We use a mix of direct instruction, lots of online resources that we manage ourselves, and 1-on-1 tutors via Zoom through the (excellent) startup Modulo. I spent a large amount of time in the first 6 months − 1 year when we started (back during the pandemic) establishing norms and routines around scheduling and patterns that I hoped would lead to him becoming eventually very self-directed. Which did in fact work. That was intensive but now in the steady state the time cost is low.
I’m basically spending no time on preparation per se, but there is a time cost to supervision. We both work full-time and take turns managing him during the day (he’s 9), which means making sure he’s making it to his online classes and paying attention to his schedule, taking him outdoors for visits to museums etc. Most of the time he’s working on projects that he’s passionate about and doesn’t need me except when he gets stuck. He spends a lot of time building levels (for puzzle games or shooters, particularly) and teaching himself tools using YouTube videos and a lot of GPT/Claude.
We know some home-schooling kids with pretty fine-grained schedules, ours is more like a few scheduled things (e.g. online classes) and then big blocks of time where we trust him to do whatever he’s interested in that day.
We use a mix of direct instruction, lots of online resources that we manage ourselves, and 1-on-1 tutors via Zoom through the (excellent) startup Modulo. I spent a large amount of time in the first 6 months − 1 year when we started (back during the pandemic) establishing norms and routines around scheduling and patterns that I hoped would lead to him becoming eventually very self-directed. Which did in fact work. That was intensive but now in the steady state the time cost is low.
I’m basically spending no time on preparation per se, but there is a time cost to supervision. We both work full-time and take turns managing him during the day (he’s 9), which means making sure he’s making it to his online classes and paying attention to his schedule, taking him outdoors for visits to museums etc. Most of the time he’s working on projects that he’s passionate about and doesn’t need me except when he gets stuck. He spends a lot of time building levels (for puzzle games or shooters, particularly) and teaching himself tools using YouTube videos and a lot of GPT/Claude.
We know some home-schooling kids with pretty fine-grained schedules, ours is more like a few scheduled things (e.g. online classes) and then big blocks of time where we trust him to do whatever he’s interested in that day.
I do directly instruct him in math and coding.