Well This Wasn't The Plan!

9. Yes, You Can Homeschool in 2 Hours!

• Carson and Teran Sands • Episode 9

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"Two hours a day? Impossible!" That was my first reaction when someone suggested we could homeschool our three children in such a short time. After all, traditional schools keep kids for 7-8 hours daily, so surely homeschooling requires the same commitment, right? Wrong.

After unexpectedly becoming homeschoolers while maintaining our full-time careers, we've discovered the surprising math behind educational efficiency. In a classroom of 20-30 students, each child receives only 1-2 minutes of 

The results have been remarkable. Our six-year-old has transformed from a reluctant pre-reader to an enthusiastic bookworm in just one month, bringing books everywhere we go. Our older children are thriving academically and asking for extra math lessons because they're genuinely engaged with learning. Most surprisingly, they're adamantly against returning to traditional school when we jokingly threaten it during difficult moments.

Are you reconsidering what's possible for your family's educational journey? If you've been hesitant about homeschooling because of time concerns, perhaps it's time to recalculate using the real math of effective education. Those two focused hours might be more powerful than you ever imagined.

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SPEAKER_03:

I'm shocked because I was one of those people who were like, I don't know if you can learn as much in two hours. But now it just makes sense. They're not getting one-on-one instruction at school. They're not really in their class learning that long. You know, a lot of that is busy work. They're not actually sitting there. So the fact that we can dedicate two hours to sit down with them and do it with them, it's just more efficient. It works better. We are two full-time working parents who just made a crazy decision.

SPEAKER_00:

After four years in public school, we're homeschooling our three kids and documenting the whole thing.

SPEAKER_03:

Never in a million years did I think we would be homeschool people.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to, well, this wasn't the plan podcast.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm slate, and school's in the kitchen now. I'm Scotty. We says Scott when I say so. I'm Sailor, and this whole podcast was my idea.

SPEAKER_00:

This podcast is our real-time journey, unexpectedly juggling homeschool, jobs, parenting, and everything in between.

SPEAKER_03:

Follow along each week as we document how it's going and share the good, the bad, and the ugly. Because we know some days are going to be ugly, and we're not holding back.

SPEAKER_00:

We're learning to expect the unexpected. So let's get into it.

SPEAKER_01:

Let's go.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, we went on our first little getaway this past weekend, and we were there throughout the week too. So it was our first vacation that we got to do while school was in session. So that was cool. That was like a first. One of our big things we want to do this first year is travel more, and it was nice to be able to be there whenever it wasn't so crowded. So it was awesome.

SPEAKER_00:

There are pros and cons, which we always will tell y'all the good and the bad on this show of that. Um, we're lucky we were there on the weekend because you know we were there that weekend, but also during the week, and the weekdays were chill and there was no one out there, and we got to just enjoy kind of some peace and quiet. But a lot of the things that the kids wanted to do are only open on the weekend, so which they didn't make that clear before we went. So luckily we got to do all of those things on Saturday and Sunday. But if we had just been there on a Monday through Friday, we would have been a little frustrated. And we've heard this from people that love to travel in the offseason. Like you might go to Italy, and I'm gonna go in November because there won't be anybody there, and only to find that everything's closed. So there are, I mean, it was great. We loved it, and being out there when no one was out there was awesome. You just have to make sure that you are prepared for the situation.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and some of the things they did make clear, which is why we ended up going down there for part of the weekend and part of the week. But then other things I think they just kind of play by ear. So they see what what it's like, and then they might shut things down that they weren't planning on it. So that was a little annoying.

SPEAKER_00:

Like when they put in flashing lights that the mountain coaster is only open on the weekend. I mean, they made it very clear, okay, great, we scheduled that for the weekend, and then no mention of the fact that the water slides and all the stuff our kids were real excited about are not open during the weekdays.

