What do you want to see?

Ok, I'm fishing, I admit it! I can tell that people are reading the posts, but I'm not getting a lot of responses. Please, please, do not get me wrong. I LOVE to see people reading the posts! I guess what I really need to know is, "What do you want to see?" What kind of things would encourage you to add your thoughts? Do you have suggestions for topics you would like to see explored? Give me a shout and let me know or start a thread yourself! I'm sure someone else wants to know the answer to a question, or has a vent they would like to express. Somebody surely wants to share something wonderful or scary about homeschooling in Missouri.
Jump on in!! (Please!)

Right now I am searching for how to implement T4L as our curriculum. I love the splitting the number of lessons by number of days advice but I have questions about what are the language arts extensions supposed to be used for...do I schedule them everyday? Also with so few social studies and science lessons in 1st grade how do you guys supplement to get to the 1000 hours and make sure to include everything. Um....guess I'll stop there...so many questions...we are on day 27 of homeschooling so I have a list of questions a mile long...if only I had the hours it would take to wade through every post on the message board...sigh:).

Bobbi,
I know that sometimes it seems overwhelming, so many questions, so little time! When I was teaching my daughter first/second grade I did not live in a state that required hours, so I am not sure how to fill the 1000 hours at that age. Remember that you can count many things as school hours. Coloring, reading to your child, your child listening to audio books, don't forget to include field trips. Videos about a fire station, police station, books about these things count as social studies. Helping to take care of family pets, especially if you explain about nutrition of pets, or grooming, is certainly learning that will work for science. Baking and kitchen skills can count in health. Don't forget to do safety, stranger danger, and stuff like that as part of your homeschool hours.
Everything does not have to be strictly book, or based on Time4Learning to be counted as educational hours. I'm sure if you think about it a bit, you might find other things that can be counted as educational hours. What about hygiene? You could consider that as science or health time.

I hope these suggestions spur some ideas. Feel free to ask any questions you have, if I don't know the answer, I work with a great group of homeschooling moms who might be able to come up with the answer. Happy homeschooling!

Right now I have a 1st grader and a 3 year old. For my little girl (1st grader) we do T4L after our Table Work. For our table work we start wth Religion I found the great website that does a little divotional every day that she and her brother listen to, then on Mondays she picks out a new verse and we do copy work with that M-F that gives me 45 min of Religion, 15 min Reading (we go back and read every weeks verse after the copy work) and writing (LA). Then its more copy work from a workbook and the previous days leasons from T4L that have printables are done. Then its math we do the previous days leasons and then more addition or subtraction or money, just a little more to keep our hands in the adding/subtrackting stuff. I baught a USA map puzzel and some flash cards so we are starting to learn our states. Then its off to T4L and she does what I have planed for the day. Right now with this schedule I get about 3.5 to 4.5 hours of school. Starting in about a week or so will be our Co-op and I will get 4 more hours a week there. I also count Church on Sundays as Religion and we do a lot of baking/cooking with our kids. Also gardening and are in the prosess of adding chickens to our list of daily chores.. This is how we get our 1000 hours.

Thanks guys...that is very helpful. I have been counting church and reading etc. I am wondering if I even really have to track for him this year since he isn't 7 yet? I worry about not tracking because he was in public school last year...does anyone know if that matters? We are having a blast homeschooling and I have to say its a great move for our family! (not that we haven't had struggles so far but we are always done with the essentials by 11 or so and that's a lot of free time)

Even if he will not turn 7 during this school year, the fact that he was in public school last year means he is on "their" radar. You would be safer recording his hours, better safe than sorry! Just for your own knowledge, you might check to see if 7 is the start age in your locality. Not every community has the same start age. Still, since he was in the system and now is not, you probably need to count hours.

Linda, I was wondering about that. I have been recording what we do and how long it takes because I had those same thoughts. I sure hope it never comes down to us needing to prove what we're doing but you never know and I'd rather be safe than sorry!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MamaToHerRoo

Even if he will not turn 7 during this school year, the fact that he was in public school last year means he is on "their" radar. You would be safer recording his hours, better safe than sorry! Just for your own knowledge, you might check to see if 7 is the start age in your locality. Not every community has the same start age. Still, since he was in the system and now is not, you probably need to count hours.

---