I think everyone has this perception that homeschooling is all about sitting at the kitchen table for hours doing worksheets. No! This is not what homeschooling looks like at our house. Are there worksheets? Yes, but there are a lot of other activities too.

• How long is a homeschool day?
• How long should I plan to have my child work on schoolwork?
• What subjects should I teach in my homeschool?
• How many days a week do you homeschool?
• How does a year-round schedule work?

Let me see if I can answer some of these questions but first, let me tell you a little bit about myself and our family. My name is Kaycee and we are an adoptive family with seven children. We have always homeschooled from the very beginning.

I was homeschooled from eighth grade until I graduated and really enjoyed it. I knew I wanted to do the same for my children and I have to say I love it!

Our youngest child is three years old and our oldest is sixteen so we have a child in about every level of schooling. This also can make a homeschool schedule challenging because different ages require various levels of attention and time spent.

What subjects are taught in our homeschool?

Math

Everyone has their own level of math they use. We use Math-U-See curriculum for all of our children. It is designed to be exactly as it sounds. It is math that the student can see and understand right before their very eyes.

Steve Demme teaches the courses via DVD and he is a favorite for our children. Having the option of DVD teaching really helps me because I can follow up with a little tutoring if needed. Just a little secret between you and me, it’s a great refresher, especially in the older grades. You know, because we use Algebra and Geometry in our every day lives. Ha!

You can visit this Christanbook.com shop for placement tests and see all the levels available.

Math-U-See Shop

Grammar

All the students who are in first grade and higher have a daily grammar exercise they complete. I feel like having a repetitive, daily grammar challenge has really helped them remember the rules of writing. About two years ago, I started using Easy Grammar and I love it!

Easy Grammar Shop

Every lesson is a short exercise focusing on a variety of concepts including parts of speech, capitalization, and punctuation.

Language Arts

All the children have their own level of Language Arts curriculum. To teach reading, I really like using All About Reading. It takes the student on a journey of reading with lots of fun games and exercises for them to complete. I have used it with all of our children and I love it! The program combines hands-on learning with all the bookwork in an enjoyable way. There are four levels and I always start them in level one.

You can find All About Reading here.

My middles who are in the third, fourth, and fifth grades use The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts curriculum. It is named perfectly because it is just truly good and beautiful. I know you are probably asking what that means so let me explain. The content is very classic and focuses on older literature which takes the student on a journey in the good old days.

The curriculum’s mission is to be filled with good, wholesome content because this is what we should fill our thoughts with every day. It also teaches the child what good, wholesome content looks like by discussing what kind of books we should be reading.

Levels one through five are available as a free download! I know, right! This is the perfect chance for you to see if it will work for your child. You can check it out in the link above.

Handwriting

We use a separate handwriting curriculum by The Good and the Beautiful which helps teach the student how to properly form their letters and learn cursive writing.

Does your child struggle with handwriting? Most of mine have and the Good and the Beautiful methods help by offering an art incentive. They encourage the child to draw and color their way through their handwriting.

Writing

Writing is all about learning to form thoughts that make sense and are properly written where the reader can understand what the writer is trying to say. We learn this during our unit study time and I generally have a “writing clinic” every week.

What is a “writing clinic?” It is about an hour a week where my children are given a writing assignment and then I am available to offer feedback and help with editing. It is our goal to write complex sentences that make sense about the topic we are assigned.

History

We learn history with unit studies that I write and put together myself. Here is an example of what we do:

Puzzles Unit Study

Science

We use a combination of unit studies and a guided curriculum depending on the age of the child. For our boxed science curriculum, we use Apologia. They have an excellent in-depth approach that the students really enjoy. You can find it here:

Apologia Shop

FREE Science Unit Study

Rocks Unit Study

Latin

We do Latin and it is a DVD guided curriculum too. We have one child who is fascinated with foreign languages and so Latin is the perfect place to start. We use the Songschool Latin Curriculum and it incorporates music into their learning. This works perfectly for those “music smart” kiddos!

How I Taught the 8 Great Smarts to My Kids

Bible and Character

Learning the Bible and character traits is very important to our family. We do participate in the Bible Study Fellowship’s (BSF) program which includes homework and a discussion in an age-appropriate small group. This particular program runs during the traditional school year and so we have the summer off.

When we aren’t doing BSF then we are learning about character traits. I like to take character words like kindness, integrity, and self-control and break it down for the children to learn. We do all kinds of projects to help us learn what these things look like in everyday life.

Check out a character study here:

How To Teach Your Child About Integrity

PE

PE is basically a daily exercise program for all of our children. Most of the time if the weather is nice they will play outside. On those days that they are unable to go outside, our older children will “workout” by walking on our treadmill or bouncing on our trampolines.

Reading

This is the time when they are individually reading on their own. We visit the library a couple of times a month and they have a list of books they need to get. One of those books is a chapter book and I encourage them to use this time every day to read it.

Art

We do art approximately once a week although I try to incorporate a project or two into our unit study time too. We have a lot of artistic children and so they are always drawing or being creative.

Life Skills

It is very important to equip my children with the skills that will make them successful, independent adults. These skills include planning and preparing healthy meals, fixing things that are broken, and learning to do chores properly.

How many days a week do you homeschool?

We schedule formal school time for three or four days per week depending on that week’s particular activities. Now, if you live in the United States, you are required to follow the state laws that you live in. I am not going to go into the law portion in this post and so I strongly encourage you to visit Home School Legal Defense’s website to see what is required in your state.

Okay, since I have put that disclaimer out there, let’s move on to how we do it. We do follow a year-round schedule because the structure is very important in a family our size. So instead of taking a traditional three-month summer break, we take that time throughout the year.

