Parents who after school - how do you get it all done?

[Anonymous]

I have 2 kids. 3 and 8. I do a little bit with the 3 year old but would like to spend more time with the 8 year old. I work FT and once he's done with home work and dinner we do some math and reading together. I want to include science, perhaps some history but there just is never any time. How late do your kids stay up working? Do you do math and LA everyday or alternate. Essentially how do you fit it all in

[Anonymous]

The eight year old does his homework and then you want to give him more homework? You must be a fun parent. Reading together is one thing, but you want to give him another school day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 kids. 3 and 8. I do a little bit with the 3 year old but would like to spend more time with the 8 year old. I work FT and once he's done with home work and dinner we do some math and reading together. I want to include science, perhaps some history but there just is never any time. How late do your kids stay up working? Do you do math and LA everyday or alternate. Essentially how do you fit it all in

I save it for the summer and leave weeknights during the school year for family time and other enrichment classes (music, dance, drama, gymnastics, karate, whatever)

[Anonymous]

Your poor 8 yr old! What the hell does he do all day during school time that you are trying to essentially "do school" all evening?!

[Anonymous]

We spend 15 minutes in the morning going over homework and helping with anything he's having trouble on.

[Anonymous]

Op here. He plays for 1.5 hours after school and or has an after school activity. He has friends who come over. He also needs a lot of help with his school work to reinforce what he learns in school. We aren't after schooling to get him ahead (although i wouldn't be so harsh on a parent who did) - he has LDs and memory issue and going over it at home helps him retain what he learned in school

[Anonymous]

Just do the history as bedtime reading, thus accomplishing both required reading and supplemental history at the same time. No advice for science, we save it for the summers. Here's what we do:

Penmanship/writing, social studies, and logic are the major subjects I supplement during the school year. We also practice math facts and do daily reading as required by the girls’ school. Since reading and practicing math is required by the school I don’t consider that extra. Depending on the day, our supplemental subjects take my youngest 5-35 minutes and my oldest 15-45 minutes.

We do 5 minutes of penmanship (DD5.5) or 15 minutes of writing (DD7) every day. Every other day, we also do around 30 minutes of logic games and exercises (that they selected). On the days we don’t do logic, we use Story of the World, a non-fiction book about something historical/cultural, or a biography as our bedtime story. This covers the half hour of reading or being read to assigned by their school while simultaneously providing enrichment in Social Studies. Since it is to fulfill a school requirement as well I don’t consider it part of the time spent supplementing. Other days we read fiction and more typical bedtime stories.

Either doing math homework or practicing math facts for a few minutes a day is recommended by their school so we do that but no extra math. We would if they seemed to need it but so far they don’t.

Science and geography are saved for the summers -- we go to museums, go geocaching, do weekly country studies that involve me learning to make something new for dinner at least once or twice, mess around with science kits, or even just make explosions in the back yard with coke and mentos and then explore why things explode and what else we could safely blow up (chemistry, early-elementary style). These are things that at their age I want to just be natural, fun exploration and not a formal curriculum, so I save it for summer when we have more time to dig into a topic in depth.

The above is implemented in a really flexible way at our house; if we need to skip a few days or a week of the supplemental work for some reason, we will. The one standing exception to the above routine is that in the week following a birthday or the two week period following a holiday on which gifts were received, I suspend our “formal” writing practice and we do a “practical” writing program each day – thank you notes as copywork until all the notes have been written and mailed.

[Anonymous]

My child is 10 and after 2 years, we are going back to private because the burden of after schooling and sports was too much for all of us. Nothing was getting done really well and everything was getting done halfway.

At home, we will still concentrate on Math as well as Geography but other areas will now be covered during the school day.

Private school tutition is going to be very hard on us as a family finacially but overall I think it will be a better fit for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your poor 8 yr old! What the hell does he do all day during school time that you are trying to essentially "do school" all evening?!

not OP, NP here. Different things work for different families. Some kids and some parents enjoy doing academic work together. My kids love when we do extra stuff together. It is a good way to bond and have a good discussion. There is nothing wrong with additional academic work.

