How many hours a day do you homeschool your children?

Question

I think I tend to overdo work with my 1st and 3rd graders. I was wondering how much time do others take to teach their children?

Answer 1

When I first started I over did it too. We burnt out fast and the results were disappointing. I was so gung ho and I thought I knew my child's grade level. I was wrong. she was behind quite a bit, so the work I was giving her was too difficult and took forever to complete. I noticed that we were completing alot of worksheets but she was retaining almost nothing. I backed off and now she gets time to process and learn at a more relaxed pace. Now the hours we spend are dictated by the subject and how much focus it requires. She is 10 and still needs to move and take breaks frequently.

Answer 2

My 3rd grader finishes all of her assignments in 3-4 hours. My kindergartner about 1 hour. It depends on the patience level for both of us as to how long it will last some days it's only a few minutes. But I'm happy to get him that long the rest of the day I have him exploring blocks and play dough.

Answer 3

I spend about 6 hours a day with my 5th grader, including seatwork, reading, read-alouds, experiments, projects, and research (book or internet).  Beyond that, he often chooses to do extra work on something that he's interested in (Scout badge work, a play that he's working on, etc.).

In first grade, your seatwork really shouldn't take any more than an hour or so.  A child that young isn't developmentally ready for any more than that.  American Mommy, you can't honestly tell us that your students do seatwork for 4 1/2 hours straight; this time surely includes your teaching time, any transition time, reading, and center time.  In the same way, you really can't expect a homeschool student, who doesn't have the distractions of a classroom, to sit down at age 6 and work for 4 1/2 hours.  (My parents are elementary teachers, and have been since before I was born.  I've worked in their classrooms and I know for a fact that there is plenty of down time during that 4 1/2 hours.)

In third grade, I would say 2-3 hours of seatwork.

The rest of the time can be taken up with science experiments, read alouds, building models, cooking or baking something that goes along with what you're studying, and field trips.  All of these are just as much "school" as the seatwork, as they help a child to apply and process what they're learning.  The goal is to make sure your children understand and can apply what they've learned, not to make sure that they get through the workbook by May :-)  That's what throws a lot of homeschool parents off - trying to make sure they've finished everything, resulting in pushing their kids through.  

Hope that helps!

Answer 4

I spend 1-2 hours homeschooling my first grader and he is at or above grade level in reading and math.  He knows a bunch about science and history, but it is hard to compare in those areas because different topics can be taught at different times.

2 hours a day should be plenty, if you add to that reading, nature walks, projects, field trips, activities and learning through the course of daily life.

Answer 5

I wouldn't burn young kids out.

I'd let them free draw for an hour to so.

I'd let them play games for 45 minutes to so later on.  Anything they want to.

One nice thing to do is sit down together and watch something like Where in the World is Carmen Santiago.

Then discuss it.

Kids today are horrible at geography

Answer 6

I don't home school my child nor will I, but I have worked in a school for 7 years. They should be doing amount of work the children in public school are doing. If you minus lunch and "Special" your looking at around 4- 41/2 hours of work. I hope your children are getting some kind of out side socialization. It's healthy for them to interactive with peers.

*Yes children do, they have 6 hours days, with attendance,lunch and special activity removed it leaves with 41/2 hrs. Just like I said.*

Answer 7

My son is now in 2nd grade, and I spend about 3 hours a day homeschooling him.  Last year, when he was in 1st grade, we spent about 1 to 1 1/2 hours doing formal "seatwork."  We accomplish a great deal in this amount of time.

Answer 8

little ones, like 4-6 need intervals and breaks, or do it all at once and get it done with incentives, like you will be done soon, or if you do your work, you can have 30 extra mintues before nap. etc. forolder, like pre-teen, early teen, i do from 9-12 and then 1- around 5, or when i finish up all the stuff to be done

Answer 9

I have an underachieving and unmotivated 10th grader.  He does about 3 hours of assignments but he learns much by watching videos, listening to audio and by doing things.

I work in the public school so I don't get stressed out when he does not get in the 3 hours of work.    If we have a day that is just not productive, I count it as a pep rally day,  a substitute teacher day, or a movie day.    

