[everybody's mother]

I worked forty hours a week or more for much of the time I was homeschooling (my kids are over 18 now) and for a few years was attending college full time and working part time, with heavy family/social obligations. What worked for us was to 1) prioritize. Math, science, history, ela come first in importance for us. 2) cluster schooling ( a term I just made up, cause I can't think of what it's really called) so on my days off we would focus on the subjects that they needed help with, but only do one or two subject in a day. We would try to do most of the weeks worth of that subject in one session, with breaks, of course. 3) subjects they could self direct got done at the sitters- art, music, physical activity, books about stuff they were interested in, etc.. 4) videos, dvds, youtube, google, books on tape are all life savers! 5) we focused alot on learning *how* to learn, how to look things up etc... much more important life skill than advanced calculus, for most of us. 6) we often did school at weird times. My babysitter was insistent on putting the girls to bed around 8, even though I was picking them up at 11:30... so they got a GREAT nap and were wired by the time I got them home around midnight.... so we took advantage and did some school, lol. That one probably isn't real helpful for a house full of morning people, but what I'm trying to say is that it's OK to keep odd hours with their schooling, doesn't have to be traditional public school hours. We grabbed every opportunity for education. We talked in the car, the kids read our college texts and talked with us about our classes, we Google or youtube any- and every- thing that caught our attention. I swear they learned more in those crazy stolen moments and Internet rabbit trails than they ever did when we were trying to be all "proper" with it

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---------- Post added at 04:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:08 AM ----------

* also they each had a notebook they were to use to write down things they did independantly, so if they were reading at the sitters they would date the page, say how long they read for, how many pages, and a summary of the material. If they rode bikes or played tag for "gym" they would write in the activity and how long they played for etc...it saved me time on the paper work and was a pretty good showcase of what they did for the year.

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