OP, i would say you need a "curriculum" like plan. pick a well organized book that has good chapters and do one chapter per night. once you set that up it will be easy to keep up. We have a 3yo and a 6yo. 6yo likes science. we got this book http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0753453010/ref=wms_ohs_product_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1 it has short chapters. simple small experiments that are associated with most of the chapters. He likes it a lot. this book might be too simple for 8 yo but my point is that there are books that can be used to stream line the process. we dont do this every night but we do this 3-4 times a week. Math and reading are our "must do" subjects. 6yo reads well. we ask him to read a chapter from a chapter book to us every night. we use kumon for math and that has worked very very well for us. For us kids are very motivated and we strongly encourage them and flue that motivation.

I agree with you that time management is an issue. i would say that you do your best and that is all you can do. in the end it is about being together as a family. set realistic goals and try not to burn out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just do the history as bedtime reading, thus accomplishing both required reading and supplemental history at the same time. No advice for science, we save it for the summers. Here's what we do:

Penmanship/writing, social studies, and logic are the major subjects I supplement during the school year. We also practice math facts and do daily reading as required by the girls’ school. Since reading and practicing math is required by the school I don’t consider that extra. Depending on the day, our supplemental subjects take my youngest 5-35 minutes and my oldest 15-45 minutes.

We do 5 minutes of penmanship (DD5.5) or 15 minutes of writing (DD7) every day. Every other day, we also do around 30 minutes of logic games and exercises (that they selected). On the days we don’t do logic, we use Story of the World, a non-fiction book about something historical/cultural, or a biography as our bedtime story. This covers the half hour of reading or being read to assigned by their school while simultaneously providing enrichment in Social Studies. Since it is to fulfill a school requirement as well I don’t consider it part of the time spent supplementing. Other days we read fiction and more typical bedtime stories.

Either doing math homework or practicing math facts for a few minutes a day is recommended by their school so we do that but no extra math. We would if they seemed to need it but so far they don’t.

Science and geography are saved for the summers -- we go to museums, go geocaching, do weekly country studies that involve me learning to make something new for dinner at least once or twice, mess around with science kits, or even just make explosions in the back yard with coke and mentos and then explore why things explode and what else we could safely blow up (chemistry, early-elementary style). These are things that at their age I want to just be natural, fun exploration and not a formal curriculum, so I save it for summer when we have more time to dig into a topic in depth.

The above is implemented in a really flexible way at our house; if we need to skip a few days or a week of the supplemental work for some reason, we will. The one standing exception to the above routine is that in the week following a birthday or the two week period following a holiday on which gifts were received, I suspend our “formal” writing practice and we do a “practical” writing program each day – thank you notes as copywork until all the notes have been written and mailed.

Thank you. This is the sort of approach I hope to follow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child is 10 and after 2 years, we are going back to private because the burden of after schooling and sports was too much for all of us. Nothing was getting done really well and everything was getting done halfway.

At home, we will still concentrate on Math as well as Geography but other areas will now be covered during the school day.

Private school tutition is going to be very hard on us as a family finacially but overall I think it will be a better fit for us.

I get math. Why Geography?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: How late do your kids stay up working? Do you do math and LA everyday or alternate. Essentially how do you fit it all in

I also have an 8y old. If it isn't done by 7:45pm, it isn't going to get done. My child needs to be in bed at 8 and read independently until 8:15 and then get rest.

We do whatever homework he has (always has math, spelling, and reading) and social studies/science get alternated. We don't do anything extra, but reinforce concepts when they come up naturally. And practice spelling words in the car on the way to school in the AM.

[Anonymous]

OP, ignore all the odd responses. This is why I have told Jeff that we need a homeschooling forum. It is funny that you asked, I am now looking for a tutor to help me with this. I can't do it all. I save a lot for summer. I also alternate LA with math during the school week. I would skip science and history. Those things are best left for school to teach and more spontaneous topics at this age. You can discuss history and science can be easily learned later on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is 10 and after 2 years, we are going back to private because the burden of after schooling and sports was too much for all of us. Nothing was getting done really well and everything was getting done halfway.

At home, we will still concentrate on Math as well as Geography but other areas will now be covered during the school day.

Private school tutition is going to be very hard on us as a family finacially but overall I think it will be a better fit for us.

I get math. Why Geography?

This is why: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/07/the-less-americans-know-about-ukraines-location-the-more-they-want-u-s-to-intervene/?hpid=z1

[Anonymous]

We use E.D Hirsch as a general guideline for what to cover. DD prefers history and geography so we read through it during the school year. Science is usually for the summer.