How long should I spend on homeschooling?

[letsjog]

My DS is 5 so reception. He was getting extra support as behind a bit with writing in particular / fine motor skills and a little with speech.
The teacher was making a plan to try and get him up to speed by year 1 but that's obviously now gone to pot.

We are getting weekly packs from school, nothing crazy, same for the whole class. I'd like to help him get up to speed with everything so he starts year 1 at an even keel with his peers.
Question - how long should we realistically spend a day on structured homeschooling?

I also have a 2.5yr old and we will be doing outdoor play as we are lucky to have a garden and I will get them to help me make lunches/bake and we've got a craft pack coming so will be doing lots of art. We painted some rocks yesterday and DS did dot to dot, some writing and reading and play dough independently.
He also watched lots of TV and played with his normal toys most of the day 😂

I want to make it a bit more structured to actually purposefully work on improving the things he's behind on but I don't want to put him off by overdoing it.
Any tips/advice would be really welcome.

Honestly, I think if you do 1-2 hours actual school work cumulatively throughout the day, you’re doing amazing.
My year 1 has done her Joe Wicks PE, had a snack, done an online maths task set by teacher and is now playing with lego.
The teachers won’t expect galloping progress, just keep on top of it a bit.
All the other stuff (playing in garden etc) is just as important

My Dc are a fair bit older, one late primary, one late secondary.
They have been doing about 2 hours of school work in the morning, plus an hour reading in the afternoon.
For a reception age child, I'd probably aim for 2-3 sessions of about 20 minutes each across the whole day, interspersed with playing etc.

We've been doing a couple of hours a day. I'm including crafts and helping with cooking in that. I've also been chucking them out in the garden and calling it play time 😂 according to ds2 this is the best time of his life 🤦‍♀️ we really aren't getting stressed out about it. Want to make this as fun as possible for them or it will be horrendous.

Ds 11 struggles, he was in the process of being tested for dyslexia before he left and is going to high school this year, so I'm a bit worried about that.

An hour. You don't need to do more, but your DS might get behind doing much less. That said, any time is better than no time spent at all and A LOT of kids will be behind regardless.

Formal learning is just one part of education anyway, so if you are in the garden learning about insects and plants (if you have a garden, wish I did!), baking you are doing maths, art you are doing shapes and colours and pen control.

Many children will be spending the majority of the next few weeks playing Nintendo or watching Disney movies while their parents WFH/Look after other siblings/go on mumsnet/hinch their houses/get drunk and argue etc. So playing with them, reading to/with them, having conversations about how the world works, board games, jigsaw puzzles, these things are all marvellous and at reception age often better tools than classroom learning.

DD is 5 and also in reception.
Her school are emailing work over each day, phonics, literacy and maths. Each piece is about 20mins. They also sent her home with various topic activities.
We're also doing the Joe Wicks workout, arts and crafts, baking. We've got a long garden that's paved at the bottom so she's practicing her bike riding and also playing on the trampoline.
By 4pm she knackered and ready to veg in front of the tv.

We're aiming to do about 2 hours a day, DS is nearly 7. Literacy and maths every day non negotiable. Then a bit of project work - history, geography, science or art. Some reading together every day and a run around in the fresh air.

I have 4 and 6 year olds, so reception age and a year one. Yesterday we went around the village looking for rainbows so today d's (6) wrote about it and added up how many we saw, they both drew a picture of houses with rainbows in the windows. That was done by 10 so they've played in the garden for the rest of the morning. We'll do some of the online stuff this afternoon if they want and they'll both read at some point. Tbh, the weather here is lovely so I'm getting them into the garden as much as possible in case it's crap next week!

I would try to do as much learning in disguise as possible. For example he needs fine motor skills for writing but that doesn’t mean he needs to practice writing for long periods. Playing with play dough, picking up small beads, trying to spread butter on bread are all things which develop fine motor skills, there are hundreds more.
I would do 15 minutes of school work follow by a long period of other activities which he will learn from but not feel like school work.

Agree with other posters, OP. I'd do 2 hours max spread across the day but make most of it activities he doesn't feel are 'school work', eg baking, painting, outdoor things, simple games like snap, pretend shops etc. Maybe do the odd worksheet from school just so he gets into the idea of sitting down and writing or doing some light sums for the start of year one but I wouldn't sweat it if he hates the idea. They'll all be in the same boat when they go back.