SPEAKER_03:

So yes, so that was a little bit of a bummer, but there was plenty of stuff for us to do. We got one of our nights free because it was just a special that they were running, so it was very inexpensive for us to go since it's like the off season and we got to go during the week. So it was all in all a very nice little break. We did not take homeschool with us, so we just got an extra long weekend, which was really nice. Now we do have a trip coming up that is two weeks long, and we are taking homeschool with us, and so that will be interesting to see how that goes. We have the good and the beautiful books, and it's really easy to tear out the lessons that you need. So it'll be easy to travel with it, and I do think if you've ever traveled a long time with kids, it can be difficult in the like kind of craziness, getting places like are we what are we gonna do today? Because they wake up and they're ready for fun, right? So I do like that there I'll be like, okay, I'm gonna get the stuff back to you guys work on your handwriting, and there's something that they can do even if we're in a small hotel room or something.

SPEAKER_00:

So And if you've traveled with kids, you know that sometimes it's nice for them to have an activity that they can do while you're getting stuff ready besides stare at the screen for just, you know, another hour.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, yeah, we don't let them like turn on the TV in the mornings, um, and we don't do tablets or anything. So I'm always looking for things they can do in a hotel room or an Airbnb that's like coloring, or sometimes I'll bring some Legos or just something small, obviously, that you can take with you. So this will actually be pretty good, I think. We'll see. We'll to update you guys how how that goes and how it goes schooling them on the road. But we're excited. It was nice to take a break, and the kids were super excited about that because that's one thing that we've been pumping them up about was that hey, we get to go have breaks whenever we need them. We don't have to go when everyone else is doing it, and it it saves us money because we do like to travel. What else happened this week? I wrote a few notes. Oh, we had a our first, like, our first really bad day where I was threatening the kids to send them back to school. Like, you if you can't do this, you're going back to school. So this is what happened was that we work every day from six to ten. Our kids know that we've practiced it, like they know. And we've talked a lot about how important it is that we have to get our work done or they can't be homeschooled. So they got to where they were just a little too comfortable coming to my office in the morning, like with something, a little excuse, like, oh hey mom, like I just wanted to to show you my drawing, or hey mom, like do you want to hear about my dream, or hey mom. And it just one morning they came in my office, like I don't even know how many times, and I and I kept I was nice about it and nice about it until it wasn't. I was like, guys.

SPEAKER_00:

It was nine times.

SPEAKER_03:

Nine times in one hour. Okay, nine times in an hour. And mind you, we work from six to ten, but they're not awake until about nine. So it's not like a long time for them to just slowly get up, have breakfast, and get dressed. Like, you know, it's not a long time that they're having to occupy themselves. So I got very angry. We set them all down, and I was like, if you cannot respect our work time, you will go back to school because dad and I are sacrificing a lot to make this work. And if you're not willing to help us by just staying out of our office until 10 o'clock, then we can't get our work done and we can't have jobs and we can't pay for your life and everything. So I shared that on social media and I said, Is does that make me like a real homeschool mom now? That I joke to send my kids back to public school, and everyone said yes, like you're a legitimate homeschooler now, and that even if people haven't sent their kids to school, they still threaten them. Like, I will send you to school.

SPEAKER_02:

And the kids are like, No, no, no, because whatever they've heard about it, they're like, I don't want to get up that early. No, I don't want to sit there. No, no.

SPEAKER_00:

And and our kids have gone, so for them, that is it's it's a tangible threat that they can understand. And they it it also it's nice to know that they are really, you know, enjoying, I don't want to say enjoying homeschool. They're they like it way better than going to school because they're all like, uh no, that sounds terrible.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, they were like, no, no, no. And I have been a little nervous about, and you hate to be the person that's like, oh, this didn't work, you know. But if it didn't work for them, it didn't work. But we're like, as parents, we're loving it. This works so much better for us. So I'm glad that they are loving it because I really wouldn't want to go back. I don't think I could go back at all.

SPEAKER_00:

I know. I I think that Turn had told Sailor, like, you know, yeah, if you don't like it, you could go back. Or I mean all of them, but she's the oldest, she's the one most likely that you're gonna be able to get it. I've told them all the time, yes.

