My Home School News!

When the decision is made to homeschool a comon question is how many hours to do, how often and when the hours need to be done.Homeschooling styles and the curriculums used and the flexibility in hours are what draws some families to homeschooling
 There is no need to keep to the same hours as public schools. Trying to do this will just lead to frustration and tension.

One of the biggest issues with schools is the amount of time that is wasted in simply moving about the school and then settling in each class.Disruptive children also use up valuable teaching time.Staff sickness, school closures and other disruptions  also cause problems.My daughter found these disruptions to learning  most frustating when she went into public school hor her last years of schooling.The amount of time children actually spend learning in a school can be around 3 out of a six hour school day.This can change daily depending on school timetables.
It is a good idea to have some form of schedule for homeschooling whilst still having flexibilitySome curriculums require the children to work through them at a certain pace, so needing certain hours to be worked each week.Having a set period for work is useful for encouraging a learning mindset.
Setting particular hours aside to learn can give structure to the child’s day. This is important for  children who like structure and routine.
We used to find mornings the best time for structured learning, but anytime of day that is best for your family will work.
The age of your child will determine the amount of time needed for learning.A young child will not need as much tie set aside as a teenager.The subject your child is learning will also have an impact on how long you spend on it.Your child may find some subjects easier to grasp than others.You may find that you will need to sit down and work through a subject a few times in different ways until your child has grasped it..

Knowing your childs particular learning style will help. If you know this then you can structure lesson times in a particular way. Using worksheets helps consolidate your child’s learning.
For instance if your child is strggling to understand math then using activities such as playing shop using coins will help.

You can get quite creative when doing homeschooling.Why not check out your TV guide for useful teaching programs?The library can be a great source of information  for learning.Field trips to the museum are great for specific learning opportunities.Your kids can learn about using money and about buying food by doing everyday visits to the stores and banks with you,Many businesses are helpful if you ask if you can make an educational visit.You can be very creative when it comes to learning about things like geography.Why not set a day apart for a themed day. Find out about a countries food and cook meals based on this.
Spen a day learning about growing vegetables. Make this practicle by buying and planting seeds.
let the kids look after them and chart the seeds progress.
Make a pizza with tomatoes, peppers and cress that your children have grown..
You can be very inventive in the way that you teach your children when you homeschool.
Have fun homeschooling by using quizzes.

So, when our kids were young we found that they needed to spend betwwen one to three hours on formal learning.The need to write essays and do science experiments and so on meant that our older choldren needed to do longer homeschooling hours..
Homeschooling hours can be flexible dependent on thehomeschooling style and curriculum you choose.