, so yes... it works well. But we don't have any head-butting or major sibling issues (yet!), so....

 

...another thought: several private schools around me (Christian, mostly) are opening their classes up to homeschoolers. You can choose what you want (though you are confined to their schedules). Would an option like this be available for you this year? And affordable? And maybe provide the best of both worlds, by giving her her own space for just part of the day, but giving you greater control over the teachers/curriculum she is using?

We have something three days a week that is an offshoot of the Christian school. It will teach Latin,language arts, and history using veritas press stuff. I visited and the school seems like it’s where all the top students “perfectâ€children attend. It’s an option. My daughter is a spark plug...things would get more lively over there for sure and it would give us at least three mornings of peace.

 

 

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[rjand6more]

The way you describe-with independent work and then time together-that's how I have always homeschooled.

 

I make schedules each weekend for the whole week.  The schedules are designed so the kids can read them and highlight the work they completed each day and they can see what is ahead.  There is always extra "work" in case they finish early. I hate busy work, but a couple of the kids love paper crafts, dioramas, etc.  So I always have extra things they can do and all the supplies to do them.  There are videos they can watch on Amazon Prime that I have preselected.

 

We combine for bible/history readings and discussion.

[bethben]

I guess I mean totally separated--One child complete subjects in the morning and one child complete subjectsin the afternoon.  Not just switching back and forth from child to child during the day and no combining.  I did the switching back and forth during the day and it stressed me out and apparently made my ds frustrated and feeling like I wasn't available to help him when he needed it.  

[reign]

I do this for my girls. My older two do math, writing, and spelling with me first. Then they spend the rest of the day doing independent work together. My youngest does independent work then works with me when her sisters start independent work.

 

Independent work:

Readings

Dreambox math

Latin

Spanish

Piano

[My4arrows]

With my DS who sounds like your DD, I do this.  My other three can work together or quietly at the table rotating while needed and DS is in his room, reading, playing and have his free time.  He likes having that first.  Then after lunch, he will work with me while the others have their freetime.  For the most part it does work well.  It is just tiring for me as I'm introverted and definitely need my me time in the afternoon.  But at the same time since he is more content and compliant, I'm not as worn as I am when we schooled all together.  I am beginning to give him some work to do on his own in the mornings like listening to books or reading an assigned book, getting specific chores done, practicing different skills, but for the most part we do his work together in the afternoons.  I've been slowly adding him into our morning schedule for a few together things since I know once I have our fifth in a few months, I"ll need more breaks than now.

[Heathermomster]

OP, my children are 8 years apart and taught separately. I mainly work with the eldest in the morning, and the younger in the afternoon. The eldest takes one outside class for 4 hours on Tuesday while the youngest takes classes Friday morning. My youngest has a tendency to make noise and completes history and vocab online. She enjoys her literature books so will read those or listen to audible with headphones. I also send her to play in the backyard. DS wears headphones to reduce distractions.

 

I reward her by making her favorite tea or allowing her bff to spend the night.

[happypamama]

I have a bunch of children, and like other posters, I work with each of them one-on-one while the others work independently or play, depending on age.  If there is anything that is combined, we do those together (but my oldest three are far enough apart that not much is combined).  It doesn't work as well when I try to work with multiple children at once.  Typically, I work with my seventh grader first, then my third and first graders, and my tenth grader in the afternoon, but it depends on whomever is awake and at a good point to work with me.  Sometimes I'll work with the first grader if the seventh grader says he has fifteen more minutes of reading to do or something.  Once I start working with one child, I don't typically stop working with that child until he/she is done with the mom-work.  The exception is that sometimes my first grader doesn't have the attention span to do too much in one block, or my tenth grader's work needs to break so I can make dinner or something.