SPEAKER_03:

And still forcing you to be homeschooled.

SPEAKER_00:

I we're really hoping that they don't try to call us on that because we we don't want to do it. No. So I know.

SPEAKER_03:

So it makes me happy that they love it so much. So obviously, I don't want to threaten that. It just came out at the time, but they are really enjoying school now. We've got into the new curriculum, they know what to do, they know what has to be done, and they're actually really liking it. Like Scotty keeps asking to do two math lessons instead of one. And like Slate ran in the other day and he's like, I'm ready to get learning. And so, like, I feel like it's it's going really well. Like, we had a little bit of bumps in the road with the new curriculum, but I like it, and the kids seem to be really liking it. The whole episode actually is all about was inspired by a post that I made this week and it went viral about how you can actually homeschool your kids in two hours. Let's talk about that. We have a lot of new podcast listeners that haven't listened to anything, and this is their first episode. So, can you actually homeschool your kids in two hours?

SPEAKER_00:

Impossible. School lasts eight hours, so it must require eight hours at home, too.

SPEAKER_03:

Fair enough. That is exactly my first thought when we thought about this. I'm like, I don't have eight hours a day to homeschool you. Are you kidding me? But I'm a very open-minded person, so I'm like, let's look into this, right?

SPEAKER_00:

And mathematical. We just ran the numbers.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, so we did we did run the numbers. And if you have a class of 20 kids, which is typical, but a lot of people Or if you're in a big city or an inner city, maybe like 30. Yeah, a lot of people messaged me back and said, 20 kids, that's a dream.

SPEAKER_00:

If you're in a rural area, that is one of the perks, is your class sizes are a little bit better.

SPEAKER_03:

So we had 20 to 1, usually. Sometimes it was 22 or something.

SPEAKER_00:

We had like 26 to 30.

SPEAKER_03:

Our kids have about 20 in their class to one at the school that they went to, and they were at school for seven hours a day. So every teacher could spend 22 minutes per kid per day, one-on-one time. Now that is assuming the entire day they are in their classroom learning for the seven and a half hours. She would only have enough time to spend 22 minutes a day with each child. Then you go add in the lunch, the recess, the discipline issues, music, PE, technology, specials, library trips, bathroom breaks, all of that. It really only leaves them minutes a day with each child, which generally does not happen.

SPEAKER_00:

And in fact, the real number ended up being when they ran the numbers, and this is from principals in the public school system, and maybe it was a superintendent as well, that it ended up being about one and a half to two minutes per day on average that a student gets one-on-one time from a teacher, and that's if it's a good teacher. That's assuming it's a teacher that is one of the best ones. Now there's a lot of mediocre teachers that are doing a lot less than that.

SPEAKER_03:

Let's just say that there are days that they don't, because they're teaching a lesson, right? And if your kid doesn't get it or has a question, there's not enough time for all students to ask their questions. So if your kid didn't understand something simply because they just didn't connect with what they said or they got distracted in the moment, maybe a simple, easy fix, they don't actually get that correction. Like, no, this is what I meant. Like, here, you just do this instead. Oh, okay, no problem. Which is what we're seeing at home because she did like all of these worksheets wrong, and we got the worksheets after the week, and we're like, Sailor, like this is the one little tweak that you just and she's like, Oh, I didn't know that. It was so simple, and then moving forward, she was able to understand the concept and and get everything right. It literally was just a matter of that day, she didn't get enough clarification, or she didn't get it presented in a way that clicked, or maybe she was having a day where she didn't listen. She didn't listen and she was distracted.

SPEAKER_00:

So but even if that happens, then it's still the teacher's job to give that one-on-one time to make sure that they still understand the material.

SPEAKER_03:

Of course, yes, it is their job, but it's an impossible job because there's too many kids, there's too many distractions, and they don't have enough time in the day to sit down and make sure that Harry and Sue and everybody understood what was going on to they move forward.

