How Many Hours Do You Home School Your 1st Or 2nd Grader?
By KristinN, on February 18th, 2010
Readers Forum:
He is 7 and currently in a public school he is reading on a 3rd grade level and he loves math addition subtraction and multiplication! I want to home school but need more info on other parents day. Is it scheduled?
My six year old is reading at about a grade 2 level. He schools four days a week from about 9:00-10:30. Sometimes we go a little later but we are rarely as late as 11:00. That’s more than enough time to cover all of the subjects. My kids do the same science and social but their L.A. and Math are geared to their age. If you’re worried about scheduling, look at this link:http://www.sonlight.com/
My kids love this program. It’s especially great if your family loves literature.
After the “schooling” is done, we usually spend the afternoon outside or on outings. This week, we’ve gone on a hike, visited a senior’s home (we do that monthly, with a group of homeschoolers), and gone swimming at a hotel with a water slide. Tomorrow or Friday, we’re going to go to the woods to find things for the kids to put in their nature journals. They get to do so much more, and they are leaning so much more as well. I found out yesterday that my four year old can name almost twenty five different local birds! That alone makes it worth it for me.
EDIT: I just wanted to add…the only real negative I’ve experienced is that my housework sometimes suffers. Many people get their housework done while their kids are away at school. My kids are here with all of their glue and paint and glitter and leaves and pencil shavings and what not. We resolved that by having daily twenty minute tidy ups and mass cleaning on Saturday mornings. Everyone helps.
My five yr old is currently using a first grade curriculum and reads on a second grade level. We homeschool for 1 1/2 – 3 hours a day, depending if he has any difficulty with his lessons. If we go any longer than that I loose his interest.
When my kids were that age we spent about 1.5 hrs/day on school. My sister had told me that kindergarten would take about an hr and that I’d add 15-30 minutes each year, and that turned out to be correct in those early elementary years. The day would be longer if we did an extensive science experiment, and of course I am not including time spent in PE or music or art when it was done outside of the home with other hs’ers.
My son is technically grade 2. Hours? How about minutes? lol. He reads with me, does some cursive work and math work (usually takes up about 30 minutes), and then he’s free to do as he wishes. He tends to spend at least an hour or so looking through books–ranging from Garfield to science books (he’s not reading fluently yet, so anything with great pictures, which often leads to great discussions)–and he might draw or colour or spend time doing physical stuff outside or playing one of the various musical instruments around our house, or play with GeoMags or one of the little science kits. Most of his free time is play.
My goal with him is to have my personal needs for his education met (reading, writing and math) and then ‘push’ him reasonably. He’s still very young and a typical youngest-in-the-family boy. As he ages, he’s able to spend more time on things, but I hope to never reach a point where I say, “You HAVE to spend 3 hours doing work…” We are very flexible and work to meet each others’ needs–and his personal primary need seems to be to move and create. 🙂
It is really up to you (and your personality). I homeschool my children and my sister also homeschool’s her own children. She has a schedule that is just as regimented as a public school day (or worse: there are chores involved). My household is very relaxed. We do our school every day but is is not dictated by the clock. My children are in 2nd & 3rd grade. They probably spend 1 1/2 – 2 hours a day on seat work (math, handwriting, language, phonics) and then we spend some more time all 3 together doing science, & history. There is also independent reading. You can easily get it done before lunch if you are scheduled just a little bit.
I think it depends on the child, how he/she learns, the length of his/her attention span, etc. When my son was in 1st grade, we formally schooled for about one to two hours per day. He is now in 2nd grade, and the amount of time we homeschool varies. My son is a gifted child and likes to explore a lot. Sometimes when it’s time for school to be completed for the day, he is still reading, still on the computer, etc. Our formal homeschool time is still the same, anywhere from one to three hours daily, but he is learning even when we are not formally schooling.
I hope this is helpful.
I currently homeschool a K and 2nd grader. We average 2-3 hours per day. I use a loose schedule with Bible, Math, and Language Arts in the morning. I use a unit studies program called KONOS and this is what we do in the afternoon along with their quiet reading time. Having an idea of what we will accomplish each day works well enough for us, others prefer a more stringent schedule. You have to choose what works best for your family. It is wonderful that your son has a love for math. Teaching him at home would allow you to nurture that love and encourage him to go further than his “grade level” would allow.
I schedule myself to the best of my ability. I spend approximately 1 1/2 hour of actual instruction, and it takes my 2nd grade son approx. 3 hours /4 days a week to complete his work. ( After they are used to the routine, they really tend to do it themselves.) I like to get it done in the morning. I have a 2nd grader and a 5th grader…Here is a sample of what we do: (PS i have several different curriculum’s that I pull from and we do Abeka for reading, math, history, science, and health)
BIble (20 min)
Grammar (30 min) We do these together, as the grammar curriculum I use is working for both kids
Then, I get my 5th grader situated with her work for the day and she starts her stuff on her own while I do my son’s Science, History and Health (This takes usually all of 30 min unless he wants to do a science experiment, which I usually have him do later in the kitchen while I am in there. And he has now finished these 3 subjects for the year.