YSN-  love your remark about the stereotype idea of homeschooling.    It takes all my energy and time to iron all my denim jumpers and to  protect my child from contact with human beings. (smile)

Answer 10

i do 4 hrs

Answer 11

Well, I guess that technically, every waking hour is homeschooling. :)

If you mean formal sit-down time: my 7yo son is about 30 minutes, with him free to explore all kinds of things on his own--look through science books, do art or music, we might do a science experiment, read a story, he might play for hours outside... A local principal here told a homeschooling mom that grade 1 children should not spend more than an average of an hour per day on sit-down work. The reason being that they usually need to move more, need more creative stuff. I've taught in a grade 1 class and so much of it is colouring this image that goes with the work being done and cutting this thing out for science and glueing it to that sheet and listening to story time and waiting for everybody to be ready... At-home learning is usually more focused and intense.

For my 10yo, we have a 3-hour block in the morning for work time. She doesn't necessarily do focused work the whole 3 hours, but that's her primary work time.

But I consider our more relaxed afternoons part of our homeschooling since there's all kinds of learning that goes on informally. So, add into that field trips, lessons, trips to the library or other activities that get scheduled usually in the afternoons. Our homeschool time could be considered to be from 8am-4pm, except even then, we might do reading or they might do art or even decide to do math after supper. There's a lot of l

And in response to the person who said that kids should be getting 4 hours of work. Elementary kids in school don't get 4 hours of work on a typical day due to lots of waiting time, listening time, getting ready time, etc., so there's no need for it at home, unless it's what you really want (some programs, like Sonlight, take that long because there's so much reading that goes on).

Answer 12

At least 4 hours per day. At age 5 and 6 my son was speedy to do all his work and he loved it. We not only had book work we included cooking as learning... also we went out and explored the world. I'd say no more than 6 hours per day.

Depends on your kids and how well they listen and complete their assignments though.

Answer 13

I do school about 5 and a half hours a day. You can always do short school days and then let them play outside, read books, do crafts, and they will be learning with out even knowing it.

Answer 14

Like some of the others indicated, the younger the child, the less time they will be able to pay attention for.  I don't agree that it should be comparable to the amount of time that would be spent in a school day, because much of that time is spent trying to organize and manage behavior of a diverse group of kids.  Also, if a school teacher were able to sit down one-on-one with each student, the actual teaching time required would be very small.  Think about how many different things are done during a school day in addition to waiting for kids to line up, get out supplies, take bathroom breaks, recesses, lunches, read or do other silent work while the teacher works with a smaller group, etc.

You want to work with them long enough to help them get the concepts you're covering without letting them get bored or frustrated (not that occasional boredom or frustration isn't constructive, but you know what I mean).  Many families choose to homeschool specifically to keep their children interested and enthusiastic about learning, and eliminating unneccesary busy work is essential.  Why not take advantage of the flexibility of homeschooling to do this?

As others mentioned, very little sit down work is necessary as long as your kids are doing lots of other stimulating things.  My family is flexible and eclectic, and leans toward unschooling, but that doesn't mean that we do no formal work.  A few of the things that you can include as schoolwork are: cooking, science experiments, silent reading, educational computer games, watching educational shows (lots of good ones on the history and science channels), reading aloud to you, or you reading aloud to them, sewing, drawing, crafts, etc.

Kids need free time to play, and if they don't have unlimited TV or computer game time, they will usually fill a good bit of their time with constructive activity.  They are learning from everything they do!

Give yourself and them permission to have fun while learning, and not to think of it all as work, or as something forced.

Answer 15

My son gets in about 15 minutes every other Saturday if we are not busy plowing the fields, canning vegetables or slaughtering hogs.

Just joking!  Sorry for the flippant answer - not directed at you, the Asker.

The answer that uses public school as a benchmark does not understand homeschooling nor do they understand the actual learning time that takes place within the public school system.

From the 4.5 hours one must also subtract administrative interruptions, student disruptions, time between classes, startup time for each classroom (attendance, taking up assignments, providing make-up work to absentee students, various other paper work duties that happen throughout the year (particularly at the beginning of a year), etc.)

I'll look for stats but my guess based on experience is closer to 3 hours of actual teaching / learning per day.

Nor can you compare the time needs of educating 20 - 30 kids en-mass to educating a child or two or three.  It is like comparing apples to oranges.

To your question: We also over-did our first year.  We set a full day schedule and stuck to it.   I think we literally covered 2 ps-years in a single year and boy were we whooped afterwards.

We have learned to relax even though our son's curriculum is more rigorous (college prep) and we have come to realize and appreciate the "unintended" learning that goes on by supporting and encouraging the independent pursuit of various interests.

If you think you are tending to overdo it then you probably are!