When embarked on the homeschooling adventure, I made a rookie mistake! I thought it would be a brilliant idea to create a mini version of a regular school day, complete with a fancy classroom and a meticulously planned schedule. Oh boy, was I wrong! The day ended up being 6 hours long and I was STRESSED out. I’ve learned a few things since then but thought I’d share my original homeschool classroom picture just for giggles.

In our family, we believe that younger children require less formal education. They learn best through play and exposure to nature. Engaging in activities like building forts, rolling objects down slides, collecting eggs, drawing in the dirt, and gardening allows them to explore various subjects such as engineering, physics, math, art, and botany. This approach encourages their natural curiosity and creativity.

When it comes to formal school I’ve found we typically spend about an hour per grade level.

We love The Good and The Beautiful curriculum for core subjects. This curriculum places a strong emphasis on foundational skills such as reading, handwriting, and grammar, which are crucial at this age. By investing more time and providing hands-on guidance during these early years, you are setting a solid foundation for future success. As children progress, they naturally become more independent, and incorporating video-based lessons into their learning takes a lot of pressure off of you.

In addition to core subjects (the time commitment above) I always had a hard time getting the kids to do extra things that I wanted them to learn. This year I implemented a “power hour” and it has been well received by the kids AND it takes a ton of pressure off of me nagging them to do extra work.

The kids do 10 minutes of each of these 6 things which add up to an hour. It works out nicely with the big kids because they can swap things like piano and typing (we only have one piano) and then they can do other things together, like exercise.

-exercise (intentional exercise like jumping jacks, trampoline, or riding bike)

-multiplication fact practice (flash cards by themselves or me quizzing them, or the musical multiplication that TGATB provides)

-handwriting (it isn’t technically part of their curriculum anymore but it’s SO important to keep developing – and they are learning cursive 🙂 )

-piano practice (their teacher loves me for this!)

-typing practice (we take typing class on out school and she provides the website to practice on)

-whatever we are working on that week – typically memorization of some sort like presidents, states, etc.

You could replace these subjects with anything you want the kids to get in the habit of! Even picking up their rooms! For smaller kids you could do 5 minute intervals 🙂

 

Happy Homeschooling!