Then I go through his work for the rest of the day and He is on his own. Occasionally, I will ask him the comprehension questions in his reading book to make sure he gets it.
He shows me his work when he is done and I check it. After I send him off to do on his own, I focus on the 5th graders math and any other questions or special things we need to go over. We usually start at 9:00 am and are done by Noon, and they are done with me!!!
I know that doesn’t sound like much time considering that they are in school for 7-8 hours, but when you factor in all the time it takes to go to lunch, have snack, line up several times to go different places, recess, unpack for the day, pack up to leave for the day. get ready for the next subject and general transition, a lot of time spent at school is idle.
Hope this helps and Good luck!
I do keep a schedule but I keep it flexible. I try not to go past 3-3 ½ hours a day for my 8 year old. That is more then enough with plenty of small breaks in between to let him go jump and play. Look you are the school now. Relax and let your son finally take the lead. You will know by his body language, attitude etc if he has had enough. Try not to spend more then 20-30 minutes per subject depending on the subject and if he enjoys it etc. Good luck to you and keep asking those questions!
Here is my schedule for my son (8), but again very flexible:
Daily:
Bible Reading (10 min) Pledge, Calendar, Sing a song
Monday:
Math, English, Reading, Penmanship, World History, Art
Tuesday:
Math, Spelling, Penmanship, World History, Science
Wednesday:
Math, English, Reading, Penmanship, Biblical History, Music lesson
Thursday:
Spelling, Reading, Geography, Art, Park day
Friday:
Math, English, Reading, Biblical History, Science
For my daughter (4) she sits in on Science, World History, Biblical History and Geography (I have to add here that she wanted to sit with us so now it has become part of her curriculum and she really has learned a lot by just sitting and listening and now I ask her question and she answers. She amazes everyday!) and daily we run through ABC, math and such. We spend max about 20-30 minutes total on her personal school.
home schooling is not scheduled. you can homeschool you son for as long as you want . it really just depends on how much school you give him and how long it takes him to Finnish
I never scheduled any classwork for my kids at that age. Sometimes field trips were planned ahead of time, or social gatherings.
I really enjoyed unschooling, because you just go with the flow. When a someone is interested in a topic, it is usually infectious and we all want to learn more and more. It all depends on the topic how we react, what field trips to take, books to read, or other activities.
Now that my kids are older (ending high school), we schedule a bit more, because we they do so much on their own. I have my life and they have theirs, at times when we need to work on something together, we schedule it.
😀
keeping a regular schdule is good. you may want to do normal school hours with the sma eamount of breaks. take an hour for each subject, have one or two recess, lunch, more subjects. the good thing is you can make this flexible.
My six year old is reading at about a grade 2 level. He schools four days a week from about 9:00-10:30. Sometimes we go a little later but we are rarely as late as 11:00. That’s more than enough time to cover all of the subjects. My kids do the same science and social but their L.A. and Math are geared to their age. If you’re worried about scheduling, look at this link:http://www.sonlight.com/
My kids love this program. It’s especially great if your family loves literature.
After the “schooling” is done, we usually spend the afternoon outside or on outings. This week, we’ve gone on a hike, visited a senior’s home (we do that monthly, with a group of homeschoolers), and gone swimming at a hotel with a water slide. Tomorrow or Friday, we’re going to go to the woods to find things for the kids to put in their nature journals. They get to do so much more, and they are leaning so much more as well. I found out yesterday that my four year old can name almost twenty five different local birds! That alone makes it worth it for me.
EDIT: I just wanted to add…the only real negative I’ve experienced is that my housework sometimes suffers. Many people get their housework done while their kids are away at school. My kids are here with all of their glue and paint and glitter and leaves and pencil shavings and what not. We resolved that by having daily twenty minute tidy ups and mass cleaning on Saturday mornings. Everyone helps.
My five yr old is currently using a first grade curriculum and reads on a second grade level. We homeschool for 1 1/2 – 3 hours a day, depending if he has any difficulty with his lessons. If we go any longer than that I loose his interest.
When my kids were that age we spent about 1.5 hrs/day on school. My sister had told me that kindergarten would take about an hr and that I’d add 15-30 minutes each year, and that turned out to be correct in those early elementary years. The day would be longer if we did an extensive science experiment, and of course I am not including time spent in PE or music or art when it was done outside of the home with other hs’ers.
My son is technically grade 2. Hours? How about minutes? lol. He reads with me, does some cursive work and math work (usually takes up about 30 minutes), and then he’s free to do as he wishes. He tends to spend at least an hour or so looking through books–ranging from Garfield to science books (he’s not reading fluently yet, so anything with great pictures, which often leads to great discussions)–and he might draw or colour or spend time doing physical stuff outside or playing one of the various musical instruments around our house, or play with GeoMags or one of the little science kits. Most of his free time is play.
