Curriculum and pacing are dance partners in the
homeschooling experience who both fight for the lead. An earth science curriculum may seem perfect
until a family realizes that it will take hours of preparation a week just to
collect materials and prepare the experiments.
A broad goal such as “Explore the natural world and other cultures.”
could be completed once a month, once a week, or once a day, depending on the
curriculum used or child’s interest if child-led. “Write in a variety of genres…” could include
grammar, punctuation, and spelling instruction—or not. I’ve heard quoted that focused instruction, that is, time spent
when your child is actively learning about a particular skill or topic related to your goals, be
limited to the following: ½ to 2 hours a day for primary grades, 2-3 hours a
day for intermediate grades, and 3-4 hours a day for secondary grades. These guidelines assume you are still
available at other times to answer questions, provide support, read with your
child, and so on for all the everyday learning that takes place interacting
with the world.
With these suggestions and your homeschooling style in mind,
pencil in next to each goal the amount of time you think you might spend on
it. Your notes might say things like:
fifteen minutes daily, once a week, incidental (when it comes up), a big unit
over a few weeks then incidental, do during dinner table talk, through weekly
art class, etc. Used curriculums galore
are available on the web because families didn’t realize how much time they
would take compared to how much time they wished to spend. If your goal covers
a large area such as medieval history or third grade math skills, consider if
you would be happy to take each topic as it comes and perhaps complete the
study over a longer period at a time, or are there important topics in that
goal you want to learn about first in case your family loses interest, or would
you want to keep a particular pace and be finished by the end of a year? Pencil these thoughts in, too. Once you have
some times penciled in, try to imagine a typical weekly schedule, keeping in
mind all the usual classes, playgroups, and other obligations you regularly
attend. Be realistic about when and
where you will be using curriculums for focused instruction.
In the next post, I'll talk about selecting curriculum to go with your goals.
Interesting. Your list of "focused instruction" that you have heard from others sounds a bit backwards to me. I guess it does depend on your goals. On of my goals is to teach the children to teach themselves...and that I eventually become one of their many resources - "available to answer questions, provide support, read with your child, etc."
ReplyDeleteI'm homeschooling upper-elementary and middle school with an eye on high school. The younger ones are the ones that need more "face-time." The older ones can be taught to get their primary information from whatever types of sources are widely-available, depending on their learning styles. But by high school, parent face-time should be minimal - certainly not 3 to 4 hours a day. Otherwise, how will they be ready for learning in college or out in the workforce?
Thanks for your comment, Loretta. By "focused instruction" I meant time spent on activities determined in advance by your goals or curriculum. My middle school student also spends less "face time" with me, but he spends overall more time on assigned work and planned activities based on our goals. I like to share these guidelines (from a book by Sherri Linsenbach) because I think they give parents a realistic idea of how much structured instruction to plan for if they are new to homeschooling.
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