Do you give your homeschooled child homework?

Question

Or is the actual homeschool day enough?

Answer 1

In most cases that I know of, "homework" is just independent work. Little kids only need an hour or two per day of academics. As they get older, many people will assign a certain amount of work, and if the kid is slacking instead of working, they have to make it up in their own time, so it become homework. Depending on the child, in their later high school years, most of what they do is homework because they are off writing essays, which require independent research not teaching.

The idea is that the child becomes more independent as time goes on. A five year old needs you to read to him. An 8 year old can read it himself but will benefit from having you close by to keep him on track and help him over the tricky bits. A 17 year old will probably do most work independently and come to you for assignments and evaluation. Though it is going to depend on the child and the curriculums you use.

Answer 2

My children are 10 and 8.  They do not get homework.  They may choose to read, study or work on a project "after hours", but just like working adults get to go home, they get the day off once our lessons are over.  I want them to have a natural love of learning, not despise it because it is forced upon them.  

I have serious issues with the public schools and the amount of homework that students receive, after being in the classroom for 7 or so hours a day.  It is too much for a child, and it leaves very little time for quality family time, free play, extra curricular activities, etc.

Answer 3

Well technically, if you are homeschooled, all of your work is homework.  If you mean, do you give your student work to do after your school day ends, in general, no.  Homeschooling parents do not have to spend time on classroom management or waiting for the slowest student to get concepts or worrying about teaching each concept several different ways to make sure everyone gets it.  

Therefore, homeschooling tends to be quicker than a regular classroom.  If a child is having trouble with something, you can give him or her extra help and make sure she gets it, right there in the moment.  If you are homeschooling for 4 or 5 hours a day, you should have plenty of time to make sure all major concepts are covered and pursue special interests too.  

Answer 4

I don't give homework unless I see one of my children being characterized by not paying attention or goofing off. If they have a bad day once in awhile-I let it go. So much time is "wasted" at school, that you won't need as much time to finish schoolwork at home.

Best of Luck!

Jana

http://www.purehomeschooling.com/

Answer 5

Why would home schooled children get homework?  Homework was the work that didn't get finished in school.  Most home school children finish their work as they go along.

Answer 6

No I don't do homework, but if she does not want to do her reading during school she will read a book at night and she calls it her homework.  She is in the 4th grade and does not like reading - she is good at it but just hates doing it durning the day so I don't mind if she reads before bed.

Answer 7

A friend of mine gets homework from her parents, and I think it's too much. She has daily lessons with her parents, which take up a couple hours each day, and then she has a couple hours of homework each day. She's burning out and doesn't realize it.

I don't see what's wrong with a little independent research, but I personally think that homework is a bit much. However, this largely depends on the age of the kid, the nature and amount of homework, and the nature of the average homeschool day. As far as I know, an advantage of homeschooling is that it really lets you get in to the meat of a subject with your kid or kids, and teach that efficiently. Homework is how a school tries to teach your kid after he's done wasting his time in school all day. Homeschoolers don't need that.

I support independent work, but not homework. To me, homework would be teaching a whole lesson on American history, and then giving your kid more workbook pages to complete. Independent study would be, for example, having a lesson once or twice a week and having your kid do research on his own and write some papers. The difference between the two is that in the latter, the research is how he learns new information, whereas in the former he's merely going over what he already did. Reinforcement is important, but homework isn't really necessary.

Sorry if this was incoherent.

Answer 8

We're unschoolers so, no, our parents never give us homework. Actually I've never heard of any home-ed kids getting homework unless you argue that every single thing they do is 'homework'.

(Altho. as you've probably realised by now, reading through the posts here, 'homeschool' is merely a generic term which covers a very broad church. Almost every family that homeschools will be doing it in their own way & no doubt doing it differently to everyone else.)

Personally, being unschoolers, our parents never give us any schoolwork to do, neither is there any such thing in our lives as an 'actual homeschool day' so there's no way they're ever going to start giving us any 'homework' to do*.