SPEAKER_00:

And I mean, and the real goal is to get the kids that are making 50s on the state standardized test up into the 60s, because that's considered passing. So that's the number one goal. And those kids will get the most attention, and then there's the kids that they deem way below even the 50s, and and then those are the kids that are probably gonna get sent to private tutoring. So they might get some one-on-one time, not from the teacher, but from a tutor or you know, concept masteries, what we called it when I was a kid, whatever. And then you have the kids that are doing well that are already scoring above the passing level. Well, now they're not gonna get any attention because they're good, right? Hey, they're doing great. Look at that, they passed the test. So school looks good.

SPEAKER_03:

That's fine. Well, she didn't understand this one little thing, and it builds and it builds and it builds. We're gonna need to make sure that she understands before we move forward, even though she got an 85, and that's fine. It's the problem is she didn't learn what she needed to. So let's flip over to homeschooling. So if you're homeschooling, we have three kids and two parents. So we school from two, two and a half hours a day, is what we spend on school, depending on the day, attitudes and being very difficult, it might take three. Yes. And now that we're in the curriculum, it's it is being about two, two and a half hours. And we spend pretty much the entire time with them. The only time they're not getting one-on-one instruction is when they're doing the independent work, which is basically like a test to make sure they knew what they're supposed to know. So I'm explaining every single thing to them, answering their questions in real time, making sure they get it. If they don't get it one way, we do it another way, and really making sure that they know what it is. We are sailing through this stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah. And and even on the independent review stuff, I mean, of course, we grade it and they're getting real-time answers on our real-time review of what they did. If I mean, a lot of times they don't miss anything, but if they do, then right away we can say, okay, this is what you missed, this is why, they fix it, and then we move on. It's not like a week later they're getting a paperback, like, oh, we've already learned six things since then. I don't even know what that is. I mean, they're getting an immediate response of this is how you do that.

SPEAKER_03:

And they're recalling it. They remember they did it right. It wasn't like they did it wrong 40 times, and then the parents realize they clearly didn't grasp this. Then we try to teach it at home, and then the class isn't even working on that anymore. And then you try to go backtrack. They literally, we can see that they didn't get something. Like, hey, see here, that's not what they asked. Like, this is what oh, they fix it right then, and then the good and the beautiful, every lesson you kind of touch on what you've already done. So just to make sure that it's actually sticking.

SPEAKER_00:

They make sure that not only okay, maybe they knew it that day when you told it to them and they could do those problems, can they still do it the next day and still can they still do it the next month? And that, yes, the book ensures that they will be able to.

SPEAKER_03:

And I love that. And I knowing because I had a kid in public school for four years, how much they actually learn in a semester or a year. It's it's not a lot. I'm sorry to say that. They don't learn very much in the matter of a year. Now I get to compare it to what the kids are learning. So we've been doing this over a month now. They have learned so much. Like, I'm I'm really impressed and I'm I'm shocked because I was one of those people who were like, I don't know if you can learn as much in two hours. But now it just makes sense. They're not getting one-on-one instruction at school, they're not really in their class learning that long. You know, a lot of that is busy work, they're not actually sitting there. So the fact that we can dedicate two hours to sit down with them and do it with them, it's just more efficient. It works better. It's like getting private tutoring.

SPEAKER_00:

And again, I always say this because, you know, I don't ever want anyone to think we're hating on teachers. You know, my stepmother is a teacher and she was a great one. What we're saying is that in the situation that they're put in to teach, it's amazing that anybody can learn anything. And yet they do because they are great teachers, they find a way. Kids do learn things, but we're just trying to explain why for a homeschool kid, it's a lot easier to get as much learning or more done in two hours as it is in a seven and a half to eight hour school day.

SPEAKER_03:

This is just way more efficient. So they are just learning so fast. Especially one thing is we've been working with Scotty on reading because our school, all the kids in the grades were behind in what they should be in reading. And it's actually, I've been researching it more. It's a national problem, it's not just our school.

