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Home ed

Can anyone who home ed's a 9/10yr old boy, give me an example of your day please

9 replies

TheOriginalNutcracker · 10/01/2013 13:24

I am considering taking ds (10) out of school for various reasons, but tbh home educating him scares me to death.

He is a very wilful and child and tbh hates learning (well he does at school). I'm not sure i could keep him focused enough to learn at home though either.


Also if I only did it until he started secondary school, would I struggle to get him to intergrate back into formal education ?

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Loquace · 10/01/2013 13:59

Also if I only did it until he started secondary school, would I struggle to get him to intergrate back into formal education ?

I HEed for the latter years of primary, my son did not reintergrate well back into middle school but that was becuase Italian state education was never and will never be a good fit for him.

He has reintergrated perfectly at his new school, which is an online British school, and is doing fabulously.

As in I actually cried when I got the end of term report. Whole proper tears.

He got an A grade in everything !

My kid. The kid whose parents celebrated the rare pass marks with (fairly cheap) bubbly because they were that bleeding rare.

I think the sucess of reintergration depends upon where they are going for big school as much as it does on how HE worked for them during primary.

We did

-mornings: formal academics
-after lunch: personal projects/interests
-afternoon proper:youth club/sport team/having mates around or going to them
-early evening: reading both out loud and in own head.

I did more or less combine the major elements of the Italian and British national programmes, but they were my tools, not my master, if you see what I mean?

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TheOriginalNutcracker · 10/01/2013 14:15

Thank you Smile

I have already decided that the secondary school that my elder dd's go to will not be any good for ds, so i'm looking into alternative schools.

Your day sounds very similar to what I was thinking of.

Ds does like to learn (whatever school say), but he has to be engaged and interested in what he is being taught, otherwise, it is just a pointless exercise.
I would have to stick to quite a ridgid routine, as this seems to help ds, but the learning it'self would take a more laid back approach.

It's is lovely to hear that your ds is doing so well now, after being home educated Smile

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maggi · 10/01/2013 17:06

Hello
My guy is 12 but I'd do this routine whatever the age as I childmind as well so....

6am wake and go to gym with dad

7am shower, breakfast, one cleaning chore and then into formal work which I have previously set for him. He does this up in bedroom whilst mindees arrive and I take them on the school runs. (His dad is around - he is not home alone)

9.20 I return and help him with anything he's stuck on or wants to expand upon. Then we go out with the babies/toddlers/preschoolers. This may be to a toddler group where he will do art etc or he will play with the little ones. Or we may go out to the wilds and have a great morning exploring the natural world. Or we might go to a Home schoolers event. Or he may spend the day with dad or gran.

after lunch - its quiet play at the house for the little ones. He may chose tv (I record loads of documentaries linked to whatever theme we are doing), or Art or his own studies on car mechanics etc etc.

3pm second school run - little ones usually go home and a couple of bigger ones come. He socialises with big ones, games, tv, cooking/whatever I'm doing with big people.

5.20 he walks a disabled
neighbour's dog (very small and old dog - before anyone comments about children being in charge of dogs)to earn a few pounds. He organized this "job" himself.

6pm all mindees gone. We all do half hour of chores together to clean up the poor house after the toddlers have trashed it. This is where he learns how to care for a home, balance a budget, and look after himself. Cooperating and doing the cleaning every night earns him his weekly pocket money.

6.30pm Usually completely free time but we could do experiments or something that's exciting enough to interupt our chill time

8-8.30 reading time then lights out

Ours looks like a very structured day because I work at home and dad works nights so it has to fit in with when and where we can do it.

We use National Curriculum for Maths and English. We then pick a topic and use it to include most other subjects in some form or other.

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jomidmum · 12/01/2013 10:16

Hi,
My DS is 10. He does more "formal" studies from 9.30-12.30, then in the afternoons we go out sometimes to a home ed group, or he has friends rounds, plays on PS3, reads, watches TV, goes out cycling, walking, etc. Once his friends who go to school are free, he meets up with them and goes to sports clubs or just chills with them.
In our morning time, he does maths every day (he uses Conquer Maths), piano and reading. The we choose a topic every couple of weeks (sometimes different to his sister) and he does loads of things based around that. We use the Happy Scientist for scince and some books we have.
He loves the routine we have and also the options of choosing topics he's interested in. He's quite a headstrong boy but he has just loved home ed! The only downside is that we have still to discover boys in our locality who are of a similar age and home ed.....he is desperate to do this!

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TheOriginalNutcracker · 13/01/2013 12:59

Thank you both.

I am going to look into it a bit more, but unfortunatly it is looking like it's not going to be possible for us right now.

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throckenholt · 14/01/2013 07:46

I have 3 (two very nearly 10 and 1 11 year old). I tend to do formal stuff with them in the morning - start about 8.30 do about 40 mins then have a 20 minute break, then another hour or so, another break, another hour, then lunch. Then watch something with them for an hour on TV - usually a recorded documentary. After that they are free to do their own thing. It does vary on how much they are willing to concentrate - sometimes I send them outside for 10 minutes bouncing on the trampoline - to clear their minds and pep them up.

The key though is to focus the work on things that they relate to.

Mine also do a lot of outdoors and with DH in the workshop type stuff - eg making polystyrene boats.

If it is only for a few months I would be very much more low key about it. Just make sure he does some maths, some reading and some writing every day or so, and that he engages in some way with something academic (could be watching decent stuff on tv or online).

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MariscallRoad · 14/01/2013 14:23

Some HE families also take opportunity to explore what is available in their immediate environment. For example local things like an open space, a nature reserve, a historic environment, a park, a zoo, a stream, and perhaps National Trust sites - if accessible locally - might contribute highly to the education and one might spend considerable time learning. Further, one might use local athletics facilities, pools, join other local groups, drama and cultural groups etc. If you don?t have to travel long distance to those, you might take the opportunity to incorporate them in your time.
Some families might not apply a specific time tame table might have a set of one or three subjects they do daily at different times, like music practice.

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knackeredoutmum · 16/01/2013 09:04

OP, if you think home ed would be better for your ds maybe you could share here why it wont work for you right now, maybe someone else has been in your situation and could help you think of a way around it?

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ToeCap · 16/01/2013 09:13

When mine was around that age, it was an hour and a half formal work per day. No more than that. The rest of the day was out and about, dog walking, swimming, meeting up with HE friends etc. Worked for us, had 3 GCSE's by 13.

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