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How long is our homeschool day great question this has varied a lot over the years and I think it's important to point out why that's the case so I'm going to share with you five variables that will affect how long your homeschool day takes I'll share with you our answers to each of those variables so stay tuned hi friends the purpose of this channel is to empower other homeschool moms to have the tools confidence and encouragement to homeschool your children and know you're doing a great job

So be sure to like this video And subscribe now let's get on to today's topic so first I want to share with you the five variables that I think really affect the amount of time that it's going to take to get your home school done in a day number one which you could probably guess is the number of kids you have and the number of kids that you're actually teaching number two is the age of kids that you have you know as they get older they become more independent

But also they usually have more schoolwork number three is their type of curriculum and how many subjects you are having to teach them number four is how many subjects you're doing per day and number five is everyone's attitudes am I right that can make the difference between a couple hours to all day long okay so let's talk about what our home school looks like this year the 2022 to 2023 Square so to answer each of those variables for our current school year we have number one we have four kids

And they are fifth grade third grade first grade and preschool and if you've been around for a while you know all of that number three is the type of curriculums so let me break this down into each kid real quick so for my fifth grader he is using almost all online video curriculums I'm only having to do spelling with him so this has been a huge game changer for our homeschool so if you are currently feeling overwhelmed or maybe you're not even homeschooling yet you're just doing the research

And trying to figure out if this is something that you could do first I will say yes you absolutely can number two if you're feeling pretty intimidated by it there are amazing video curriculums that you can use meaning you don't have to do the teaching so it's super easy on you now of course we are still available to our kids to ask questions go over there work with them make sure they did it correctly make sure they understand the material and so sometimes that does require me to then go

And watch that video lesson with them if it's something I know nothing about or have forgotten since my fifth grade year but the fact that he can be learning from another teacher either on the computer or for some curriculums we have a DVD while I'm working with one of his siblings is really great that really frees me up and it allows us to not have to do school all day long where they're all waiting on me to teach each of them now there are other homeschool moms who have figured out a great way to do that there's a lot of other channels on here that don't use any video curriculums

And they do have four or more children and they do it really well so there are definitely ways to to do it you know with or without a video curriculum but I will say that we've been using video curriculums for the last couple of years and it was like a game changer for our home school so big big fan of those and we're not using them for every single subject every kid but it is helping to take a lot off of my plate so yes it doesn't take me very long to work with him I'll answer questions that he has along the way if he doesn't have an assignment for a particular subject that day then I'll ask him what he learned in his

Video and we'll discuss that for a little bit if he does have an assignment then I will check that work and go over it with him if he gets any of it wrong making sure that he understands the content now my third grader is using several online video curriculums as well which is very helpful now we are doing language arts through the good and the Beautiful so that does require me to sit with her and teach her for at least 20 minutes and then she has independent work which usually takes about 20 minutes

But then she has a video curriculum for history and science and math now math she only has to watch one time per week usually one lesson per unit and then she has a couple of worksheets she does throughout the week and so for that if it's something that's kind of tripping her up we will work on that together but if she's getting it pretty well she can do that independently and then bring me the worksheet to check afterwards and then that's the same with history

And science you know she's going to bring me her worksheets after she's watched the video and we'll review those together and then I have a first grader and we're doing the good and the Beautiful for language arts as well but I don't think he's quite ready to just like plow through that curriculum so we're also mixing in Hooked on Phonics lessons so some days we do Hooked on Phonics some days we do the good and beautiful and so when it's a Hooked on Phonics day it requires less of my time like he's got independent games he can do on there before we get to the storybook

And then we read together for about 15 minutes but with the good and the Beautiful that's something that I will sit down and teach him and then we read together and then he'll have a little bit of independent work on like a worksheet to do but even some of that I'm kind of helping him with and then for math he also has a video curriculum just like my other two kids so he'll watch one lesson per week and then I will sit with him while he does those math worksheets sometimes I can be you know answering somebody else's questions in between helping him with that worksheet

But I want to be very readily available still for him he's not quite ready to just be on his own with that so I'll sit with him while he does his math worksheet and we'll review that together and then he does science with his sister my third grader and they watch that video together do the worksheet together and then I check that with them so that is actually really great huge fan of being able to combine kids into a subject I know there are a lot of families who do family subjects that's what they call it

So like for maybe history and science they would sit together with their full range age of kids and teach them all the same thing so there are curriculums out there that are set up for that the one that we are using is called science Shepherd and so it it's the same video that they watch but you can get two different levels of their workbooks so one is made for younger kids one's made for older but they do share a lot of the same questions so it's great for my third grader to be able to help my first grader with which also frees me up to be working with either my fifth grader or my preschooler

