Tag: homeschooling

Why the Homeschool Day Is So Much Shorter Than a Typical School Day
How long is a typical homeschool day and how does it compare with the hours of a day in public school? Many parents, new to homeschooling, wrongly assume that they should homeschool for the same length of time as their public school counterparts.

In general, a homeschool day is much shorter than that of a traditional school. But this shorter school day doesn’t mean that less is getting done. In fact, homeschoolers can often achieve more in less time than public school students.

This truth is how BookShark can offer a robust and challenging homeschool curriculum that takes only four days a week. In the homeschool setting, you simply don’t require as much time.

Is There an Average Homeschool Day?

Some homeschoolers tout the expression “done by noon” as one of the benefits of homeschooling. This may or may not be the case for your own homeschool depending on the number of children in your family, outside activities, your natural pace, and how old your children are.

The beauty of homeschooling is that you can cater it—your routine, your curriculum, and your methods—to the unique needs of your kids and your family! Homeschool moms have the advantage of being in nearly full control of their homeschool schedule.
- Not morning people? Then you might not start your homeschool day until afternoon.
- Diligent early birds with young children, on the other hand, might have their work complete before brunch.
- Other families may like to take long breaks in between each subject, taking all day to complete their work but in an enjoyable and leisurely fashion.
Typically, students in elementary grades get their work completed in a fairly quick amount of time, often hitting that “done by noon” standard if they started the day early. Of course, the workload increases as children mature. So a middle schooler or high schooler will need to spend more hours on school work. Outside activities such as co-ops, field trips, doctor appointments, therapy and library visits can interrupt and lengthen your homeschool day, too.

In short, the average homeschool day varies greatly from family to family. But it is typically much shorter than the school day of a traditional classroom.

The Homeschool Day vs. a Typical School Day

Take a moment to consider all the classroom management teachers deal with! While all these tasks are necessary based on the setting, they aren’t directly related to learning. Teachers have to juggle:
- 20-30 kids per classroom
- individual and unique needs for each chile
- keeping the classroom organized
- roll call
- class disruptions
- redirecting students and keeping them on task
- bathroom breaks
- lunch break
- hand raising
- discipline issues
- standardized testing and preparations
- emergency drills
All these requirements cause teachers to lose important teaching time. Homeschoolers may have many these issues to contend with as well, but they are equipped to handle them much more quickly and efficiently because of the drastically lower student to teacher ratio.

As you become a more experienced homeschooler, you will gain a sense of the right amount of time for your school day. Remember your day will still be shorter than a typical public school day. And that’s one of the big perks of homeschooling! Enjoy it!

The flexibility of homeschooling allows you to cater the learning experience to your child’s unique needs and interests without the loss of teaching time. That means more time for the extras you love!

About the Author

I’m Erin, an introverted homeschooling mom to two intense extroverted kids. We are child led with a heavy emphasis on read alouds, games, art, nature hikes, and hands-on everything! My kids just learn better when they can use their hands. You can find me at Nourishing My Scholar.

We traded the hustle and bustle of city life for the quiet that only farm life can provide. This creates a wonderful environment for our children, complete with chickens, goats, ducks, and cows. I’m a huge fan of Harry Potter and Gilmore Girls. When we’re not homeschooling, you’ll find me curled up with a cup of coffee and a good book or possibly enjoying a random dance party in the front yard to the newest Disney soundtrack.
03/19/2025
4 Ways a Boxed Homeschool Curriculum Is Great for Boys

Don’t give up the ease of laid out lesson plans which a boxed homeschool curriculum provides because you have active boys. Here are four ways that a boxed curriculum turns out to be a very boy-friendly option.

1. Hands-On Activities

There is no one size fits all solution for boys. However, one thing most young boys have in common is the need to wiggle. Because a boxed curriculum eased my teacher prep time, I had leisure to look plan and add activities for wiggly learners.

