Am I doing enough in my homeschool?

This is not your average pro-homeschool post.

I do believe in tests once in a while. I do believe in textbooks, if only for foundations, for about 50% of the subjects.

I believe in balance.

When homeschooling, the question of "Am I doing enough?" always seems to plague our minds. Trust me, it plagues mine on a daily basis.

I was in public school for four years, and in that time, it was all review review review. We were still spelling "a" and "I" in third grade. The class goes as fast as the slowest student.

On a teacher's board on Pinterest, it was an advertisement for a free printable. It said "Common Core states by third grade students should know the three branches of government." Funny, I don't remember learning anything outside my state let alone government. If I had never gone to public school, I would almost become paranoid at that. According to this article, third graders should know state locations and capitals. HAHA!! The only reason I knew all of my states and capitals (I don't know all of them now - I lost it over the years. Now I know all of the little European and Asian countries.) was because another student and I taught ourselves from a dictionary and a large blank map of the US at recess!

At the same time, I read another story of a homeschooler who was 16...and still hadn't started high school yet. Yikes.

Firstly, YOU know your child best. You know what his strengths and weaknesses are. YOU know what he loves and what he doesn't.

Sometimes, we homeschoolers, (me included) tend to lose touch with reality. Like, we feel we have to do three maths a day to catch up with those in public school. We feel we have to cram vocabulary words and fractions down our kids' throats and read endless works of classic literature. We feel we have to do school 7 days a week to match the high-homeschooler statistics. And, if our child can't read the whole Narnia series by age ten, we're complete failures compared to those public school kids. 

This just isn't true. In public school third grade, the average child's reading level is a Cam Jansen or Magic Tree House book. If your third grader can read a Cam Jansen book, then you're OK. No matter what website you're on, if it says "XXX graders should know XXX," know that many students above that grade do not know the material. I've read stories of people who think their high schoolers are way behind because they can't complete a certain Algebra textbook. When really, after taking college-level tests, their student is years ahead.

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Am I doing too little or enough?

Some people will disagree on this subject. I believe the key here is balance.
Although I believe every child is different, I do not believe it would be OK for your average 13 year-old to just begin addition. Although I don't believe in testing to death, I believe an end of the year assessment test - verbally, regularly, whatever - for reading and math is necessary to see where your child excels and where they need to improve. Until the high school years, I don't believe any other test (except maybe spelling) is necessary as long as you know the student knows the material.

For college-bound homeschoolers in 6th grade and up, I would recommend curriculum for all subjects, except (if you want) science, history and maybe spelling. Even then, I still think a history timeline or science textbook or some type of structure would be good to make sure you're covering everything.


Am I doing too much?

If you're stressed trying to double up or be a year advanced, then yes, you are doing too much. If your child is a grade ahead and you're still pushing, you're doing too much. If you've worked more than an hour on decimals and fractions with your fifth grader, it's too much. Also, note in public school, we only finished about 75% of the textbook. If it's June and you've finished 80% of the textbook, you're OK. Remember, many homeschool-textbooks are advanced (A Beka, Saxon) anyway.

Remember, you don't need to do all those crafts and supplements you see your home schooled neighbor do.

What can you do about it? Just relax. Have a movie-pajama day, go to the park and just play, bake some chocolate chip cookies, do what the kids want to do, just have fun for a while! There is nothing wrong with taking a break - a few days or a week - in your homeschool.

Basic run-down of what your child needs to know

Check your state requirements for more in-depth information. This is a very basic idea of what your child should know and when.

Math

I would recommend a math curriculum for all ages, except maybe kindergarten. 

Kindergarten: Typically, you learn addition, counting, numbers, and colors in kindergarten. Easy? 

First grade: Addition, tally marks

Second grade: Subtraction, basic fractions

Third grade: Multiplication and decimals

Fourth grade: Division

If your second grader can't divide, don't worry. If your fifth grader can't really divide that well, you are not behind. It is not a big deal. Many public school children cannot divide in seventh grade - which is an obvious problem in algebra.

Reading

The best tip I can give you for K-6 grade, is just read. Read and write every day. The more you read, the better your writing will be. Read whatever interests the child. With my little sisters, we have started read alouds. So far, we've read Ramona and Beezus and we are now reading The Tale of Despereaux, which they love. For read alouds, I would recommend fast-paced and fun novels about something they're interested in. My little sisters like read-alouds that have movies to go with them. (Veggietales, Charlotte's Web, Because of Winn Dixie, etc.)

By third grade, students are introduced to nouns, verbs, and adjectives. By at least sixth grade, they should be aware of the rest of the parts of speech (adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction). More advanced learners can learn indirect objects, direct objects, object of prepositions, noun of direct adjectives, and others. (Note: Many public-schooled seventh graders don't know many parts of speech beyond nouns, verbs, and adjectives.)

As for actual reading level, I can't really tell you, because I never did any grade-level reading. (In public school, another student and I were about 5 years ahead in reading comprehension...lol)

Social studies (history, science)

Nothing but a few fun science projects here and there is really necessary until 4th grade.

I never did history or science (OK, one science project and a little animal-research) until my homeschool years, but, as a history nerd, I think history is very important for all ages!!

Catch up Days / 4 Days a Week Homeschool
I don't think year-round 4-days-a-week homeschooling "textbook-free" is the brightest idea, especially for college-bound students.  Being the way I am, I enjoy structure and organization and I do not want to do any schoolwork other than reading history over the summer.
I do, however, believe in setting 4 days a week aside for your core subjects, and then using Friday (or bi-weekly Friday) as a test/review/learn-what-your-child-wants-to-learn day. Not only is this reviewing what needs to be reviewed, but kids can work on what they want to learn. If your child likes trains, then check out a bunch of books from the library and research trains for the day! If you need a break after going hard (going hard is NOT synonymous with "doubling up") in school for 4 days, just use this day to pin and watch movies and eat popcorn.

Agree? Disagree? Have anything to add? I'd love to hear your thoughts!