Busy, uninterested soon to be 7 yr old:) CM or not?

Are there books that he does enjoy listening to your read? I’m finding that as long as I choose books that capture my boys’ attention, they will ask for chapter after chapter of reading. Also, I would definitely make sure that during any reading time, you allow him to move around (within reason of course, since he has to be able to hear you!) But it would be a perfect time for him to build his legos while you read some short science, history, or literature to him.
I have found with my squirmy 6 year old, that the SHORT lessons of Delightful Handwriting are perfect for him. He can do it in 5 minutes and is excelling in his neatness. Even enjoying it!!
I would say the same for math…keep it simple, but moving forward, with short lessons.
As far as counting hours, I don’t have to do that in my state, so I have no personal experience, but I know many moms who count EVERYTHING as school, especially in those young years, in order to make the hours. Chore time, time with you outside or in the kitchen, field trips, co op time, etc, etc. Even listening to an audio book in the car can be counted for whichever subject that would fall under.
Also, just something that my mom keeps encouraging me to remember is that at 7 (1st-3rd grade) all the focus needs to be on learning to read, basic math, and learning to write well. Of course with CM you’ll want to start encouraging him to narrate more and more. But it can be simply and short and still effective.
And I don’t really know if any of this will be a help, but I thought I’d share my first thoughts that I would give one of my own friends trying to school an active 7 year old. 🙂

PS-My second son was a lot like this, and it did take lots of training, and re-training, to get him to understand that as much as he would rather be outside, he would have to learn to also sit and do enough school to be making forward progress. Today he is almost 9, finally reading chapter books of his own volition, and says handwriting is his favorite subject. (WHAT!! HOW did that happen??!!??)
I can only say that in my experience CM has actually helped my boys learn more and relax in our homeschool because of the interesting books (rather than boring, pointless workbooks) and short lessons.  Mine became very adverse to workbooks, except for the Math U See that we use, because they required them to actually sit longer, while with CM, they can be on the floor, or the couch, or quietly using their hands while I read to them. It’s been a blessing to us!

I’d second the having him listen to audiobooks or read-alouds while playing with Legos.

There can be an end in sight with CM lessons. You can use workbook-style math (we used Miquon, which is very hands-on), one page a day. We used Delightful Handwriting and at one new letter per day, and it was easy for my K’er with ADHD symptoms to know how much he needed to do. There’d be an end in sight with a short phonics/reading lesson too. You can always set a timer for a subject and tell him that when the timer goes off, he’s done with that subject. Kindergarten for us took 45-60 minutes. First grade is 60-75 minutes, split into a couple of sessions. My ADHD child’s attention span has definitely increased since the beginning of the year, just doing very short lessons and gradually increasing the length of them. I have no idea what all you can think of to creatively count for hours, but 5.5 hours of workbooks aren’t going to be very palatable for any 7 YO.

I didn’t read all the responses, but do you live in an area where he can play outside independently?  My 10YO son was often outside for hours at a time when he was 6 and 7.  He would do a little phonics, a little math, a little copywork, etc. – and a LOT of time outside.

Now that he’s a little older, he enjoys audiobooks, board games (esp. math-related ones), and challenging himself in math.

I wouldn’t worry so much about the hours.  Teach him, allow him some freedom, and don’t stifle his curiosity or his independent learning.  He’s young.  He’ll get there!

I honestly don’t know how you homeschool a 7YO for 1000 hours…unless you are very creative with how you count “hours”.  If you homeschooled him 180 days, which is a typical school year, that’s 5 1/2 hours a day!  Even if you homeschooled year-round (5 days a week, 48 weeks), it would still be more than 4 hours a day.

So, for a child that age, I would count free-play as “hours” – playing outside, collecting bugs, riding bikes, building with Legos, doing puzzles, etc.

So sorry that you have to deal with a community that is not homeschool friendly!

jawgee, I agree, it’s crazy to expect 1000 hrs for a 7 yr old, they are basing that off public school days, which we all know are full of transitions/down time/etc that aren’t actual teaching times.  A good portion have to be core hours too, so I can’t just count playing outside, or art, they need to fit in the core subjects.

Since we know that public school hours are full of wasted time and crowd management techniques, I would have absolutely no qualms counting those things as part of my homeschool.

How do they require you to track hours? Since public schools include crowd control, waiting for other students to finish their work, listening to lectures (that they usually tune out) watching movies with substitute teachers, etc. towards school hours, it’s only fair that you can count those things as well. So your son may be done with math, but you can’t move on until all of your children are done with math so all of that time counts as math instruction. That’s how the public school does it. The same goes for other subjects as well.

I would also play different learning audios for your son. Public schooled students do not get credit for the hours where they actually learn, only for the hours they are taught. In other words, even if he’s not listening, you can still count the time towards school hours. How many public schooled students are tuning their teachers out but still getting credit for being at school?

I would really spend some time researching how other homeschoolers in your state work around this law while still respecting the needs of young children.

Just an idea… I’ve heard of a mom who just considers 9 am – 2 pm “school hours” .  So basically that is their productive time but also includes lunch, snack, recess, waiting on other siblings etc…  That doesn’t sound as hard to me.  You could just have “educational” activities to give the 7 year old when waiting on someone else. Maybe even playdough or clay if he doesn’t like games. And I would definitely count some lego time !  If he stays in the vicinity when someone’s reading or listening to a book, it counts! Oh yeah, don’t forget life skills aka chores!