For example, when reading Where the Wild Things Are, I made paper bag puppets with three of my sons.The puppets brought the story to life and helped my boys remember the plot.

The instructions for a scheduled reading worksheet was to write in the words with the long /e/ sound. Knowing my boys’ aversion to writing, I had them write the words on balloons instead of filling out the worksheet. That one little twist made the activity more fun fo them. We blew up the balloons and the boys spent the rest of the afternoon batting them about while memorizing words with the long /e/ sound.

2. Masculine Writing Topics

When teaching my boys writing, it took more teacher effort to unleash their writing creativity. Video games, sports, technology and plain old silly things are not topics that always fall into the realm of what most teachers feel are writing-worthy.

Struggling to teach beginning writing, I didn’t have to give up the teacher support in the boxed curriculum when the writing topic didn’t engage my boys.

I could easily substitute a boy-friendly writing topic and still teach the different writing genres presented in the lesson plan each day.

3. A Dose of Competition

Grammar is not only about rules but about listening and using good speech every day. Knowing that my boxed curriculum had well laid out, sequential lesson plans, I could focus on creating engaging activities for my boys.

Instead of studying grammar on their own, the most effective tool was to do grammar together and orally. For my older boys, who are close in age, we made learning grammar a game. Following the teacher’s manual, I explained to the boys what they were learning for the day. As they repeated back to me what they learned, they scored points. At the end of the week, I let them dip into a treasure chest I kept full of surprises from the dollar store.

Taking boys’ natural desire for healthy competition made learning come alive.

If it looked like the competition was moving from helpful to harmful, I would change the game to a simple hide and seek indoor game. I would write words or grammar rules on index cards and hide them around the house. Each of my boys, including my younger son had an equal chance to find the cards. Boys are all about racing with each other, and this method worked too.

I never felt that I wasted the worksheets because I could use them later for a quick review or used half of them to reinforce what they were learning.

The peace of mind that I was covering grammar well was more important to me than a few pages that my boys didn’t do.

4. Independent Learning for High School

When my boys were young was not the only time I used stress-reducing boxed curriculum. My husband fell very ill one year, and I could not sit down with my high school son to plan his next year. By that time, my son liked predictable schedules and thrived on routine.

Pulling out the boxed curriculum, my teen could follow the clear cut guidelines to know what was expected of him each day as I spent time in the ICU with my husband.

Knowing what my high school son had to do each day and that he was progressing to graduation lightened my load at a time when I was stretched thin. More importantly, my son graduated with excellent grades and a love of learning was stimulated and not stifled by a boxed curriculum.

Besides providing a framework to follow, there is no shortage of lesson plans and review to choose from when using a boxed curriculum. Individualize boxed curriculum to fit all the pent-up energy you deal with day to day by using one of these four ways and free up your time to build a strong mom-son bond. To me, that is worth anything!

About the Author

Tina Robertson celebrated the graduation of Mr. Senior in 2013 and Mr. Awesome in 2015. Because of her love for new homeschoolers, she mentors moms through her unique program called New Bee Homeschoolers. She loves all homeschoolers, though, as she shares her free 7 Step Curriculum Planner, unit studies, lapbooks and homeschooling how tos. She can’t sing, dance, or craft, but she counts organizing as a hobby. She is still in the homeschool trenches blogging at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus.

03/19/2025
The Lowdown on Independent Learning for Homeschooled Kids
As homeschoolers, the idea of having children who can complete school lessons, projects, and assignments on their own can be enticing. Mom, who usually bears the burden of the homeschool planning and teaching, gets a break, and children take responsibility for their own education. Sounds like a win for both parties, right? Yes, but let’s delve into this idea of independent learning more deeply:
- How do you know when your child is ready to learn on his own?
- How much should you push your children towards working solo?
- Exactly how do you train your kids to learn independently?
- Is independent learning even possible?
Is It Really Possible for Children to Learn Independently?

