Strategy 3 for Saving Time in Your Homeschool
We’re talking this week about ways to shave off time from your school day and year, putting more time back in your day for family time and other valuable activities. Yesterday, we talked about fast-tracking certain assignments, while on the first day, we talked about fast-tracking entire chapters.
Today, I want to suggest to you another way to reclaim your time when it comes to your day-to-day schedule for your homeschool:
✅ Reevaluate the emphasis you put on each subject.
Have you ever considered that not every subject demands the same amount of priority in your day? We sometimes realize this when it comes to subjects that are inherently shorter (e.g., spelling or handwriting), but what about the “Big 4”—English, math, science, and history? Shouldn’t they all be given equal priority?
Maybe, but maybe not.
When we try to give equal time and equal priority to every subject, it can contribute to the day going on and on and on…
Think about it. Science, history, math, and English can all be really heavy-hitters, especially as you go up in grade levels. Every single one of them can absorb an enormous amount of time once you factor in the time of teaching the lesson, reading the textbook assignment, completing the activities/lab manuals/worksheets, and doing any research reports or papers that go along with them.
That’s a lot. And it’s enough to overwhelm any kid.
But how do you know which subjects to de-emphasize, and how do you do that without completely defeating the purpose?
I want to share with you how we have approached this in our homeschool, and hopefully, this might spark some ideas for you that you can implement in your own way.
First, let me share how one conversation totally opened my eyes to what I had the prerogative to do in our homeschool:
About five years ago, well into our homeschool journey, I was talking with a friend of mine who was homeschooling her younger kids and had already graduated her older ones. I tried to hide my shock when she said, “I don’t even teach history or science at all.” I was highly skeptical at first but decided to hear her out. To be honest, I never fully embraced her view for our own homeschool, but I did hear where she was coming from and found it supremely helpful in translating changes into our homeschool.
(Side note: I hope this is true of you and me, too! Even if my ideas sound like something that you’d never want to do, I hope they will at least give you permission and get your wheels turning, so you can then adapt these ideas in different ways that I’ve never thought of!)
Back to my friend. I resisted the temptation to dismiss her ideas and slot her as one of “those” who don’t care about academics (if you’ve been around here for a while, you know that academics matter to me).
Truly, her reasoning made sense—for their family. They traveled extensively throughout the United States, and her children were constantly exposed to real-life opportunities to learn about science and history, no textbooks required. But that was their family, not mine.
Up until that conversation, it had never dawned on me that I could choose not to do a subject! And in full disclosure, depending on your state requirements, you might not be able to entirely cut out just any subject, nor am I recommending that you do so!
I knew that I didn’t want to wipe out these subjects entirely. But the conversation opened my eyes and my mind to allow myself to pause and consider the place that each subject holds in our priorities.
You’ll have to flesh this out for yourself, but here’s where I arrived:
I realized that history in particular (our curriculum calls it Heritage Studies) had become very tedious and boring for my kids. They were watching video lessons and/or reading textbook passages, then spending enormous amounts of time filling out worksheets, then occasionally having reports to do on top of that. I identified this as a subject that might be worthy of reevaluating and tweaking.
I’ll let you in on my train of thought…
I want my kids to know history. I want them exposed to the wealth of knowledge about how humanity got to where we are now, how our country was formed, how various civilizations rose and fell. I want them to recognize names and events when they hear them.
I want my kids to enjoy learning about history, to whatever extent that is possible.
I don’t care if my kids memorize intricate details and facts about history.
I remember as a kid having to memorize start dates and end dates of battles/wars, details from speeches by famous presidents, who the generals were in each battle, etc., etc., etc. Why don’t I care if my kids do that? Basically, because I don’t remember most of it now! I remember the highlights, but I memorized those details so that I could walk in, get my “A” on the test, and forget it shortly thereafter. Let’s be real. If we need to know the details, we’re going to Google it, right? I’m not going to be the parent who sounds like our teachers 30 years ago: “You won’t always have a calculator with you…” Well, here we are.I don’t want my kids burning out on busywork. Our history workbooks, while excellent and valuable, were creating a LOT of extra work for the kids. There were days they were almost in tears filling out all the blanks or answering short-essay, open-ended questions. Was this necessary? Was the harm of burnout outweighing the benefit of reinforcing these concepts? I took a hard look at these questions and decided the harm was becoming greater than the benefit in our particular case.
We’re doing reports and papers in English class, so perhaps we don’t need to do them in other subjects as well. English is where we are hammering in the writing process, mechanics, and flow. I feel that is sufficient for teaching them to write.
So, where did this train of thought lead me?
The end result (drum roll, please)… We de-emphasized history in terms of how we handle it. Instead of treating it like math and English—covering a lesson together, completing worksheets, and doing other assignments—I decided to treat it more like story time.
Since my kids are all able to read independently now, I have them read portions of their textbooks, and when they get to the end of a chapter, we take the test. I’m even okay with open-book tests in this case, because again, I’m not focusing on memorization as much as exposure and familiarity with these rich, valuable stories. I grade their tests and give them a completion grade for all of the reading they did (which is a fair amount in and of itself).
And we move on.
Now, I realize this isn’t for everybody. And that’s okay! I just wanted to give you one example of how reevaluating the priorities for each subject has saved us so much time in our daily work and throughout our year.
We emphasize math and English first, with science closely behind. Then comes history in the adapted form above. After that are any other subjects, like foreign languages, spelling, or handwriting.
I hope you’re finding this series practical and helpful! If you are, I want to remind you that my library of strategies and ideas is readily available to you through Homeschool Crash Course. You can gain immediate access to this self-paced video series for parents by clicking here.
As always, I want to encourage you that you know your child better than anyone else! Trust your instincts, and don’t be afraid to try new ideas with the option to back-peddle and course-correct if you find that something doesn’t work for you.
The beauty of homeschooling is that you can change and adapt to whichever extent you are most comfortable. If too much change makes you nervous, it’s okay to stick with what you know! Eventually, you will find a comfort level where you are able to stretch out a little more and try some other methods, if that becomes necessary.
Stay in it! You’ve got this!
Because our kids deserve better…
Amy
