How long is a typical homeschool day? Every family is different, therefore, there is no set rule as to how long your day must be. Consider this…
Every family is different, therefore, there is no set rule as to how long your day must be.
One question that many new homeschool moms ask is “How long should we homeschool each day?”
Most of the time, that question is said while comparing a “typical” homeschool day to a “typical” public school day. However, there really is no comparison.
Public school teachers have their hands full keeping their students on task. They are dealing with 20-30 kids at a time. They often have to interrupt their teaching to deal with discipline issues {which homeschool parents will deal with, as well, if they’re homeschooling multiples}.
In public school, there are assemblies and pep rallies, fire drills and tornado drills. These days, there are also drills to practice what to do if there is an intruder in the school.
All of these scenarios lend themselves to a different school day than what we, as homeschoolers, will face on an average day.
How Long is a Typical Homeschool Day?
The answer to “how long” really depends on a couple of things…
How old are your children?
Obviously, your kindergartener’s day should be nowhere near as long as your tenth grader’s. On average, you should be able to complete all “formal” learning within an hour or two for the little ones – probably preschool through grades 1 or 2. Maybe even a little older.
The older your child is the longer their day will be. By late elementary, my kids were taking 3-4 hours to complete their school work. My middle schooler typically works for 4-5 hours now, and when my boys were in high school, their day lasted 5-6 hours.
It can depend on your family dynamics.
When I started our homeschool journey, my son was going into the third grade. We were usually done with school before lunch. Then, we could head to the library or the park for the afternoon.
The following year, little brother joined us. We usually had a bit to finish up after lunch, but not much if we worked hard.
Fast forward a few years, and I was juggling three kiddos and their school work. We usually worked from 9-3 or 4. They weren’t all working through that whole time, but that’s when “I” was “on.” I just cycled through each kiddo throughout the day teaching and helping where I was needed.
Even though our school day was 6-7 hours long, there were breaks and times when one finished early and was sent to find something quiet to do while the others finished working.
What outside activities do you have scheduled?
If you attend a homeschool co-op, you may find your day running longer or shorter than normal. If you have a field trip planned, your day will be different.
A few years ago, we had to be finished with our homeschool day by 2:30 so we could pick my high schooler up from school each day. This year, he’s in college so we don’t have that time constraint.
However, we currently plan our homeschool days around therapy and doctor appointments related to my daughter’s EDS diagnosis. We start late and end early some days, and we go longer in the evening on others.
Resources for Homeschool Moms
Below, I’ve featured just a handful of how to homeschool books that will help you plan your homeschool year.
You should be able to find them at your local library or bookstore. If you can’t find them locally, you can click each image cover to purchase them on Amazon.
Creating Homeschool Balance – “Creating Homeschool Balance” will help you understand what balance looks like, feels like, and how to create it. You’ll learn strategie
Your Goals This Year – No matter which kind of homeschool parent you are, this book will help you understand the stages of homeschooling high school, put you on the path to success, and keep you from feeling overwhelmed. You can homeschool through high school, and here are the tools to help you.
Scheduling: The Secret to Homeschool Sanity – When you homeschool, it’s important to take time to plan and rest, and not just work, work, work! Using schedules in your homeschool can help you avoid burnout.
So, you see, the answer to ‘how long should my homeschool day be’ varies from person to person.
How long is your homeschool day? Leave me a comment and let me know how you’ve fit your schedule to your lifestyle.
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I don’t home school, but this is very interesting. So you only homeschool through elementary? When do you find time to blog? Wow. This is an impressive schedule. I have two little ones and I’m trying to develop our “routine”.
No. My middle one attends public school after being homeschooled through 8th grade. My oldest tried high school and came back home. My youngest will homeschool all the way through. As for finding time to blog… I spend a lot of time waiting for my youngest while she dances. I do a lot of blogging then. And, I work in the evenings after dinner. Our routine seems to change with the season. By the time I feel like I’ve gotten ‘in the groove’ someone’s schedule changes and it’s time to tweak it again.
