New to homeschooling and questions about counting hours

[sweetstuff]

Hi all,

I'm new to homeschooling and am doing it due to covid.

Will the board of education ask me for  proof of hours of homeschool? Which subjects do I put extracurricular activities? For example, if my child helped me follow a recipe, which subject hours will that be? math? science? art?

What about going to a pumpkin patch? 

A museum?

Will I need to document the daily lessons and what we did for homeschool? Will they ask to  see hours?  I submitted my IHIP but never got a response or even an acknowledgement of it receipt even though I requested so. Should I call them?

Thanks for any help.

 

 

 

[Rosie_0801]

Welcome to the forum 🙂

How old are your kids and which state/country are you in?

[HomeAgain]

More than likely nobody's going to ask you for hours.  I'm in a state that has us promise to provide the same or "equivalent of" hours of the public school, and no one counts.

Here's what I tell people:

-you are record keeping ultimately for your kid, not for the district office. Take note of materials, scope & sequence, etc., anything that may help you have a meeting with the teacher next year and show where your kid was at. Treat yourself like a

-create a generalized system of record keeping.  I use an online record keeper and just average the time for subjects using how long it actually takes my kid and how long the same lesson would probably be in a classroom.  Why do I do this?  A few reasons. It is easy for us to push something to the side because my kid doesn't like it.  If I start to notice that all the other lessons are numbered in the 60s and art is still in single digits, I know I need to incorporate that back in again.  I also do it to make sure we're not overscheduled, that he has time to rest, and that I know I didn't schedule too many lessons in one year.

-you can break down an inclusive unit to parts if you wanted to keep track.  My oldest did unit studies as he got older.  I created a track for each major subject and one for 'elective', so I'd put the history part of the lesson in the history part, the writing and literature in Language arts, and so on, using the elective track as my catch all.

 

FWIW, I absolutely counted the pumpkin patch for my 5yo.  I would not count it for my 11yo - but I would count museums, hikes, organized sports, and some concerts.  It just is the difference between age appropriate learning and not in my mind. 

[sweetstuff]

1 hour ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Welcome to the forum 🙂

How old are your kids and which state/country are you in?

Thank you. I'm in NY. Kids are 7 and 9.

[sweetstuff]

1 hour ago, HomeAgain said:

More than likely nobody's going to ask you for hours.  I'm in a state that has us promise to provide the same or "equivalent of" hours of the public school, and no one counts.

Here's what I tell people:

-you are record keeping ultimately for your kid, not for the district office. Take note of materials, scope & sequence, etc., anything that may help you have a meeting with the teacher next year and show where your kid was at. Treat yourself like a

-create a generalized system of record keeping.  I use an online record keeper and just average the time for subjects using how long it actually takes my kid and how long the same lesson would probably be in a classroom.  Why do I do this?  A few reasons. It is easy for us to push something to the side because my kid doesn't like it.  If I start to notice that all the other lessons are numbered in the 60s and art is still in single digits, I know I need to incorporate that back in again.  I also do it to make sure we're not overscheduled, that he has time to rest, and that I know I didn't schedule too many lessons in one year.

-you can break down an inclusive unit to parts if you wanted to keep track.  My oldest did unit studies as he got older.  I created a track for each major subject and one for 'elective', so I'd put the history part of the lesson in the history part, the writing and literature in Language arts, and so on, using the elective track as my catch all.

 

FWIW, I absolutely counted the pumpkin patch for my 5yo.  I would not count it for my 11yo - but I would count museums, hikes, organized sports, and some concerts.  It just is the difference between age appropriate learning and not in my mind. 

Thank you for all the help!

For what subject did you count the pumpkin patch in?

[HomeAgain]

28 minutes ago, sweetstuff said:

Thank you for all the help!

For what subject did you count the pumpkin patch in?

For us, it was science.  We used the pumpkin patch as part of a week of estimating number of seeds, sink/float activity, learning how seeds grow/the parts of a plant, and nursery rhyme memory (Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater).

[Lori D.]

5 hours ago, sweetstuff said:

I'm new to homeschooling and am doing it due to covid.

Will the board of education ask me for  proof of hours of homeschool? Which subjects do I put extracurricular activities? For example, if my child helped me follow a recipe, which subject hours will that be? math? science? art?

What about going to a pumpkin patch? 

A museum?

Will I need to document the daily lessons and what we did for homeschool? Will they ask to  see hours?  I submitted my IHIP but never got a response or even an acknowledgement of it receipt even though I requested so. Should I call them?

. I'm in NY. Kids are 7 and 9.

Welcome to homeschooling! And welcome to the WTM boards.

Because NY is a high-regulation state for homeschooling, a lot of the responses you get on topics of record keeping might not help with your specific needs. It's best to talk directly to other NY homeschoolers who have been doing homeschooling in NY for several years.

