How To Legally Make Your Homeschool Day Shorter

Everyone wants a shorter homeschool day working on lessons, both kids and parents.  You can admit it, no judgement here, no need to impress anyone.

Nobody gets gold stars for the longest school day.

One of the ways to decrease the assignments is to learn in various ways.  Sitting straight at a desk with books is not the only way to learn. 

In fact, more things are comprehended and remembered when applying them in real life.  Sneak some of these ideas in your homeschool day. 

You will have less time in the homeschool day yet have more lessons learned.  Use some of these ideas to have shorter days and simplify.

• Math: 

Educational math games.  Games that have them being the banker.  Play games where they are the score keeper. 

Keeping track of time spent reading.  Telling time and figuring how much time is left. 

Shopping while keeping track of the cost with a budget, and how much is left to spend.  Figuring out what product is the best offer.

Cooking with a recipe using measurements and keeping track with the timer.  Taking a cooking class. 

Starting their own business, keeping track of income and expenses, counting back change.  With entrepreneurship there are so many skills they learn the go way beyond math.

Have them pick out something they want to purchase. Plan ways to earn money to buy that item. Figure out how long it will take to earn enough money the the item. Look around for the best deal and determine the change they will receive after purchasing it.

• English: 

Reading anything and everything counts for school, even library summer reading programs or your own summer reading project.

I remember in my junior high school years I was an avid reader and in an English class I wrote a short story for an assignment. 

After class the teacher accused me of cheating, not believing that I wrote it due to my poor grades in her class.  I told her I would prove to her by writing another short story over the weekend. 

That story was about a music teacher accusing her student of cheating and not believing that she wrote the song she turned in for an assignment. 

That teacher did apologize to me but still could  not understand how I could get such bad grades and yet write that short story so well. 

That’s what reading will do, show you good writing and correct lay out. Learning to break down sentences in class did not teach me to write. Everyone learns differently.

List making, writing letters to anyone or cards to nursing home residents, writing stories or poetry, writing jokes to each other, and nature journals are examples of meaningful writing practices.

Playing games of scavenger hunts also make writing fun.  Attend a play or movie after reading a book and discuss the differences.

• Geography:

Get a good and accurate globe, look up every place that you read about or that is in a movie.  Another good place to look is Google Maps to view the landscape and get a good look at the area. 

Plan out a trip together getting out maps and plan the trip with a budget in mind.  List all the stops you want to take along the way, including where and what to eat. 

Keep track of the weather for the places you will be visiting for a couple of weeks, put it on a graph to clearly see the results. 

Have them keep a journal to record all that you have seen and experienced.  Start a collection of something to remember all the places you have been. 

We collect post cards and magnets of the places we have been to.  My parents kept a magnetic map of the United States with individual states on their fridge and put up the states as they visited on the map. 

Just any fun way to remember the trips.

• Science: 

Science experiments that appear to be magic but are really just science usually capture their attention. 

But as a warning, they will want to repeat those experiments again and again so get enough supplies.  Sometimes they will tweak it just enough to try and see if the outcome will vary, just like a scientist. 

Zoo visits capture at least one favorite animal an an interest. 

There are different programs available at each zoo and they each have unique experiences during a day.  One zoo we visited had giraffes you could feed and another zoo offered overnight family visits to sleep with the penguins. 

Nature Centers also offer programs and classes such as photography groups, classes, and guided tours. 

Have your child learn about their pet or possibly a future pet.  Visit a veterinary clinic or animal shelter, take an obedience training class with their pet. 

Take horse riding lessons, learn about horses, or raise their own farm animal if you have the land. 

Baking together or experimenting baking cookies with one ingredient omitted for each small batch to see and taste what that one ingredient adds to the finished product.

• History: 

Take trips to historical sites.  This can be as small as a roadside marker or as grand as the Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania during the annual Civil War reenactment. 

There are also many festivals for renaissance and pioneer days that include period clothes, reenactments of events, period food and exhibits of trades.  These events make the past come alive.

• Life skills: 

Calendar planning and organization skills.  Knowing how to do laundry, clean house, menu planning, cooking, canning, and gardening.

Teach them to write checks, balance checkbook, fuel up vehicle, car maintenance, yard work, and house maintenance…(impossible to list them all.)

As always, check with your state’s homeschooling rules to ensure that you are within the guidelines.

So save book work for classroom time and apply other lessons in real life situations whenever possible.  So many possibilities to make learning fun and leading to less desk work. 

Don’t get overwhelmed with all the choices, take a deep breath, and just pick one.  Have your child pick suggestions. 

This may be the first time you hear them say, “I want to do that again!”

When we first started homeschooling this way, my son told his dad that night, “we didn’t even do school today, we just had fun!” 

I was so surprised to know his viewpoint of the day which was actually packed with learning. 

Get ready to have great adventures and less struggles.