SPEAKER_00:

Because we have a good school, it's it's rated pretty highly for a public school.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it was a good school. It's just we have a reading problem. I think it's the schools are an issue. I think that having kids on tablets are making them not want to read as more as much. Like, there's a lot of things playing into it. But our goal with Scotty, because she's sick, she just turned six, and she's our last one to read. We learned kind of our lesson with our oldest, but our goal is like get her reading. We've got to get her reading. So we've been at this for one month, and we do the good and the beautiful lesson. We do an outside reading program called reading.com, and she does that for about 10 minutes because her school doesn't take that long as the older two. So she does that at the end, and then every day our kids are reading.

SPEAKER_00:

Which they, in addition to our two to two and a half hours of homeschool, they have to do 30 minutes of reading on a book that's at the proper grade level or difficulty level for them.

SPEAKER_03:

So yeah, we're making sure that the books that we're picking are stretching their reading skills, that they're not just reading these easy books and just doing it to do it. Even though, I mean, anything you read, that's great. I'm I'm and they still read those at night.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, Sailor still loves books that are second and third grade reading level, and she's reading those at night all the time. But we're like, okay, but for your 30 minutes, you gotta read something that's at least fifth grade reading level because that's what you know your that's what your level you're reading at.

SPEAKER_03:

So she is now reading. Like it's like we took the training wheels off and we pushed her and she's going, she's doing phenomenal. She made all of that progress in one month because we intended to work with her a lot over the summer, but we were so busy and we were traveling a lot, we didn't, and so she backslid. And if you're a parent, you know that in the summer that can happen, and it's very frustrating if you don't do something over the summer. You your kids will test and they'll be like, Oh, like, well, they back backslid this many points on their their score. So she had backslid, so we basically started again on these lessons and stuff for the first of this year in August, and she has made so much progress. She is reading, she's doing great. Mind you, she just turned six. I'm so proud of her, and I'm like, I'm shocked at the progress we're able to make. So it's just kind of freeing to know that we can do so much work in a month compared to what they can do in a entire year, and that's crazy. And you you know, like looking at this on the paper, the the math that we did proves it, but to get to see it is is different.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And I I was so excited because I walked into her room and during reading time, a lot of times I would see her on some of the babysitter's club graphic novels that Sailor had been reading, and those are pretty difficult books, but she would just be looking at the pictures. Well, I walk in there one day and all of a sudden she's reading the um level one, you know, learn to read books that they have, you know, decent stories in there. And I realize why. I mean, to anyone else, it might have looked like, oh, she's backpedaling. No, it's because she wasn't actually reading before, and now she's she wants to read those books because she can actually read them, so she doesn't want to just sit and look at pictures anymore. So that's amazing.

SPEAKER_03:

Like she's reading. I'm so proud of her. I'm like, I'm proud of us because look what we've done. We would she would have never made this progress if she was in first grade at the public school. She would still be struggling with this. And we went on our trip, she read in the car, she brought her book with her to the restaurant. She didn't say a word the entire time she read her book. And then I came outside and she was sitting on the porch with her book. Like she was reading her book in the golf cart. Like, I'm just like, look, we have put in the work and we've created this another child that loves reading. Like she got over that hump. She's feeling confident in it, and I'm proud of her. Like, I'm so excited. And it's just like the proof is right here.

SPEAKER_00:

And it's so great. I mean, in part because, of course, you need to be able to read to learn anything. That's step one. I mean, you can't you can hardly learn anything if you can't read what you need to read. But also just creating a love for reading. I mean, they've done studies on this. This was even before social media, but there's newer studies that include that. But I mean, people that watch TV are on average slightly their happiness is slightly lower than if they're just hanging out doing nothing. If they're reading, it's slightly higher than if they're just hanging out. So, I mean, it's it's just a net positive for your life. It's enriching for your life. It's it's just such a good thing.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I think that we have both done a lot of research and seen a lot of those type studies to know that we want to put in all the work we can to make sure that they're good readers and that they enjoy reading. And we spend a lot of money on books to try to figure out like, you know, what genre do you like? What's something that interests you? And it worked. Like they all three absolutely love reading, and it's brilliant because as a parent, there's nothing better than them going and reading a book so that and entertaining themselves, you know? It's like the easiest thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Nobody ever got in trouble or made a mess when they were sitting quietly reading a book.