Here is the NYHEN (New York Home Education Network) website. It is a homeschool support organization that would be able to answer your specific questions about how to meet NY homeschooling regulations. Here are some "start up" articles from their website that might help:

- NY Homeschool Laws and Requirements for Parents
- tips on record keeping
- how to find a local support group -- this will be especially helpful to find a BTDT parent to walk you through what needs to happen

5 hours ago, sweetstuff said:

... Which subjects do I put extracurricular activities? For example, if my child helped me follow a recipe, which subject hours will that be? math? science? art?
What about going to a pumpkin patch? 
A museum?

I created a weekly schedule (5 school days of the week across the top of the page, subjects down the left side, and write in what we did for each subject that week. In the space I left across the bottom of the weekly schedule, I wrote in all of the extracurriculars, plus any of the generally educational supplemental activities, field trips, outings, etc. That way I didn't have to try and force each activity to somehow fit under a specific subject heading, and could still document things we were doing that were broadly educational -- just not specifically "math" or "science". Perhaps something like that might work for you?

Again, welcome to homeschooling! May you and your children have a wonderful journey! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited October 31, 2021 by Lori D.

[sweetstuff]

6 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

For us, it was science.  We used the pumpkin patch as part of a week of estimating number of seeds, sink/float activity, learning how seeds grow/the parts of a plant, and nursery rhyme memory (Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater).

Thanks for the info!

[sweetstuff]

1 hour ago, Lori D. said:

Welcome to homeschooling! And welcome to the WTM boards.

Because NY is a high-regulation state for homeschooling, a lot of the responses you get on topics of record keeping might not help with your specific needs. It's best to talk directly to other NY homeschoolers who have been doing homeschooling in NY for several years.

Here is the NYHEN (New York Home Education Network) website. It is a homeschool support organization that would be able to answer your specific questions about how to meet NY homeschooling regulations. Here are some "start up" articles from their website that might help:

- NY Homeschool Laws and Requirements for Parents
- tips on record keeping
- how to find a local support group -- this will be especially helpful to find a BTDT parent to walk you through what needs to happen

I created a weekly schedule (5 school days of the week across the top of the page, subjects down the left side, and write in what we did for each subject that week. In the space I left across the bottom of the weekly schedule, I wrote in all of the extracurriculars, plus any of the generally educational supplemental activities, field trips, outings, etc. That way I didn't have to try and force each activity to somehow fit under a specific subject heading, and could still document things we were doing that were broadly educational -- just not specifically "math" or "science". Perhaps something like that might work for you?

Again, welcome to homeschooling! May you and your children have a wonderful journey! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Thank you for the very warm welcome and for the helpful info and links! I'll check them out!

[Lori D.]

1 hour ago, sweetstuff said:

Thank you for the very warm welcome and for the helpful info and links! I'll check them out!

Feel free to ask any and all questions. Lots of great experience and wisdom on these boards! 😄 

It's just those very specific topics on how to fulfill requirements for a specific state's laws and regulations where you'll especially want to either ask locally, or, when posting here, to make sure that people know you're from that state that has specific requirements and that you're looking for help in how to fulfill those state-specific regulations. 😄 

While I don't know how current this list is, in case it helps, here is a webpage with links to NY state & local homeschooling groups.

Edited October 31, 2021 by Lori D.

[2_girls_mommy]

I am not in NY and do not have to document hours, though I do roughly for my own records.  If I take my 7 year old to the fair, I log the day as a field trip day, but I will put in P.E.- hours of walking, pony riding, tried the ropes course, etc, anything she did that day that was physical.  Then I will log the exhibits we visited under the appropriate subject- animal science- cow milking demonstration, visited newborn goats, and other farm animals, bee exhibits.  Art- looked at art exhibits, etc.  If we go home and read a book that day and do a math lesson I would put those under L.A. and math, even if we didn't do her actual LA curriculum that day, we still read books and discussed them at bedtime or whatever.  If we do a scavenger hunt at a museum that would go under history.  There often isn't math at a museum or field trip day, so I will add a math lesson if I need to on days there is time. And we always read everyday anyway. 

[freesia]

I’m in NY. No one can ask you for a log or anything of hours. You do have to report total hours, but not hours broken down by subject. So anything an elementary child would do in school—pumpkin patch, cooking, museum, soccer, painting, listening to stories, reading, math, nature walk all count toward the 250 hours (roughly) a semester. It was easy for me bc I’d taught elementary and knew it wasn’t all sitting at a desk. 
You do have to keep attendance. Mostly I rely on a plan book where I plan what we do. I’d show that if anyone asked. But you do not need to keep track of what you do other than enough to write your quarterly reports. These can be as simple as science: nature walks, water cycle or math:pages 1-56.  You also report your total hours on the quarterly report. I write 250+ hours rather than an exact number. No one will ask for proof. 
 

[Idalou]

I am in NY. Since I had to send a letter of intent to the superintendent of my district, I decided to actually schedule a visit. However, I only made it to his secretary, lol. But she told me what type of things were needed, and how he wanted the quarterly reports documented. I honestly believe she is the one who reads my reports, but who cares. You can find horror stories of NY districts being just plain mean, so I am determined to stay on this person's good side and ask her any question that pops into my head.