So getting to the last kid my preschooler he's three and a half and you know preschool age doesn't require a whole lot they are learning through play and everyday life things and educational videos and all that kind of stuff so I don't have to do a lot of formal schooling with him and I even have my older kids do some of that with him for me they will go and sit with him and play a game with him or do a worksheet out of his little preschool workbook with him or something like that

And so it doesn't take a whole lot of my time to do like formal school with him but really what happens with preschoolers right is you're usually doing like like damage control like okay don't get into anything that you shouldn't be don't be distracting everybody else in the school room so he takes my attention away with those kinds of things right so he does still will require my time but it's not all like formal sit down school time that he's requiring so a little little tip for you if you do have multiple children you can have them work with each other on things

And help teach the younger ones and that can be a great thing for them a great character builder for them and just wonderful relationship building between the siblings so our school day this year lasts about three and a half to four hours and for my fifth grader that could actually be a little bit shorter if we were doing a five day a week school week I did a video recently explaining why and how we do a four day a week school week and so for him he is doubling up on most of his subjects throughout the week

So he'll have one day where he has two English lessons one day where he has two history adolescents that kind of thing and so his day could be a little bit shorter if we were doing five school days our school day might be longer if we were doing more subjects like last year we did Spanish two days a week so that added extra time you know there's all kinds of things you could be adding in so that is going to determine the length of your school day as

Well so for us we're normally doing our Bible time during breakfast or right after breakfast and then we head up to the school room around 8 45 5 and so my fifth grader has handwriting English history science math and then my main goal is to get school done by lunchtime now some days that means lunch is starting at like 12 45 right it's starting a little later that we really want to just knock school out in the morning one reason is that it is really hard for me to Corral them back

And get them back in the school mindset like okay let's keep going we have another subject but number two and probably more of the reason is that I I don't really want to keep going um I'm kind of done I'm I'm ready to move on to the next portion of our day I'm ready for them to have some free time and need to have some free time you know I might need things you know bills to pay phone calls to make you know work out get some work done there's always a long list right there's always a list

And so I by that point in the day I'm like okay I have a big to-do list as well it's time for me to start getting that stuff done and y'all can have free time so even if that means that lunch is getting started a little bit later I'm okay with that as long as their attitudes are still okay and so sometimes it means like all right go grab a snack and then we'll finish this next subject just to kind of tie them over until lunch

But if if your kids are like really just struggling and you feel like a lunch break actually helps and is better than by all means like this doesn't mean it's the best schedule for everybody it's just what I prefer so we just usually try to get it all wrapped up by lunchtime whatever that lunch time really means now we have been homeschooling since the very beginning um seven years ago basically is when my oldest was three and we were doing preschool and back then you know it really didn't require much time you know you could do 10 to 25 minutes a day not even every single day of the week

And they would be right where they need to be it really doesn't take a lot of formal schooling because like I said earlier they're learning through play and life in general and reading books together and watching educational shows and things like that so it doesn't take a whole lot of formal schooling time and they don't really want to sit down for long right and I think that's great I'm all about you know movement and being active I think it's fantastic so back when he was just a preschooler we didn't have like a whole lot of time that we had to do

So I had a preschooler and a baby and then each year where you know the kids are leveling up a year leveling up a grade then I'd have like another baby and then another baby um and so each year looked a little bit different depending on the ages of our kids and the amount of kids we had and then the types of curriculum we were doing so one of the years the last year before we found these video curriculums I want to say it was my son's third grade year

So you know it's it's a pretty legit school year like a pretty good amount of school work that we needed to do so I had a third grader a first grader a pre-ker and a toddler and I just remember that year being like one of the more difficult years which is what led me to research and find some video curriculums to like relieve me a bit um but that was pretty tough and I remember that school morning feeling like it really did take a long time

And so it was very helpful to find some video curriculum so that I could be freed up to teach another kid while the other ones were watching a video there's all different ways to homeschool all kinds of different curriculums the way we do it is not the only option out there there's so many wonderful YouTube channels that are all about homeschooling on here and so definitely go and look at some other people's examples of how they're doing it as well but for us this has been very helpful you should definitely check out this video next where I show how I planned out our homeschool day

And homeschool year so that I you know showing you kind of like the tetris that I had to play in order to get everyone's subjects into the right spot throughout the week so that no one was like waiting a super long time to have me come and teach them but rather they'd be watching a video or working on Independent work while I was teaching someone else and so just how I kind of mix and match all their subjects throughout the day and came up with a good schedule that would help us to get everything done without wasting anybody's time

And therefore we could get done before lunch or buy lunch so definitely go and check that one out next thank you so much for joining me today I hope that this was helpful to you if it was leave me a comment below I'd love to chat with you and I will catch you in the next video Happy schooling foreign