One of the ways we do this is by scheduling structured school hours three to four times a week. This frees one or two days to do whatever we need to do.

How long is a homeschool day?

Let’s break this question down by age:

Preschool

We incorporate our preschool-age children in intervals of about ten minutes at a time. I love to teach with games and so if I am playing a game with another child or reading a book aloud and I can include my preschooler, that’s what I do. I don’t really have a certain amount of time I specifically spend with my preschooler because she tends to pop in and pop out as she wants too.

With this method, she already knows her numbers, letters, shapes, and colors so I feel like it is working for her.

Kindergarten

Our kindergartner spends about two to three hours three days a week working on subjects like Math, Reading, Language Arts, History, and Science. She spends additional time on the electives like PE, art, and life skills.

Elementary

Our elementary-aged children spend about three hours four days a week working on their core subjects like reading, writing, history, and science. They spend additional time on the electives like PE, art, and life skills.

Middle School

Middle School students spend about four hours four days per week on core subjects like reading, writing, history, and science. They spend additional time on the elective like PE, art, life skills, and anything else they are interested in.

High School

Our high school student spends approximately five hours a day four days a week on his core studies like Language Arts, Math, Science, and History. He spends additional time on the electives he has chosen.

Independent Work and Group Work

Now their curriculum is broken down into two categories:

• Independent Work
• Group Work

Independent Work

The definition of independent work is the assignments that a child can accomplish on their own with no teaching. Now, there is some tutoring time that will need to happen because there is always a concept that needs to be made clear.

Independent work time generally starts around third grade. When the child is in kindergarten through third grade, I am gradually working them into their independent work time. I look at it like building a house. During this time I am working to lay a good foundation so that they can be propelled into independent learning and won’t need me as much.

Right now, my kindergartner and preschooler need me a lot. While I am teaching them, I am also available for my other children to ask me questions. So while Nikki is writing her letters and I am just sitting there waiting for her to complete her task, I am working or checking another child’s assignments.

Just between you and me, waiting for a kindergartner to complete anything is like watching molasses in January. I have found if I occupy myself with something else in the meantime, it is so much easier for both of us.

The independent work subjects are:

• Math
• Grammar
• Language Arts
• Handwriting
• Latin
• Reading

Check out this post to see how I keep their independent work assignments organized and on track:

Free Printable Homeschool Monthly Assignments List

Group Work

Group work means the work that we accomplish together as a family and is the time someone will be teaching the group. This time includes history and science unit studies, bible, character training, and writing clinics.

Sam, age sixteen, teaches art and PE to his siblings. This is a huge help for me and he really enjoys doing it. He has the freedom to pick what they are going to do but his lesson plan needs to be approved by me.

One of the goals for this year is to be completely focused on the information we are learning about. I am trying to save time and eliminate all the other things they want to talk about during this time. Think about what we are doing so we can be productive and move on to the next thing.

The group work subjects are:

• Writing
• History
• Science
• Bible and Character
• PE
• Art

Year-Round Schedule

We do participate in a year-round schedule and we do this for a couple of reasons:

• Structure
• Take the time off when we want too
• They don’t forget what they have learned

Structure

The structure is very important to a family of our size. If the kiddos have three months off of school, they tend to get themselves in a lot of mischief. The school work helps keep us on track and we are able to put energy into structured learning all year.

Take the time off when we want too

We like to take the time off when it works best in our schedule and when the weather is cooler. We like to take those epic field trips (educational vacations) and find it easier to do in the offseason.

They don’t forget what they have learned

The first year I homeschooled Sam we followed the traditional school year. We took the three months off and when September rolled around, I was ready to pick up where we left off. Unfortunately, he was not and I found myself having to review a lot of things.

At any age, we find it helpful to continually have them working so we don’t have to reteach concepts. However, when they are younger, I find this to be very important.

Schedule Breakdown

3 Days Per Week

We have a full day of school including independent work and group work three days per week. I schedule about three and a half hours in the morning for us to do independent and group work. I plan these times to dedicate myself completely to their learning time. The elective work is done in the afternoons independently.

• Independent Work (1 hour and 30 minutes)
• Group Work (2 hours)
  • Bibe and Character Training (30 minutes)
  • History and Writing (1 hour and 30 minutes)
• Elective Work (2 hours)
  • Life Skills Project (1 hour)
  • Individual Reading (30 minutes)
  • PE or Excercise Time (30 minutes)

Note: Our high school student works an extra 2 hours in the afternoon on these days.

1 Day Per Week

• Independent Work (1 hour and 30 minutes)
• Elective Work (2 hours)
  • Life Skills Project (1 hour)
  • Individual Reading (30 minutes)
  • PE or Excercise Time (30 minutes)

1 Day Per Week

• Homeschool Co-op Day
• Field Trip Day

Homeschool Co-op Day

We are a part of a homeschool co-op that meets one day a week six months of the year. We get together and parents volunteer to teach a variety of classes. This gives the families an opportunity to get together and visit while learning fun things.

Field Trip Day

Taking a field is a great way to emphasize what you are learning or to learn something new. It can be a local exhibit at a museum, a visit to a state or national park, or really whatever you can find. It’s the perfect opportunity to get out of the house and explore the world we live in!

So this is how we do our daily homeschool schedule! The beauty of a schedule is that you can put it together in a way that works best for your family. This is what is working for us right now and I can guarantee it will change and that’s okay!

Another way we enjoy field trips is by taking educational vacations! We love to learn about where we are going! For more information about how we do this, check these posts out:

Educational Field Trips for Homeschoolers

This was our Philly field trip! So much fun and memories made on this trip!

2-Day Philadelphia Itinerary for a Large Family

Thank you for reading! We hope you will come back and visit us!