A day in the life of a Third Grader at home.

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Many wonder how life is different for homeschoolers. And many can't envision homeschool being any different than government school (and that is why they keep saying parents cant possible teach their kids... while homeschoolers just keep skunking everyone else on standardized tests).

Homeschool is very different than traditional, brick and mortar school. 

Homeschool is just living life, while traditional school is managing crowds.

How long is spent on academics depends on how old your child is, along with other factors.

My Josh is 8 and doing 3rd grade work (more or less. I use a lot of resources that don't have grade levels on them, and some that are for different grades, but that teach the information I want my children to have. Does it really matter if a book has a "3" on the spine if he is learning what's in it?)

6:30-7:00 Wake up (ok, more or less, lol. He gets up at this time because he wants to, but often lays around on the couch dozing afterwards)

7:00-8:30 Get dressed, eat breakfast (everyone fixes their own around here), have deep discussions with older siblings, run around outside.

8:30-9:00 Clean up. We rotate the meal clean up chores, so every sixth meal Josh washes dishes. The next meal he rinses. Then dries, puts up dishes, cleans counters, cleans the table, and back to wash. 

9:00-9:45 We take a 2 mile walk. Clears the head, burns some physical energy, expands the brain beyond the four walls.

9:45- 10:45 "Together" school. 

• We each practice our memory verses, 
• sing a song (hymn, worship chorus, or Sunday school song)
• Pray
• I dictate a verse from Proverbs. Josh is a typical boy and is just getting the hang of this, so I only have him write down half the verse right now. In a few weeks I will have him do the whole thing like his older siblings. 
• I read a chapter from a chronological Bible (we're in 1 Kings right now). Josh (and most of my other kids) draws a picture to go with the story.
• We each practice our poems we are memorizing, and I read a classic one from "The Harp and the Laurel Wreath" We also go through things we are memorizing like addresses, phone numbers, months of the year (in English and Spanish), the Greek alphabet, the Books of the Bible, etc.
• I read for 5 minutes in a biography (Helen Keller at the moment)
• I read for 5-15 minutes in a US History book (depending on how late we're running) 
• I read for 5 minutes in a Church History Book
• Then 5 minutes in a US history fiction book (historical fictions are where the author creates a character and sets them in a historical event in order to teach that event. The set we are doing follows a single family through US history. We are up to the Revolution. Here is the first book.)
• During all this reading I make sure everyone is listening. Josh asks questions and makes comments, so I know he is understanding what is going on, though all of these books are well beyond his "grade level." He may not get some of the finer points, especially in the US history book, but he is following the general gist.

10:45 to 11:20 Break time! (I fix my lunch and water my garden)

11:20 Time for some French. https://www.duolingo.com/learn is a free, online language program with many different languages. I have children learning Spanish, Japanese, and German through them. Josh chose French because no one else has learned it yet, lol. He is very devoted to his lessons and even does them on weekends. 

11:35 Math. We use https://www.mathsonline.com.au/login (This is not a free program, but if you go through https://cathyduffyreviews.com/ you can get a great discount. Look up CTC under math on her site.) The author of this program is a homeschooling dad of 10 who also happens to be a government school math teacher in Australia. Each day, Josh logs on, watches a video, then does the questions. If he scores good enough to pass he watches a new video and does new questions. If he doesn't pass the first one he does it over again until he does. 2 lessons a day (taking as many days as he needs to pass a lesson at two tries a day). 

Some time later (depends on how long his math takes)

• 1/2 page in penmanship (if he hasn't done it while I'm reading. I prefer Handwriting Without Tears for earlier grades, but these workbooks for later grades. Josh just switched)
• 1 Calculaddar speed drill I've used these since my oldest was little. I believe they should be started a couple years later than the manufacturer does. They are just following the normal school schedule of having 6 year olds handle pencils and take tests. My experience with my own children is that it is simply too stressful for them to be timed AND have to remember how to form all those numbers AND figure the math out this early. They do much better waiting until they are 8 or so :-)
• Any work pages from his online school (see below).

