How to Be Done Homeschooling By Noon
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A reader emailed and asked how to be done homeschooling by noon.
It’s an amazing dream, isn’t it? Finish homeschooling before noon and can have the afternoon free for exploration, field trips, music lessons, or just hanging out at home.
I’m going to answer this question with a couple of questions: how old are your kids and what time do you start?
Be Done Homeschooling by Noon with Elementary Kids
Keep in mind that elementary kids in the classical homeschool typically don’t have hours and hours of schoolwork to complete. You have math, language arts, and perhaps Latin. Then there’s history, science, and art.
The schedule I follow and recommend for my little elementary children is this:
9:00 Morning Time
I love to keep my morning time simple with only three subjects. We work through memorization, the subject of the day, and a read-aloud.
Memorization is simple. It’s a quick review of a poem we’ve already learned followed by work on the poem we’re currently learning.
The subject of the day alternates between history, science, and fine art appreciation. Ideally, we complete history on Mondays and Wednesdays. Science is done on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And I save music and art for Fridays.
Then I read aloud from our current book.
That’s it! Morning time lasts about 30-45 minutes.
10:00 Work with Kids
At 10:00 I begin sitting down with my kids one-on-one, starting with the youngest. Currently, I sit down with my little boy on my right-hand side (I’m right-handed, so it’s easier for me to work with him there) and my little girl on my left-hand side.
My daughter is able to complete some of her schoolwork independently with a minimum of help from me. So she sits and works for about 30 minutes by herself, occasionally asking questions. Then we work together for 30 minutes. I teach and explain her grammar, spelling, and math lessons. Once those are completed, she’s done for the day.
My little boy needs my help with everything. But he only has about 30 minutes of schoolwork each day.
My elementary kids are finished homeschooling before noon.
Middle and High School Kids
Middle school and high school kids take longer. Some kids need more time to do the readings, complete math, and to learn Latin. Other kids race through their schoolwork and finish in a couple of hours.
At the same time, middle school and high school kids have a longer school day.
My kids can no longer finish math in 15 or 20 minutes. Middle school and high school level math requires an hour or more to finish.
There are more and longer readings in literature, history, and science.
Older kids have more to learn in Latin.
My middle school and high school kids need 3 to 6 hours to complete their school day with my 6th graders needing 3-4 hours and my 12th graders needing 5-6 hours.
Middle School
Let’s take a look at middle school kids. Starting at 9 am, with 30 minutes of tutoring in the morning, didn’t allow quite enough time to finish the school day.
By lunchtime, my middle school kids were almost done with their homeschooling.
They needed to finish their reading assignments in history and literature. Since we usually have a quiet time after lunch, reading history and literature was easy to finish off.
Now I did have one middle school kid who worked quickly through his schoolwork. He finished by noon!
In order to be done by noon, I found middle school students either needed to skip morning time, start at 8 am or both.
High School
High school teens don’t sit down with me for tutoring any longer. Instead, I keep office hours right after lunch to answer questions, grade tests, and work with them as needed.
I go back and forth during morning time with my high school teens because it takes so much time out of their day. And their day is already 5 – 6 hours worth of work!
Even so, my high school teens are usually done by 2 or 3 in the afternoon.
It’s still possible to be done by noon, even with 5 or 6 hours of work. You simply need to start the homeschool day around 6 or 7 am in the morning!
Some homeschooled high school teens are willing to get up and start their schoolwork first thing in the morning.
Most aren’t.
You can finish homeschooling by noon.
But in order to do so, you need to be willing to move the starting time for your homeschool earlier and earlier in the morning to account for the increasing amount of work.
Are you ready to start homeschooling first thing in the morning?
And are your teenagers ready to get up early so they can be done early? And enjoy an afternoon devoted to their own pursuits?
my son does the bulk of his learning on his own except the work that we are doing together. He can totally (in middle school) be done by noon if he applies himself, he often likes to space things out though so it all somehow works out.
I’ve noticed kids like to move at different paces! As you said, it is possible to be done by noon. But the beauty of homeschooling is meeting your child’s needs, and clearly your son loves to space out and savor his studies. 🙂