SPEAKER_03:

If we did nothing else this year but create kids that absolutely love reading, I would be happy. But that's not the case either. Not only are they doing well and reading and stuff, they are shocking me in all subjects.

SPEAKER_00:

So And he's always asking about he's excited to do his math lessons. They're not always excited. I said that earlier about the language arts, but they're all excited to s to like do math, which is as a math person, that's great for me. They're like, Yay, I get to do math, and I love that.

SPEAKER_03:

I do, I love the turnaround because they were all it was just a fight to get them to school. Like, I don't want to go today. Do I have to go today? Like, it's so boring. We do the same thing all the time, like every day. And then now we're like, Oh, let's do school. And they're like, Yay, math. Like, wow, this is awesome.

SPEAKER_00:

And they then when they get fresh started language arts, I'm like, yeah, but look, you're we always do that last. I'm like, you're almost done. I mean, you for the day. You got five or ten more minutes and you'll finish this lesson and then you're good. And then you just get you get to go read and do whatever you want for the rest of the day. But I think we are probably about one or two years away from them saying readers or leaders in a very um unflattering impression of you, probably. But that's okay. It will still stick in their brain, so it's still good.

SPEAKER_03:

And also tell them, eat your vegetables or you'll die. And they laugh every time. So I'm sure I'll Oh, there's a song.

SPEAKER_00:

They sing the song, eat your vegetables so you don't die.

SPEAKER_03:

Eat your vegetables so you don't die.

SPEAKER_00:

They're gonna be real mad when we get older and we die of old age. And they're gonna be like, but you ate your vegetables. What happened? I thought you weren't gonna die.

SPEAKER_03:

If I told anyone that, they would think we're crazy, but it's a funny thing in our house. Like if Scotty's not eating your vegetables, I'm like, eat your vegetables or you're gonna die. And then everyone starts singing it, and it's funny, and then she eats her vegetables. So if you'd like to try that in your home, please do. Okay, let's get back on track of the two hours. The reason I thought this episode was an important one, and I could tell from the post that I made that went viral is that a lot of people are considering homeschooling, and they just don't know how they're going to fit it in their day, and they don't believe it can be done well in two hours. They think that if you're doing it in two hours, your kids are gonna be dumb, they're gonna be behind, and all of these things. Please do not think that. You can do this in two hours, especially if you just have one kid, you're good. You could probably do it in one hour, especially on the days that they're ready to go. Know that it can be done. Now, we do it a certain way. We have our day set up to where we work in the mornings and then we get back to work a little bit in the afternoons. But since it's only two hours, that really does open up a lot of different ways to make this work.

SPEAKER_00:

It's two hours, four days a week. So you could even think about it as it's just eight hours a week that you have to find somewhere.

SPEAKER_03:

And a lot of people are doing that. There are some people that are only schooling during the weekend, four hours on Saturday and four hours on Sunday. Just getting through the lessons that they need to to keep up. And there's some people that are doing it at night. If you are working from home and your kids older, you definitely could step away for a minute just to help them if they got, you know, to something that they couldn't do. But if you have a job where you're working outside the home, you could make it work. And especially if you have a partner willing to help, you know, you guys could split it up. Like you're doing these subjects, I'm doing these, and then we'll make a plan for when I can do it. Is it some days we do math after school on the days that we can, and then on the weekend we finish up what we didn't get through? There's just there is a lot of ways that you can make this work because there are so many big reasons people are moving to homeschool. I just hate to think about someone that really is just pulled to homeschool and they just think, oh, I can't do it because it's it's seven hours that I can't do. If you get creative, you can make it work. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00:

And if if you don't want to do it, that's totally fine, but just say I don't want to do it. Don't say I can't, because I mean, if you say you can't and you have look at your screen time on your phone and add up how much time you watch TV, how much time your kid spends on the iPad and how much time they spend watching TV, and then ask yourself again if you could find eight hours a week to do homeschool.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I made a joke. I said on my Instagram account that if you can scroll your phone and watch TikToks for two hours a day, then you can absolutely homeschool your.