We open up https://myepassignments.com/pages/account.html which is the interface for Easy Peasy All In One Homeschool.

History behind Easy Peasy: A young mom was heading to the missionary field with her family. She knew they would not have the money to import very many supplies because tariffs were so high but that they would be in a city with internet connections. So, she set up a blog where she put assignments for her 5 year old each day with links to free places to practice and learn. As each child came along she simply had them start at the beginning with the same instructions she gave her oldest, and she started with the idea in mind to have this up for free to anyone who wanted to use it.

 

Today, this site covers College Prep level, preschool through high school (though they are still working on the high school, it is complete enough to use, just not as complete as they want it yet.) But, it is a bit unwieldy, especially if, like me, you don't really want to do the entire program but pick and choose. Thus, the interface.

The interface allows you to set up an "account" for each child. Then you pick what level/grade you want them to do, and select each subject. When they log on, they see 

 

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They click on their name and see

They click on the lesson which takes them to an assignment page. Here they may have a link taking them to a short movie, game, story, article or whatever today's lesson requires. They may have one thing to do, or 4-5 depending on the subject and day. 

Josh's Geography lesson from a couple of days ago:

Day 41 Level 1-4 (this means, grades 1-4. 5-8 are on the same page, but have different assignments)

1. Play African countries find and click.
2. Read about the Griots.
3. Read about the Trans Sahara trade routes.
4. See the Sahara on the map. You can read on this page that the Sahara is the largest desert in the world and covers almost one third of Africa.
5. Spelling tip: You can tell the difference between desert and dessert because you always want more dessert (that’s why there are 2 S’s.)

When they go back to the original page every subject box they have clicked on is a different color. Later the parent checks what they did (usually by just asking them, though at this point I am still sitting by Josh as he does his work. They get independent around 10), clicks "needs work" and then either the check mark or the x. Click the check mark and that box turns white. Once all the subjects are checked a check mark appears by the child's name. Once that is clicked the page is reset for the next day. (The site has videos explaining this much better) Core subjects (math, Language Arts, Science, History) appear every day. Electives (art, music, computer, PE, etc) appear once a week or so. 

The only thing I can think of to make this program better was if it kept records for me :-)

Anyway, Josh and I work our way through his work (you can see a typical day above). This usually takes 15-30 minutes depending on the day, though we have taken off on rabbit trails that extend that a lot.

Most days- 12:20 Josh reads to me after I've looked over all his paper work. 

12:30 (ish) Latin (Oh my! how advanced! lol. This book uses cartoons and stories and we skip any of the grammar work he isn't up to yet.)

12:35 (ish) Mad Libs- Grammar. Josh and Jane (12) take turns telling me words that are the correct part of speech, then I read them the story. Great for learning the parts of speech (no, this isn't all of Jane's grammar, but she enjoys doing them with us).

12:30- 12:45 (ish) He's done.

From now on he fixes his lunch, plays outside, does whatever the rest of us are doing that day (Lunch with Grandpa?). Sometimes we do educational videos or computer games. Sometimes not. Depends on the mood and other chores or events going on. He spends a great deal of time playing outside and in the evenings with his older siblings, often with educational card games (current favorite) 

At night, I spend about an hour reading to everyone (this began as the regular night time reading to my oldest when she was a baby, and I just added each kid as they came along.) Sometimes some of these books are educational, sometimes not. I always end with a chapter from the Bible and a song, then prayer. 

So, all together, he spends roughly 2- 2.5 hours on formal academics (not counting the before bed reading, any educational videos or games not arrived at through Easy Peasy, talks with older siblings or his Dad, or any discoveries made while playing outside.)

This lady took a sort of survey of her readers for how long they spend on school each day.

https://howdoihomeschool.com/2018/08/07/homeschool-hours-per-day-2/