Depending on what style of homeschooling you're following, will depend on the amount of hours you dedicate to it each day, week or month. The age of your children is also a factor as younger children often spend less hours than older children engrossed in their work.
School time is not just measured in the hours spent learning core subjects or completing projects or self-learning topics though. There are a variety of daily activities that are considered to be learning opportunities and therefore count towards your schooling time.
At a traditional school you would aim for about four hours per day of classroom activities and up to two hours per day of outdoor or physical based play and activities. At home, you can easily produce the same amount of output in three hours per day of learning time. You don’t have the transition and wait time for the instruction or quite the same interruption time to factor in so generally focussing and concentrating is easier.
Time spent researching topics for interest or study can’t be rushed. There will be days when a child is so absorbed in learning their new topic of interest they just won’t want to stop. This also goes for the artistic component of learning – it takes time for clay or paint to dry or for knitting to grow, and many a relaxed paced afternoon can be spent dedicated to these more creative subjects even while listening to a favourite audio book in the background.
Some families choose to focus on the daily goal of time spent in learning situations, others balance it out over a week or a month and take extended breaks. The beauty of educating your children at home is that you can make it work for your schedule and make time for topics as you require it.
Up to 2 hours of lessons a day, plus hands on activities means you can easily give your child a quality education at home.View Course Overview
Instant access. No credit card required.
We respect your privacy and won't give your email to anyone else.
Educating your children at home, as opposed to sending your children out to a school each day, can in either situation be the best thing that ever happened to them or the worst. There are some key aspects that need to be considered before you decide to homeschool your children if you are wanting it to be a successful endeavour.
Our approach takes the best of Waldorf Steiner, Montessori and enquiry teaching methods. Waldorf and Montessori schools have been around for over one hundred years. There are more than 2000 schools world-wide operating in over 200 countries.
Hello, I’m Francean. Teacher, mother, wife, and principal at Functional Education. After years of study and a career in Hydrology and Coastal engineering at a large Hydro-Power company, I began my teaching journey as a Science teacher in a state school, then moved into the Waldorf Steiner field of education. It has been over a decade now that I have been privileged enough to spend my day in art and music and living in a world of storytelling and wonder.
Homeschooling or home education is an extremely viable option today. It is becoming more popular and by Ministry statistics, there are now 41,000 students choosing be educated outside of a standard mainstream classroom environment here in NZ and Australia.
There are lots of reasons that families decide to homeschool their children. They may have perfectly good access to adequate public or private schools in their local area and still make the decision to educate their children at home.
There are no formal qualifications required to be able to home educate your child, but there are some important things you must know...
Find out all the legal obligations you need to know before choosing to homeschool your child in New Zealand
Many resources can be homemade and cost practically nothing, particularly if fashioned from recycled materials.
The length of time you are planning on homeschooling needs to be carefully thought out and planned.