SPEAKER_00:

So that would be a little embarrassing.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I I mean I think I would too. I mean, I spend more time on my phone than most people do editing videos and things like that, but I actually I like hate that. I hate being on my phone. Like I hate that our society is like we can't go that long without needing our phone for some reason. You know, there are a lot of good reasons that you need it, but I hate that. I wish we were like back in the olden days when you didn't have them. I do want to talk about the kids' ages and all of this. So that's a big one. People keep asking me, I don't know how you do it. Like I am drowning with my two-year-old and my four-year-old trying to homeschool them. Girl.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, don't.

SPEAKER_03:

We no, we didn't, and we couldn't have. Like, we would have lost our minds trying to homeschool them when they were that young. And the the biggest reason we can make working and homeschooling work is because they're older. Now, I wouldn't consider our kids like very old, like they're not like a teenager that's gonna do all their homeschooling without help. So we do have to help them, and that's why it takes so long for us. But they are at an age where we've set up a schedule that it keeps them busy with things they can do without us. So, you know, in the morning they know what they're doing so that we can get some work done. And then we have things in our back pocket for when we need to get some work done. We're like, hey, like I'll pull out a craft, or I'll be like, hey, why like why don't y'all make these energy bites, something that they can make in the kitchen themselves, or hey, I I bought you guys this new painting thing. So they're old enough to be left by themselves, so that if we need to get creative, we absolutely can.

SPEAKER_00:

So and that actually ties in well to the fact that it's possible. When children are older, when they're at the teenage level, that they might need more than two hours of school, but it still won't take more of your time necessarily because they they might still need some help and oversight, but you they won't need it the whole time, certainly.

SPEAKER_03:

That was something that came up. People are like, No, my teenager spends three or four hours a day in school. And I'm like, Yes, but okay, for one, our kids are elementary age. I don't think they need more than two hours a day of school. That is enough. That is sufficient. If you can't fit it in that time, you need to take something out because that's not what's important right now. You need the basics. The biggest thing they need to be doing is playing and creative things and getting outside, okay? But let's talk about older kids. Yes, they do have more subjects that they're going to be focusing on and things that they need to be learning. Also, they have the ability to sit longer and sit still and focus longer. Younger kids don't. So the time will go up when they get junior high, high school age, but it's not going to be time sitting with your parent. Those kids are going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00:

No, your commitment will actually go down.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, those kids are doing most of the work themselves. They don't need the parent to help them. Like they are mostly self-sufficient from what I've talked to other homeschool moms. So that's the beauty, though. Yes, their commitment is higher, but they have time in their day to do that. Their job is school. Your commitment at that time will go down because you can work and they can school at the same time. Whereas right now that can't happen.

SPEAKER_00:

And, you know, there's a whole other, that's probably a whole other episode of just talking about when you get to that point. Okay, well, they do still need teachers because they can't learn everything from the computer. Maybe they do, but they have a lot of options for that. Homeschool curriculum does change some as they get older. There's options of, you know, online courses, teachers that are available to you, even if you're homeschooled, things like that.

SPEAKER_03:

So yeah, we did speak on that a little bit, that the good and the beautiful isn't something they'll we'll be using forever. It's something that makes our life extremely easy right now. But as they get older, it would be a more direct approach, it would be a more direct approach to learning, whereas they watch a video more like a lecture, they learn something and they take a test, they make notes, things like that. Like it really would be online learning, more so from a teacher or professor versus us. And that's fine. I mean, if they're gonna go to college, that's the type of learning they're gonna do. Like they don't need these little craft projects and all of the things. That's not what they would be getting in traditional school anyway. So all of it would look completely different if we were talking about middle school and high schoolers.

