Need a slower pace? Try half-speed homeschooling!
Do you need a slower pace in your homeschooling? Half-speed homeschooling can help in many life situations! Are you expecting a baby and on bedrest? Did you recently move to a different house? Are you caring for your elderly parents? Did your husband recently change jobs? Are you going through a health crises? Did you recently have to go to work part-time?
Are you grieving an unexpected loss? Did you or a loved one recently receive a difficult diagnosis from a doctor? Are your children needing time to grow into the guides you chose for them? Did one of your children recently have a long bout of illness?
Well, first, turn to the Lord – He is your greatest strength and able to be leaned upon heavily in hard times! He loves you. He hears every prayer, and there is great power in prayer. And, second, it may be time to give half-speed homeschooling a try!
What is half-speed homeschooling?
Half-speed homeschooling is simply taking two days to do one day’s worth of plans. Heart of Dakota (HOD) guides make this easy, as each day of plans has a two-page spread. Furthermore, each subject has its own “box” of pans. So, parents going half-speed in HOD for shorter periods of time can literally just do the left side of the plans one day, and the right side of the plans the next day!
Parents going half-speed for longer periods of time eventually find children need more daily consistency in language arts and math. So, in extended half-speed homeschool scenarios, parents do daily language arts and math, but half-speed everything else.
Half-speed homeschooling provides a temporary slow-down when life gets tough. It effectively keeps children moving forward in their guides in all subjects, so no skills are missed. It also maintains balance. Half-speed homeschooling provides a much better plan of attack during tough times than randomly skipping subjects and boxes of plans!
In general, we would not recommend half-speed homeschooling in one guide for longer than 1 1/2 years. Two years spent in one guide feels too long – to parents and children! It also makes moving full-speed into the next guide difficult.
What is an example of half-speed homeschooling with daily language arts and math?
Let’s take a look at one example of half-speed homeschooling with daily language arts and math in Preparing Hearts for His Glory! I used the suggested times by the author for the noted minutes each box takes. It works well to have a daily block of time that stays the same (about 45 minutes). Then, it works well to plan alternate days with another block of time starting with parents teaching and ending with children working more independently (about 1 hour and 15 min.). That way, children do school about 2 hours, but parents are not teaching that entire time…
Daily:
- Dictation (5 min.)
- Grammar (15 min.)
- Math (20-30 min.)
- (Total: About 45 min.)
Every Other Day (alternating “One day” and “The next day“…:
One day…
- Storytime (20 min.) Teacher-directed
- Bible Study (15 min.) Teacher-directed
- Poetry/Creative Writing (5-10 min.) Teacher-directed (Creative Writing Day will be 15 min. longer)
- Science Exploration (20-30 min.) Independent
- (Total: About 1 hour, 15 min.)
The next day…
- Reading About History (15 min.) Teacher-directed
- Rotating Box – Research/Geography/Timeline/Vocabulary (20 min.) Semi-Independent
- History Project (20 min.) Semi-Independent
- Picture the Past (20 min.) Mainly Independent
- (Total: About 1 hour, 15 min.)
3 Times a Week (on any days of your choosing):
- Drawn into the Heart of Reading (30 min.)
- NOTE: If you have other children in different guides going full-speed, the half-speed child can just do Drawn into the Heart of Reading on the same three days the other children do.
How do you get back on track when half-speed homeschooling?
Good question! Well, that depends on the age of the child that is half-speed homeschooling. If the child is on the youngest side of the age range for a guide, you can simply go half-speed, then full-speed in a guide, and then go half-speed, then full-speed in the next guide. The child would take 3 years to do 2 guides and be ‘back on track” then.
If the child is on the oldest side of the age range for a guide, half-speed homeschooling should be used more temporarily. There are 365 days in a year, and time can be made up easily with that mindset. The child can homeschool through part of summer, through breaks, on free nights/weekends, etc. Older children can also add extensions to the next guide and choose higher level language arts and math, or they can simply graduate high school one year later.
If you need help figuring this out, call me at HOD! I am a placement specialist at HOD, and I have helped many wonderful homeschool families make plans through tough times. I have personally been through each and every “tough time” I mentioned in the first paragraph, so I understand, and I am glad to help.
And remember, hard times pass – they don’t seem like they will, but they do. And God is good – always. So hang tight on to Him and weather the storm! Let yourself half-speed homeschool for awhile – but keep moving forward. Hope this helps someone who may need this right now!
In Christ,
Julie
