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Short lessons but long hour requirements??
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My daughter will be entering K next year (2011) and will be required by our state to have 875 hours of instruction per school year until grade 12. I am trying to figure out how to keep lessons and days short as CM recommends, but also fit in all of the required hours.
The best I’ve come up with so far is 34 weeks at 5 days/week (18 total weeks of breaks, year-round) but this requires almost 5.5 hours of instruction daily. I will also have two toddler boys (age 2 and 1) by then, so that makes for quite the crazy days.
Does anyone have better suggestions??
We are going into our 11th year homeschooling, so I can tell you for sure that learning takes place ALL the time, not just during school hours. Although we don’t have to keep track of hours like you do, when I started homeschooling I was stressed about this very thing.
Because you have to keep track, write down everything you do and “turn it into” teaching time, because it really is. When you all go outside, that’s nature study. When you bake something together, that’s chemistry and math. Grocery store trips becsome field trips (give her a list and have her help you find things at the store) .While the littles ones are playing or whatever you are doing, let your dd listen to a book on tape. That’s language arts/literature. That all “counts”. You get the idea…. You will be amazed at how easy it is to rack up those hours. And don’t discount what you do on the weekends…count those hours reading, visiting the library, etc.
Nanci
Which state do you live in, Mingorn? Don’t forget that in many places, you have to KEEP the records, but don’t have to show them to anyone. So you can set this up as you like. That means that YOU get to decide what is “school time”
Also, since the public schools don’t only count direct instructional time on reading, math, etc., then you don’t have to either. Public schools “count” standing in line, waiting for the teacher, etc. So you can count educational videos, free reading time, chore time, field trips, nature walks, visits to the library, telling Daddy about her day, piano practice, dance class, etc. Don’t think of “school time” as “sitting at a desk working on math and phonics” If you look at it this way, you won’t have as hard a time “meeting” the requirements.
I agree with the others. My state “requires” 900 or 920-I can’t even remember which. I never have to show that to anyone. I have a son that graduated last year, and I’ve never had to prove how long he worked. I hope your state only requires the time and not that you show it.
When I started, I used to keep track, but we hit 900 so soon I didn’t bother any more. I have no idea how much “instructional time” we have each year, but there’s no way it’s not enough.
Since you couldn’t keep kids from learning about their world if you tried, you’d be amazed how many hours of “school” they have a day. I guess it’s almost every waking moment.
If you do have to show it, though; try not to stress over it. I would say an estimate is good enough because of the things mentioned by Bookworm, like waiting for the teacher at public school.
Good luck
We live in Wisconsin, and while the state requires a certain number of hours we don’t have to turn anything in. They do recommend keeping records and I do keep track of what we do each day. If I ever did have to turn anything in I would do exactly what Nanci suggested as everything really is learning time. Our son is 11 and we’ve been doing this since he was 2 1/2. You’ll be fine!
Linda
Our last place we lived I did need to keep track of the hours (though not for K – wow that’s really young). It was a bit stressful, at first, but I did find, as the others said, that there was so much learned outside of “school” time. I could also list things that other people taught to my child, like the hour of Sunday School or hour of gymnastics and such. It takes some time to keep on top of it, but I just made a habit of writing down what we did for the day every day. I knew if I waited until the next day, I would forget!
Also, I never did use it, but someone recommended using Record of the Learning Lifestyle to keep track of what natural learning takes place every week. It looks like a great tool.
Joy
Thanks for all the encouragement and suggestions!! It’s good to think through all the other things that count toward schooling.
I don’t have to turn in lesson plans or anything and they don’t actually check to see if she’s getting her full number of hours, but I am a bit obsessive and I know I will want to have everything in writing. Thanks again for all the help!!
Mingorn another way to keep records is to do notebooking with your kids and lapbooks, I just started homeschooling my son this year, and learned about notebooking and lapbooks from another messageboard. There are some really great pages to use that go great with SCM and the modules, apologia science, and such. The last quarter of last year we did Thomas Edison, and his notebook has dividers one on famous people ie: presidents of that time, naval generals, etc, then there was vocab, art, copywork, etc. We also did a lapbook that he still gets out and looks at :). While I live in a state that doesn’t really have many rules for homeschooling I’m still concerned about the superintendant knocking at my door looking for proof 🙁 He lives down the street from me 🙁 But that may help with documenting:) I hope that helps a little, I also agree with what the others said, there is so many things that you can count. In my husbands words, just teach and stop over thinking things, it will be fine :O
I just moved from WI. 🙂 I can help you with this. For K, it is not a required grade, so don’t even worry about it this year. Compulsory age is 6, or 1st grade usually. You do not have to show anyone either, so you will be fine. Use church/sunday school time as religion class, do what some of the others suggested (nature study is anytime you’re outdoors, or PE class, etc). You will easily rack up those hours. Even a K’er in half days (remember most are half-days for grade K, so that hour requirement does not apply – and again, it’s not a required grade-level, so they don’t even need to know you’re hs’ing yet) can rack up that many hours. When you’re ready for 1st grade next year, you will have so much practice getting those hours, you will barely notice when you pass it long before the last day of your schoolyear.
ETA: Forgot to mention, you can also use chores, etc as “home ec” class. Cooking, folding clothes, picking up, cleaning, gardening, learning to sew, etc – all of that I used as home ec. You can REALLY rack up those hours quickly by counting these types of things! LOL Piano lessons are music class. Don’t think you have to get those 875 hours just from those 6 core subjects they make you teach (again, in 1st-12th). I hope all this is helping!
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