A Day in the Homeschool Life of My 1st and 2nd Graders

The other day on my Facebook page we had an interesting conversation about how the public school system's expectations of children are so unreasonable, which is one of the things that is leading to this explosion of Ritalin and other medications being given unnecessarily to so many children.  In a homeschool setting, you have the ability to dictate how much time you spend on each subject and what is considered acceptable behavior for your children during school time.  I am often asked by people interested in homeschooling or just getting started how much time I spend on school in my homeschool, so I thought it would be fun to show you "A Day in the Homeschool Life" of my children at their various age ranges starting with my 6 and 8 year olds who are in 1st and 2nd grades.

Last year I did a review for a company that recommended you spend 2 to 2.5 times the child's age per subject per day.  I thought this was a very reasonable number, and usually stay close to this guideline unless of course we are working on something they are so delighted with and into that we keep working.

Our school day starts at 9:30 every morning.  The time in the morning before 9:30 is spent getting up and ready for the day and completing morning chores.  When the "early birds" wake up, they are allowed to watch television until it is chore time.  My 6 year old helps feed and water chickens for his morning chores in addition to getting himself ready and taking care of his breakfast dishes, and my 8 year old feeds and waters the cat.

At 9:30 we start our day with our Bible Lesson and Scripture memorization. This usually lasts 15-20 minutes.  For Scripture memorization we are using My ABC of Bible Verses learning a new verse every week starting with a different letter of the alphabet.  Our Bible Lesson is from Bible Study Guide For All Ages which includes timeline work, studying the different books of Bible and a coloring sheet with a different Bible story every day.

After Bible it is time for our read aloud.  I read aloud to all the children daily from a chapter book for 15-20 minutes per day.  The younger children are allowed to draw or play quietly while I read.  The books we are reading are suggested by the American History curriculum I am using with the older boys.

Christian drawing a picture

Anthony playing a fishing game he made while I read

After I am finished reading, they are excused.  Often they will go upstairs and build Legos or on nice days they head outside.

Unless of course it is a science day and we are doing some fun experiments.  Then they stay and participate. We do science on Tuesdays and Thusdays.

After lunch they get plenty of time to run and play outside.

We have been watching an episode of Liberty's Kids everyday to help "bring to life" what we have been learning about in history.  Those episodes are about 20 minutes long.

After that they still had a few minutes before afternoon school work.

Afternoon school work starts with Math.  All of my children use Math U See. Christian is in Alpha and Anthony is in Beta.  It usually takes 10-15 minutes for them to finish.

Next up is writing.  They are doing copywork from IEW PAL.  It only takes them a few minutes to do a page.

The boys do spelling and reading  together.  We are using All About Spelling/Reading.  The spelling part takes about 15 minutes and then each of them reads a short story out of the reader.

We read a few articles together out of God's World News Early Edition.  This takes about 10 minutes.

To finish out their school day, they practice handwriting on the Wet, Dry, Try app from Handwriting Without Tears.

So that's about it.  A day in the homeschool life of my 6 and 8 year olds.  Around 40 minutes in the morning and 1 1/2 in the afternoon at the most counting 20 minutes of educational TV.

This still leaves plenty of time for building forts, inside on rainy days.

*link to All About Spelling/Reading is my affiliate link.  I only form affiliate relationships with companies whose products I actually use and can recommend.