| In our homeschool, we did all of our assigned | | | | math lesson and a whole foreign language lesson |
| course work in 4 days each week. The fifth day | | | | on the fifth day. With Apologia, we could do |
| was reserved for my kids to explore their areas | | | | science in 3 or 4 days a week, and much of the |
| of special passion. It was still a "school day" but | | | | other stuff wasn't as rigid as the math, foreign |
| we left it largely unstructured. When my kids | | | | language, and Sonlight. |
| were younger, that fifth day was reserved for | | | | I think it's VERY important not to overwhelm |
| "park day" or "book report lunches." As they got | | | | your child, and you are in the best position to |
| older, however, the fifth day was left for them | | | | know what that looks like. Don't encourage your |
| to study there areas of passion (in our case, | | | | child to do too much so that their absorption of |
| chess and economics) and also to work at | | | | the material slips. |
| meaningful employment. | | | | In short, don't do what I did - do what works for |
| I am often asked how we managed to "do it all" | | | | YOU and your homeschool. |
| in four days. In short, the answer is - we didn't! | | | | In general, homeschooling in general allows enough |
| We used Sonlight for most of their elementary | | | | time for specialization. As long as you schedule |
| and junior high. Most of the things my children | | | | time for fun, it doesn't matter if it's a little bit |
| could finish in 4 days. We didn't "do it all" though. | | | | every day, or a whole bunch once a week (like I |
| We rarely opened the instructors guide at ALL - | | | | did it.) I often see kids doing stuff for fun, for |
| we just did the assignments as listed in the | | | | specialization, and the mom is listing it as school. It |
| schedule, without all the analysis and discussion. | | | | IS school, and it SHOULD be put on the transcript. |
| Some of their reading that was on the Sonlight | | | | At the same time, those fun things are |
| schedule wasn't something they considered to be | | | | specialization, You don't have to leave time for |
| work, so they would read that during the 5th day | | | | more specialization if they are already doing it. |
| without me telling them to. They also did a whole | | | | |