Does independent learning really exist? The answer depends on how you define the term. All of us need to learn from someone or some kind of starting point of reference, so it’s not realistic to expect our kids to learn without any guidance at all. For example, the cornerstone of the BookShark curriculum is parent and child, learning together over great books. Sure, older kids can do their assignments and reading alone, but they would miss the insights from their parents that come from discussing the History and Literature. So consider what you and your kids lose when they learn on their own.

With that said, it is possible and wonderful to teach our children to take ownership of their education. In our family, the kids complete some of their homeschool assignments on their own, which—in my mind—qualifies as independent learning. For example, my oldest daughter does most of her lessons and quizzes herself while I help her review and prepare for testing. For our younger children, independent learning might include Read-Aloud sessions, worksheets, and simple crafts while the bulk of the learning is done alongside a parent.

When Can A Child Start to Learn on His Own?

Some early education methods, such as Montessori, encourage teaching children self-reliance at a young age. Others, such as unschooling, promote allowing a child time to develop his or her own educational interests.

Since children mature at different rates, there is no specific age when parents should begin to teach kids to work on their own. As parents, we know our children best. We know when they’re ready to move on to more advanced concepts, and we know what they’re capable of doing.

While it would be unrealistic to expect a very young child (grades K – 3) to learn solo, it could also stunt your child if you continue to hover when he’s ready for greater autonomy. In each family, parents have to assess their children’s abilities and skills to determine when they are ready to complete schoolwork on an independent basis. Trust your gut on this decision. You will know when the time is right and how much liberty to allow your kids. If you are unsure, ask them! They often know exactly what they need and can tell you how much support and direction to offer.

How to Help Kids Learn Independently

Children, like adults, need very little guidance or encouragement to do the things they like. Naturally, if our children enjoy what they are learning in school, they will develop the self-motivation to complete many of their assignments without much prodding or direction.

A good way to help kids become self-motivated is to allow them to have a say in their education. Let them choose a few of the books on the reading list this year. Or allow them to choose a few animals, places, or historical events to study.

For example, at the beginning of our school year, we make a list of all the things our kids would like to learn about. Then we try our best to work those topics into our lessons. When I announce that we’ll be covering one of those topics, the kids are so excited that they’re willing to do whatever assignment they’re given—even independently.

Another way to help kids learn to complete their schoolwork independently is to teach them to manage their time. Upper elementary and middle school grades are a wonderful time to start working on this skill. Start by giving kids to to lists to check off. Then give them blank weekly planners to fill in on their own and check off completed work.

As an example, our middle schooler, who has ADHD, is learning to create a weekly schedule for herself. She tries to complete all of her schoolwork in four days, so she can have an “off” day each week. Setting up her own routine has helped her develop the drive to get her assignments done on her own and on time.

As homeschoolers, we can make independent learning fit into our family’s educational goals, abilities, and grade levels. By giving our children a say in their education and helping them learn to manage their time, we can help them become independent learners for life.

About the Author

Selena is a homeschooling graduate and a veteran homeschooling mother of four, including three with ADHD. She and her husband, Jay, use an eclectic homeschooling approach to encourage their children to learn throughout their lives. Selena blogs about her family’s homeschooling adventures every week at Look! We’re Learning!
03/19/2025
How to Schedule Your Homeschool Day

Homeschool scheduling is about finding your starting point and matching your family’s own groove. For example, when my boys were preschoolers and toddlers, my goal for the day was to shower and have some meaningful reading activities for my oldest son. Insanity was thinking I had to get my homeschool started at 8:00 a.m. when there was no need to. Fast forward to the middle and high school years. My sons now start their homeschool day closer to 8:30 a.m., independent of me.

The key to breathing sweet homeschool scheduling into your day is to begin with a set of guidelines that you can actually follow—ones that fit your family’s groove. We don’t need one more thing to stress us out if we are already struggling with homeschool scheduling, so look at these easy starting points below.

