Does a 3-Hour Uninterrupted Work Period Make Sense When Homeschooling? Part II

Let’s put all of this together and look at a couple of homeschool scenarios.  Keeping in mind that every family is unique and the whole point of homeschooling is taking into account your children’s learning styles and needs, here are some questions to consider first:

1.      Are you going to do the bulk of your teaching in the morning, afternoon, or evening?

This may seem like a silly question, but maybe your 4-year-old simply isn’t a morning person?  It happens.  Perhaps you have animal chores that must be done daily in the morning.  Maybe the parent who is teaching penmanship is only available in the evenings.  One caution is that you do not plan on doing things in the afternoon or evening, only to have it not happen at all.  Another consideration is that once you decide on a time, it should be consistent throughout the week.  Morning one day, afternoon the next, back to a morning, then maybe an evening... that is not a routine for a child.  Each day should be roughly the same for a child to begin to understand what a span of time feels like.

2.      How much off-site activity do you plan on doing?

This can be especially problematic with more than one child.  Being able to coordinate activities that are interesting and relevant to everyone is magical, but rare.  A homeschool enrichment program can often provide options for multiple ages and interests at one location.  I would recommend having at least four days a week when you are home with everyone at the same time of day to do schoolwork.  Those days become your opportunity for 3-hour work periods.  (I know some families are able to work out a system where one child’s off-site activities provide the other child their one-on-one time with teacher – if this works for you, great!  Just be aware that packing everyone up in the car to get one child to a destination is disruptive for everyone.  Can you do work with the other child at the same or nearby place?  Do you have activities/works that are easily portable?)

3.      How many students do you have?

If you are only homeschooling one child, it is pretty easy to spontaneously teach a new skill or lesson when it is needed.  But if you have 2-5 children you are homeschooling, you will need to figure out a schedule or routine that takes into account independent work time and time-with-teacher time for everyone.

Everyone will have their own answers for the above questions.  Those answers may even change from year to year.  Keeping that in mind, I would suggest a few strategies that should work for everyone.

Define your work period – and call it work!  “Time for everyone to get to work!” is a great way to get started.  It will take a few weeks for everyone to know their routine within that structure, but children like the comfort of knowing what is expected of them (and know they are capable of fulfilling those expectations).  Perhaps your 9-year-old helps you with preparing breakfast while your 7-year-old gets the table set and your 5-year-old feeds the dog and the hamster.  These are tasks that can be rotated.  Then after breakfast cleanup, maybe your 9-year-old helps your 5-year-old review addition facts while you give a lesson to your 7-year-old.  Then your two youngest children work on penmanship exercises while you give a lesson to the oldest.  Notice that your “work day” started with some practical life activities and flowed into academics.  Notice also, that the work day started for everyone, including you (we both know that your work day actually started well before this, but from your child’s perspective that other stuff doesn’t count!).

Think about brain breaks.  These count as work period activities if you do them right!  For a young child it might be working with playdough, washing a window or table, or sorting and putting away silverware from the dishwasher.  For an older child it might be coloring a map, silent reading, or collecting and sorting leaves by shape.  Time for a snack?  Have a system that allows your children to prepare their snacks as independently as possible.  Maybe it is just a matter of taking some work outside that is normally done inside.

Communicate priorities.  Just because you insist that certain works must be done every day does not mean that you are eliminating your child’s Choice.  In my classroom, 4-year-olds are expected to do at least one math work and one language work every day.  By the end of the school year, they are expected to do one math, one phonics, and one penmanship activity each day.  They get to choose what work they want to do – for math, addition or subtraction?  Golden Beads?  Counting to 100?  By requiring certain work to be done each day, you are letting your children know that those skills are important to you and important for them.  They also get to choose the order in which they do their activities.  Those three works do not take anywhere near three hours to complete – they should be 15-20-minute activities each.  That means that the rest of their work period is Practical Life, Sensorial, gross/fine motor development, etc. – all Choice.

Have a concrete stopping point.  This can be defined by answering the question, “What did you finish today?”  Your child should be able to tell you what was accomplished over the last three hours.  Beginning at age five or six, you may even have a physical daily work plan or checklist.  If you do, be sure to involve your child in its creation; at the beginning of each week have a quick meeting to make sure everyone knows what will be going on each day that week.  I have even included new lesson opportunities – you tell your child that s/he gets to learn a new activity with the Golden Beads this week, which day would s/he like to do that?  It can then be written into the work plan for that day.  (Having a daily work plan also helps with record-keeping and checking forward progress!)

I think a 3-hour (maybe 2.5-hour) work period is a good idea in a homeschool setting, but I would never expect that to manifest as a three-hour-nose-to-the-grindstone academic focus-fest.  Of course, the older your child gets, the longer the lesson activities become and the nature of Practical Life activities and brain breaks changes.  But the foundational organization of time becomes a routine that helps your child develop time management skills, good work habits, and goal-setting for success.