I think schools are just trying to help keep them busy so the parents don't all lose it trying to find things to entertain them all day!

Hope it's going well. What you're doing now sounds lovely! (Mine are currently drawing pigeons and writing rude words on the patio while I work.)

As the schools have stressed to everyone, children will not be left behind, so don't worry about that. If you can get some done, do it, but yiu don't have to. Your children will benifit more from not have a stressed parent trying to force them to do work. Teachers will be prepared for what's coming in a few months.

An hour. You don't need to do more, but your DS might get behind doing much less. That said, any time is better than no time spent at all and A LOT of kids will be behind regardless.

This is not true, and exactly what schools don't want parents to feel. This situation is stressful enough.

Literally 20 minutes before each meal, fun stuff

I've given dd and ds a 2hour time table of work each day, been a bit more relaxed today hes been on the exercise bike instead of joe wicks helped weed the front garden and watched an episode of blue planet

Mine is year 2 and we go at most 2 hours a day. The rest of the time she plays, watches some tv, we cook or bake, she entertains her 2 year old brother while I have a work meeting, eats, we go for a walk, etc,

@Iminaglasscaseofemotion

Which part? I said that any time is better than none. We don't all have hours to give over to home schooling. As you said stressful times, so if people can do 45mins to an hour a day that's amazing and much better than many of us will manage due to other commitments

I've got DD 6, in Year 1. She's done some maths (online set by the teacher), English (quick Twinkl worksheet) and reading. She also did a bit of what she calls "curriculum", today it was history. Again, just a worksheet. Tomorrow it'll be science. She's enthusiastic about it at the moment so we'll continue! Not doing any at the weekends, probably won't do any in the holidays either.

And in between that she's been in the garden, played with her brother, watched TV and done some painting and colouring. Bath night tonight as well!

Tracing is really good to prove fine motor coordination as is dot to dot and colouring. I was told fine motor develops a certain time after gross motor. You could do some catching the ball as that would help hand eye coordination. I would focus upon reading and number work.

Carole Vorderman has online learning and has made it free atm for all 4-11 year olds. There are printable sheets too.

Well today I did PE with Joe by myself (DD yr4 was still in bed - she got up as it finished). She's read for about 30min, done maths, English and French about 10 min each. She did an online dance class (her dance teacher is doing online stuff now). We've sorted out clothes. And now it's music practise which will be about 10min. Then we have a 30 min walk/scoot around the streets before dinner.
I'm WFH full time single mum so it's all a juggle. Tv is on a fair bit, plus she plays with her toys and makes things with paper, draws etc

@AnotherMurkyDay the bit where you told the OP her ds might fall behind doing less than an hour.

DS1 is in Reception and I am an Early Years teacher. I have been doing one maths, one reading and one writing activity per day. Today for reading we hunted for pirate coins with the Phase 3 tricky words on (from Twinkl) hidden in the garden and he read them as he found them. For writing we made and wrote birthday cards. For maths he made a picture of a pirate ship from 2D shapes and named them. In Reception children will often do 3 x 20 minutes of adult-led learning per day, and that is as a group, so 1:1 you can achieve the same effect with much less.

@Iminaglasscaseofemotion

Yes MIGHT fall behind doing much LESS on a thread full of people recommending 2+ hours

We always homeschool our kids and at 5 we are only doing maybe 5 minutes of a workbook if they feel it.

My older children do their work and if my 4/5 year old wants to join in they have a little workbook of tracing letters etc. It never lasts long though.

We start proper lessons at around 7 and then increase time from there.

So today for example my 8 year old did 30 minutes workbook and then increasing in age until my 15 year old who did around 3-4 hours.

We did lots of other stuff - drawing , cooking etc and they are currently building some sort of maze in the living room

We home Ed so I understand it’s a different situation but 2 hours a day for a 5 yr old sounds a lot to me. My much older children do far less than that.

My 5 yr old does nothing formal at all - we read & talk to her lots. The same method allowed my older children to learn to read & write by age 6 with no formal anything.

Lego, playdough, sewing, dot to dot, drawing/colouring etc are all fine motor.

Based on my older children I found little & often improves handwriting & if you can be there to check letter formation /pencil grip it will really help.

It’s going to be fine