Analyze Your Family’s Routine and Daily Flow

For example, if you have a younger household, your day will start earlier. When my household was younger, some days I could start school by about 7:00 a.m., stop for nap time, and then pick up again with a few more activities. Other days were helter-skelter.

Setting a dogmatic time to start our homeschool day only added to my aggravation because there was very little I could control when my children were preschoolers. Later, I understood that because my children were so young, I had to have a tentative game plan and find flexibility so that I could accommodate my family’s needs.

However, older children tend to thrive with routine and sameness even though we may not as adults.

Find Balance

If you are not a morning person, then give yourself another half hour or so in the morning before you tackle your assignments in the Instructor’s Guide. However, if your children are morning people and they can start independently of you, then set the schedule to accommodate their desire to start early.

Think About the End of the Day

When does your homeschool day end? Though learning and living naturally flow in our day, and sometimes it’s hard to see the difference between the two, we still want to schedule an ending to our day. Through the years, I have heard of homeschoolers who homeschool for eight hours or more. I am shocked.

Our job as homeschool educators is not really very different from having a full time job. We need to have an ending to our day because homeschool burnout may loom ahead if we don’t.

During the younger years when there is not much difference between playing and learning, having an ending time is not as important. However, as your children approach the middle and high school years and you are teaching them to stick to a schedule and how to balance their time, it becomes critical.

Avoid Hour-by-hour Homeschool Planning

When you are struggling with homeschool scheduling, avoid hour-by-hour planning and instead to plan bigger chunks of time. Getting out your daily planner and setting aside 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. for homeschool is doable, flexible, and gets your feet on the road to homeschool organization.

Next, noting the hours 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. for house chores is pretty flexible too. Instead of chaining you to a homeschool schedule that might not work for you or that may be too specific right now, start with scheduling broad zones of time.

As you fine tune your homeschool schedule to fit your family’s rhythm, then you can fill in with hour by hour chores, academic subjects, and other activities you have planned.

The simple truth is that homeschooling requires time and a schedule that fits your family as your children grow. Fitting your family’s groove at the present moment, having an ending to your homeschool day, and planning in blocks of time are the beginnings of homeschooling scheduling success. w out the topics they are interested in and can relate to, ask questions that spark opinions and more questions, and get excited about what will happen next. Your kids will follow suit and you’ll be digging in and having valuable discussions with them before you know it.

About the Author

Tina Robertson celebrated the graduation of Mr. Senior in 2013 and is getting ready to graduate her next son. Because of her love for new homeschoolers, she mentors moms through her unique program called New Bee Homeschoolers. She loves all homeschoolers, though, as she shares her free 7 Step Curriculum Planner, unit studies, lapbooks and homeschooling how tos. She can’t sing, dance, or craft, but she counts organizing as a hobby. She is still in the homeschool trenches blogging at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus.

03/19/2025
Public School vs. Homeschooling: The Apples and Oranges of Childhood
A psychological assessment I recently filled out for one of my children showed a clear bias towards public schooling with these kinds of queries:

“Do they stay seated when asked to remain in their seat?”

“Are assignments turned in on time and complete?”

“Do they follow directions without additional prompting?”

As both the parent and teacher, I had a lot of questions to answer. Some were almost impossible because I had no knowledge of my child in a traditional school environment. We’ve always homeschooled, so I was making a guess.

Would they remain seated if told not to get up? Doubtful. Do I see that as a problem? No, not really.

It wasn’t long after I completed those questionnaires that I happened upon an article by my favorite psychologist, Peter Gray. Its title, Developmental Psychology’s Marriage to the School System, caught my eye since I was informed that my child tested on the low-normal range of cognitive development and showed other cognitive issues.

Of course, this is a child who has never had to parrot back information on demand or stay in a seat even though they wanted to get up. That hasn’t been their experience of the world.