I am a homeschool graduate, and my family did less hours but I relate to trying to time it out! My parents were big on homeschool, not just school at home. We homeschooled so we could learn and grow from the iltworld. There were days we did not do any ‘book work’ but still learned a lot. I think every family is different and when coming into homeschool moms need to not feel guilty if they’re not always perfect 🙂
I Love seeing your post….this is my first year to homeschool. Kindergarten boy and a little girl who just turned 2 in February….this has really helped me. Ive been prayerful for the pressure ive been feeling from everyone around me even though my children are thriving and learning so much in books but also about God and his word and about life and gardening. There is so much more to homeschool than the daily school work. I love it so much but have had some discouraging days in my first year wondering if I am in fact doing this right!!
In the beginning, we homeschooled 5-6 hours because that is what the curriculum guide and my spouse expected. However, the kids were miserable. We were just starting on the journey, and admittedly didn’t understand how the kids learned best. Two have MERLD, a language processing disorder. Finally it occurred to me after watching Sidney Poitier in “To Sir, With Love” that I was doing a disservice to their needs, as well as our non-MERLD child. So I began combining studies as I could making as much as possible applicable to real life. Themed learning, project-based learning and book work all chunked out and dependent on the needs of the day. Not unschooling, but since I try to make use of any teachable moment, we have learned schooling is not bound by teaching to a test or by the rigors of a curriculum. We’re getting all requirements in, but it takes half the time now. I teach to their interests and to give them the tools to be self sufficient on their own. Daddy’s coming round slowly.
I would say our days are fairly close to what the author posted: Early Elementary = 1-2 hours; Upper Elementary = 4-5 hours; Middle School = 5-6 hours; High School = 6 hours minimum (plus extra time as needed for studying/completing assignments).
We spend far more hours schooling that most home schooling families I know. That used to bother me yet when I tried finishing our school day early (by noon as many families I know are able to) I found that I had to drop subjects I feel are important – subjects families who were able to get school done faster did not study/pursue. So back to a very full day we went with no regrets on my part. We start at 8:00, finish at 3:30 (with breaks during that time), and have free time before dinner for exercise and personal pursuits (drums, dance, etc.). It’s a full day but it works for us.
Our schedule is very much like yours. We school from 8:30-3:00 most days with breaks throughout the day. We do “extra” subjects, too, because we enjoy them or I feel they are important. What a blessing it is to tailor our child’s education to meet our family needs.
It’s awesome when we can find a schedule to meet our needs, huh?
I’m 13 years into our journey, and I still have discouraging days. Don’t give up! You are doing an awesome job!
We just started Homeschooling and I thought we had to go from 8 to 3 just like regular school. But I found out I didn’t. We do 3 to 4 hours a day. Which works better with my son Charlie who is in 2ND grade and has AFHD.
The bulk of our homeschooling is done between dropping the high schoolers off in the morning and lunchtime. We work together during those hours. Then after lunch, we have nap/quiet time, and my 3rd and 6th graders do math and handwriting and sometimes other things on their own.
We homeschool in the mornings, and my high school students have a lot more work than my elementary-aged kids. Sometimes my high schoolers might work into the afternoon if they have a long assignment, but it’s rare. So I guess we get school done in about 4 hours.
We started out with the same schedule, and quickly realized that wasn’t how i thad to be.
NY state homeschool regs dictate you must average 5 hours a day or 225 hours a quarter (900 hour a school year) for grades 1-6 and 990 hours a year 7-12.
We started homeschooling the last quarter of kindergarten and are now in our 3rd quarter of second grade. I have ONE child. I could do every subject required by our state (and there’s a lot) in one day and still not need to do 5 hours to get it done and have him understand the material
I let him fill in the “extra” time by working on educational sites and apps as well as games with mom. Not to mention extended gym and art classes.
My goal is to be out of this state by highschool years. Sooner would be better.
This is our first year and our son is in 3rd grade. We average about 2.5 hours a day. I worried that we weren’t going long enough, but then I read a lot of posts that said the first year out of public school is spent more on de-schooling/deprogramming and that sometimes a more relaxed schedule is better. I also was only focusing on the time he spent on the actual “planned” school stuff, like math, reading, science, etc. But as time went on, I saw him spending his free time learning PowerPoint on his own, and now he’s teaching himself coding. He also does a lot of building with his K’nex, and creates different game worlds in his Super Mario Maker on the Wii. And this is just what I’m aware of…he’s always coming to us with something he’s learned or researched…so he’s “doing” a lot more school than is officially planned. Now I’m not so worried.
Yes! All of those things he is doing are certainly educational. He sounds like a very smart young man!