SPEAKER_00:

They're gonna need a specialist. Like, I like to think that we could help them with their math up to calculus because we're math people, but not everyone could do that. And and we certainly couldn't help with, you know, I can help with science for elementary students, probably, but when we get to organic chemistry and advanced biology and things like that, I don't know. I don't remember all that. And you don't have to know. They need someone that is an expert.

SPEAKER_03:

No, you don't have to know. That's something that kept coming up. Y'all aren't teachers, like y'all are gonna fail, y'all are gonna, y'all's kids are gonna be so stupid because you don't know what you're doing. You don't have to know what you're doing. Once again, if you're one of those people that are listening to this, trying to figure out if this is something you can do, you can do it. There are so many curriculums to choose from that are beautiful, well thought out, and easy. Like when I tell you, I don't even know what they're learning that day, I sit down and it says, say to the child in blue, and then I read it. I read, we're gonna learn this today. And then it says, get out the box and go through this. It has everything that you need. You don't have to have teaching experience to do this. All you need is some patience and be willing to do that. Not even a lot of that because I don't have much patience and you need to be willing to show up consistently. That is that is it. That is all you need. You can do this. Don't sit there and tell yourself that you can't homeschool just because you're not just because you don't have a teaching degree, because that's bullshit. Like you can absolutely do it. And these there's so many curriculums that have everything that you need to know that a fourth grader needs or a third grader needs or a kindergartner needs, whatever. And if you're one of those people stressing out because you're homeschooling your four-year-old or your three-year-old, guys, don't stress out about that. Like, but I just wanted to point out and wrap this up. But we couldn't have done that when they were younger. Our kids went to daycare when they were younger. So they did like the little learners, and then they did preschool, then they did pre-K, and then they all went to kindergarten. And I think that's really good for them. So if you are feeling guilty because you think like you need to start homeschooling from day one, I disagree. I think that if it's frustrating you and that's not where you shine, sending them to daycare or Mother's Day out or whatever so that you can work now and your plan is to homeschool. I think it's a really great option because all of the things that we were seeing that are negative in schools don't really start until after kindergarten, you know. The socialization that they were getting in daycare and pre-K was good. It it really was good. It was a great way for them to be around little kids and learn to share and all of that. And they learned, they learned their numbers, their colors, their letters, how to count, all that stuff. We didn't have to teach them. And then once we kind of got into the older grades, is when we were seeing a lot of problems. So someone had messaged me asking me about like kindergarten, all that, and I was like, just don't stress about it. It's it is good, like all of the things, the good things they say about school, they get those in kindergarten and pre-K and things like that. It is good, it really starts turning at sadly at first grade now. But so if if that's something that you have been considering, there's just so many people that messaged me about that. So I just wanted to make sure that we talked about that. We couldn't have done it, but little kids require like you on them 24-7, and we don't have to do that with our kids. They are old enough that they can occupy themselves and they can abide by our rules most of the time, not come in and respect our work time. And there's things that they can do, like go to their room and read for 45 minutes when we need to like answer some emails or something. So you can't do that when you've got toddlers running around. So don't feel like it's even possible because it's not.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. So we talked about a lot of things today and went on a lot of tangents like we usually do. But just to recap, there's kind of four main points here. So we can homeschool in two hours because the kids get more one-on-one attention, and elementary kids need less time overall than older kids. Um, older kids learn independently, so you don't have to spend a lot of your time when they're older. And working parents can adapt their schedules. It doesn't have to be what our schedule looks like. It just has to be something that works for you and that gives you maybe eight to ten hours per week available for homeschooling.

SPEAKER_03:

So if you've ever thought about homeschooling and worry about the time, hopefully this episode made you feel better about that. And if you have any questions or there's something that you want us to talk about on the podcast, please DM me because we don't know what you guys are liking or what we should talk about next. But I get a lot of good ideas on Instagram from those DMs.

SPEAKER_00:

So until next time, thank you for listening to Well, this wasn't the Planned Podcast.

SPEAKER_01:

We will be really hard on this podcast.