Gray outlines five ways which the school environment creates a distorted view of child development and psychology. Here is his list of school characteristics and how they differ from a homeschool experience.

1. Adult Direction

School is a place of constant adult direction. Children are told what time they should arrive, when they are allowed to leave, how long to spend on each task, when they can eat, when to go to the bathroom, and what they must be focused on every moment of the long school day.

Compare this environment to homeschooling, where a child can sleep if they’re tired, eat when they’re hungry, go to the bathroom when needed, and be interested in the Civil War even if the state standards say they’re to study the American Revolution this year.

2. Work Versus Play

School explicitly delineates between work and play. Math class is not play; it’s a time for you to pay attention and stay in your seat. Recess, if you have one, is playtime, but even that can be micro-managed by adults.

“Play is the work of a child.” ~ Maria Montessori

Homeschoolers instinctively mix work, life, and play. When there is no artificial separation of work and play, learning can be effortless. Knowledge doesn’t have to be dispensed in the form of a worksheet to “count.” A family game can teach math skills just as well as (maybe better than!) a workbook.

3. Norms, Rankings, and Measurements

Measurements and norms are the areas where I think the co-dependent relationship between school and child psychology is most apparent.

Anecdotes are not a reliable measure for research or public funding; therefore, education and child psychology need each other. Could one exist without the other?

The schools need the tests and norms provided by the psychologists, and the psychologists need the research subjects. We then use these tests and standards to categorize children into different groups—the labels of which are nearly impossible to escape.

In homeschooling, a child has the luxury of just being who they are, where they are. They can continue working on a skill until they master it. They aren’t subjected to daily tests and assignments ranking them against every other child. There isn’t a “norm” demanded on a given day in a particular grade.

4. Age Segregation

Age segregation is the most defining element of school. Age determines when they must begin and age determines when they are free of compulsory attendance. Age determines what grade they are expected to be in and what tasks they are expected to perform.

This age segregation also contributes to bullying and extended adolescence. It creates a vacuum in which peer pressure determines what is acceptable and what is not.

Homeschooling doesn’t rely on age segregation for its function. Children spend their time with everyone from their grandparents to their newborn sibling, and doesn’t this resemble the “real world” more than a group of thirty 12-year-olds ever will?

5. Competition

School is a place of constant competition. From class rankings and grade point averages to being chosen as the lead in the play and making the football team, everything is a competition.

Now many will say that this is real life and that competing is good, but I find this to be a chicken and the egg argument. Do you believe that because life really is a series of competitions, or because you were conditioned by schooling to view everything as a competition?

Within a family, of course, there can be some inherent competitiveness, but ultimately cooperation rules. Choices must be made about the allocation of time and resources, and everyone’s desires are considered.

We don’t pit sibling against sibling and choose a victor each day. We look for ways to help and encourage everyone. Grit can be taught through collaboration and perserverance instead of through winning and losing.

The Apples and Oranges of Childhood

Institutional schooling and child psychology view all children as apples, and they’re treated similarly. Sorted and graded, some are chosen for the holiday gift box, and others are discarded, fit only for juice.

As homeschoolers, we have apples, but we also have oranges, lemons, peaches, and pineapples. No two are the same, and we don’t value an apple more than an orange.

So as I hear the conclusions of the psychologist, I trust my own instincts and doubt the “expert.” How can I expect my child, who has never spent a day in school, to be accurately judged based upon studies of children in a place of extremely limited freedom?

I can’t; they’re apples and oranges.

About the Author

Bethany is the mom of six always homeschooled children who one day realized she’d lost herself in the process, probably under a pile of laundry. Her eclectic style of relaxed homeschooling draws upon classical to unschooling methods and everything in between.

While homeschooling her children, teaching at a Project Based Co-op, and writing about learning outside of school, she still tries to find time to read a book, drink coffee, and pay the bills. Read more from Bethany on her site BethanyIshee.com: Real inspiration for the authentic mom.
03/14/2025