(*having home-educated their kids continuously and very successfully for the past twenty years (only another eighteen years left to go!) without any of that school-originated stuff such as homework, tests, formal lessons, schedules etc.)

However, if you go with Azazoth's definition of homework being independent study, then one could argue that everything we might choose to do (from a 'conventional schooling' pov) is 'homework', altho. we certainly would never call it that or think of it that way. In our family, whatever we might choose to do, whatever we might actually do is, first and foremost, done as independent study. For us kids, in my family, there are certainly no formal lessons and no parent acting as a schoolteacher telling us what to do and when to do it; rather my parents would tell you that life is our teacher and the world is our classroom.

So, to answer the question, I suppose I could just say: 'Life doesn't set homework!' (*grin*).

To me, this question reeks of someone who is labouring(mistakenly) under the belief that homeschooling means the recreation of the conventional school experience at home. In the vast majority of home-ed families, it doesn't; altho. it's not unusual for parents & kids to want to cling to all those 'school' concepts such as homework, tests, schedules and formal lessons when starting out in home-ed. If you/they have been to school such things as homework, lessons, tests, scedules are familiar, comforting and security-giving as school tends to indoctrinate people, by exposure, into believing that such things are somehow 'necessary' for a successful education. They're not; but it takes time for parents, as well as children, to 'deschool' and adjust to the different ethos of home-education.

Answer 9

This question shows a very 'schoolish' mentality. 'homework' is an invention of the school system, and a very bad one at that. After all the hours of school, parents, instead of being able to just relax and enjoy their children, have to 'make sure' that they do their homework.

All work in homeschooling is basically HOME work. And it should be enough

Answer 10

We cover the topics for the day, and go over new concepts, then everyone has a list of things to accomplish as far as the curriculum goes.  If we are learning a new concept in math, we do a few problems to make sure everyone understands the concept they are supposed to be working on.  If we are studying history, we may be making an art project or writing a paper.  For Latin, we often have coloring pages for the little ones, and a few translations or a computer game for the older ones.   I wouldn't call it homework exactly, but there is a certain amount of extra effort that they must put into learning and understanding.   I try really hard to make it as fun and exciting as possible so that they retain and enjoy learning about things.  

For history, we may be studying Rome, so we make a mosaic and plan and prepare a Roman Feast, or have a mock Roman Senate meeting, or read a story about the Roman conquerers.  We compare holidays and note the assimilation of other cultures, etc.  Sometimes they write papers, sometimes we listen to songs, go to concerts or plays or museums.  One of the best things about home schooling is that if a child becomes really interested in a particular topic, you can take as long as you like to learn more about it.  I often find myself doing this along with the children, and am still learning how much more there is to learn!

Answer 11

Homework in homeschooling is really pretty useless, unless it's from a once/twice a week co op class.

The main point of homework is that there just isn't enough time in a classroom of 30 kids to present the lesson, go through the disciplinary stuff, get the kids back on track (multiple times), teach each child to their level, give them a bit of practice so you know they've "got it" AND have them do the entire assignment.  It's just not possible.

In a homeschool situation though, that's completely possible.  When you're able to tailor the lesson to your child (or 2-3 kids), discuss with them to know that they've got it, and set them working, you're done in about 1/3 the time.  Through homeschooling, you can actually have them work through the material at a deeper level, understand it and be able to apply it, and have them work through the assignment in less time.

I give my co op students homework, as I have 1-2 hours with them per week; they have independent work on their days away from class.  They do have access to me by email, and if I had them every day, no, they wouldn't have homework - we'd do it all as a group.  I give my son independent research (as well as independent lessons in his stronger subjects), but once his lesson is done, he's done.

I guess you could say he either has all homework, or none, depending on your definition :)  It's done at home, but it's not the "overflow" from what we weren't able to get done in class - it's just his work for the day.

Hope that helps!

Answer 12

I was home schooled, and when we got a problem wrong, our homework was to fix it until we got it right, and we always showed our work on paper, no caculators.

Answer 13

Sometimes you should or at least pop quizzes just to make sure that the kid knows enough.