The 20-minute homeschool – Part 1 – self-directed learning
How long does it take to homeschool every day?
20 minutes. Of your time not 20 minutes of your children’s time. Because, especially if you’re working full-time (or even part-time), you don’t have hours to spend on details that children should be able to handle themselves. They can dress themselves and brush their own teeth, right?
The key to success here is self-directed learning. And getting there in 20 minutes a day is the first step in this journey. This is what makes it possible for you to keep your sanity, your home life, and your job. Or set up a new job. Yes, you CAN work and homeschool and I will show you how to do it in 20 minutes a day.
Step 1: Self-Directed Learning
What is self-directed learning? Simply, it is where the child knows what he has to do for the day and just jumps in and does it on his own. Then you come in and make corrections and hand it back to the child. They redo it if necessary or they are done and go on to the next assignments tomorrow. That’s in an ideal world. But how do we get there?
The Robinson family were experts with this.
When Mrs. Robinson died Dr. Arthur Robinson had to keep his job as a scientist and professor in order to pay the bills and raise his six children, ages 17 months to 12 years old. The children were remarkable in that they took upon and divided among themselves the household and farm tasks. They followed the curriculum and routine their mother had set up and eventually tweaked it to be even more efficient.
Dr. Robinson would correct papers and hand them back in the evenings when he was done with his work. For more information on the system and how the now-grown Robinson children fared, you can visit the Robinson curriculum site. I’ll be sharing some of their ideas here throughout this series along with other systems and tips that I have used personally or that have worked for friends of mine.
My children took a more circuitous route to self-directed learning.
But we got there. It was easier with the youngest, as he was always homeschooled.
In my next post in this series, I will show you how to start your children at any grade level towards self-directed learning. Beginning with the 3 R’s: Reading, Riting, and Rithmatic.
For more info on how to homeschool check out my book:
The Working Parent’s Guide to Homeschooling, by Robyn Dolan. Available in Kindle and paperback versions on Amazon and other e-reader and paperback versions at books2read.com or your favorite retailer.
Check out the video on YouTube.
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