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Don’t Overwhelm the Young Ones
by Ron Paul
Here is a great article on The Homeschool Mom site. It warns against this: “Too Much, Too Fast, and for Too Long.” It was written by Jeanne Falconer.
This is good advice:
“Rethink the ‘jump in full force’ approach and ease into homeschooling.
“Many experienced homeschoolers begin each year with one subject and add in additional subjects over a period of weeks. This gives homeschooled kids and their little brothers and sisters a chance to transition to homeschooling. Parents, too, then have more reasonable expectations. They can see if they are going to need more tricks in the bag for entertaining a toddler or caring for a baby while helping older children learn. Parents also have the opportunity to get supplies or adjust to homeschooling during nap time or on a schedule they did not anticipate during the optimistic planning phase of homeschooling.
“Many other experienced homeschoolers begin with a few days of homeschooling per week, or they limit themselves to very short homeschooling sessions each day. Experienced homeschoolers might start a kindergarten child with fifteen or twenty minutes. That’s each day, folks.”
This is why my curriculum limits grades 1-3 to reading and arithmetic. That’s plenty if the child really masters the material.
I also recommend not overwhelming any child in grades 4-5 with more courses than the child can handle. Drop a course for a few weeks if the child is having trouble. The child will catch up.
If you skip summer vacations, your child will get through everything by age 16. Then the child can take 10 CLEP exams and enter college as a junior at age 18 . . . for $2,000 in exam fees. There is no hurry.
Hsling yr round is the way to ease chaos at home. Theyre there anyway and unless you have oodles of money, you cant go do fifty things a week anyway. Limit it to a few trips out a week and you can still get tons done. Require math and some other independent skill things before you leave for the day, when you are. One time staying home becuz they didnt complete…will be the last lol