My goal with him is to have my personal needs for his education met (reading, writing and math) and then ‘push’ him reasonably. He’s still very young and a typical youngest-in-the-family boy. As he ages, he’s able to spend more time on things, but I hope to never reach a point where I say, “You HAVE to spend 3 hours doing work…” We are very flexible and work to meet each others’ needs–and his personal primary need seems to be to move and create. 🙂
It is really up to you (and your personality). I homeschool my children and my sister also homeschool’s her own children. She has a schedule that is just as regimented as a public school day (or worse: there are chores involved). My household is very relaxed. We do our school every day but is is not dictated by the clock. My children are in 2nd & 3rd grade. They probably spend 1 1/2 – 2 hours a day on seat work (math, handwriting, language, phonics) and then we spend some more time all 3 together doing science, & history. There is also independent reading. You can easily get it done before lunch if you are scheduled just a little bit.
We’re unschoolers. So we don’t teach at all, but we learn every minute of the day.
I think it depends on the child, how he/she learns, the length of his/her attention span, etc. When my son was in 1st grade, we formally schooled for about one to two hours per day. He is now in 2nd grade, and the amount of time we homeschool varies. My son is a gifted child and likes to explore a lot. Sometimes when it’s time for school to be completed for the day, he is still reading, still on the computer, etc. Our formal homeschool time is still the same, anywhere from one to three hours daily, but he is learning even when we are not formally schooling.
I hope this is helpful.
I currently homeschool a K and 2nd grader. We average 2-3 hours per day. I use a loose schedule with Bible, Math, and Language Arts in the morning. I use a unit studies program called KONOS and this is what we do in the afternoon along with their quiet reading time. Having an idea of what we will accomplish each day works well enough for us, others prefer a more stringent schedule. You have to choose what works best for your family. It is wonderful that your son has a love for math. Teaching him at home would allow you to nurture that love and encourage him to go further than his “grade level” would allow.
I schedule myself to the best of my ability. I spend approximately 1 1/2 hour of actual instruction, and it takes my 2nd grade son approx. 3 hours /4 days a week to complete his work. ( After they are used to the routine, they really tend to do it themselves.) I like to get it done in the morning. I have a 2nd grader and a 5th grader…Here is a sample of what we do: (PS i have several different curriculum’s that I pull from and we do Abeka for reading, math, history, science, and health)
BIble (20 min)
Grammar (30 min) We do these together, as the grammar curriculum I use is working for both kids
Then, I get my 5th grader situated with her work for the day and she starts her stuff on her own while I do my son’s Science, History and Health (This takes usually all of 30 min unless he wants to do a science experiment, which I usually have him do later in the kitchen while I am in there. And he has now finished these 3 subjects for the year.
Then I go through his work for the rest of the day and He is on his own. Occasionally, I will ask him the comprehension questions in his reading book to make sure he gets it.
He shows me his work when he is done and I check it. After I send him off to do on his own, I focus on the 5th graders math and any other questions or special things we need to go over. We usually start at 9:00 am and are done by Noon, and they are done with me!!!
I know that doesn’t sound like much time considering that they are in school for 7-8 hours, but when you factor in all the time it takes to go to lunch, have snack, line up several times to go different places, recess, unpack for the day, pack up to leave for the day. get ready for the next subject and general transition, a lot of time spent at school is idle.
Hope this helps and Good luck!
I do keep a schedule but I keep it flexible. I try not to go past 3-3 ½ hours a day for my 8 year old. That is more then enough with plenty of small breaks in between to let him go jump and play. Look you are the school now. Relax and let your son finally take the lead. You will know by his body language, attitude etc if he has had enough. Try not to spend more then 20-30 minutes per subject depending on the subject and if he enjoys it etc. Good luck to you and keep asking those questions!
Here is my schedule for my son (8), but again very flexible:
Daily:
Bible Reading (10 min) Pledge, Calendar, Sing a song
Monday:
Math, English, Reading, Penmanship, World History, Art
Tuesday:
Math, Spelling, Penmanship, World History, Science
Wednesday:
Math, English, Reading, Penmanship, Biblical History, Music lesson
Thursday:
Spelling, Reading, Geography, Art, Park day
Friday:
Math, English, Reading, Biblical History, Science
For my daughter (4) she sits in on Science, World History, Biblical History and Geography (I have to add here that she wanted to sit with us so now it has become part of her curriculum and she really has learned a lot by just sitting and listening and now I ask her question and she answers. She amazes everyday!) and daily we run through ABC, math and such. We spend max about 20-30 minutes total on her personal school.
So there you have it…my home school day!
home schooling is not scheduled. you can homeschool you son for as long as you want . it really just depends on how much school you give him and how long it takes him to Finnish
I never scheduled any classwork for my kids at that age. Sometimes field trips were planned ahead of time, or social gatherings.
I really enjoyed unschooling, because you just go with the flow. When a someone is interested in a topic, it is usually infectious and we all want to learn more and more. It all depends on the topic how we react, what field trips to take, books to read, or other activities.
Now that my kids are older (ending high school), we schedule a bit more, because we they do so much on their own. I have my life and they have theirs, at times when we need to work on something together, we schedule it.
😀
keeping a regular schdule is good. you may want to do normal school hours with the sma eamount of breaks. take an hour for each subject, have one or two recess, lunch, more subjects. the good thing is you can make this flexible.