As you hear people talk about homeschool success, you’ll get a wide variety of advice from a wide variety of sources. One of the places where wisdom can be a struggle is in the area of homeschool electives.

As you are setting benchmarks for a new school year, the core subjects of language arts, math, science, and history tend to easily find their places. But any time the importance of homeschool electives and fine arts education are discussed, there arises the inevitable conflict between the time-consuming nature of these important lessons and the necessity of not neglecting the core essentials.

So how do we resolve that conflict, set benchmarks that are easily navigated throughout the year, and enjoy homeschool electives without compromising the core four?

Remember the Purpose: More Than Homeschool Electives

The key to resolution with homeschool electives and the core four is remembering that homeschooling is ultimately about education! Yes, that means academics. It may mean academics from a religious perspective, a secular perspective, a specific homeschool philosophy, or some other foundational guidance.

But ultimately, our responsibility is to diligently teach our children history, science, math, and language arts. As much as we may want to nourish our children’s interests and give them a well-rounded education, core academics are the foundation for that diligence and cannot be crowded out by homeschool electives and supplements.

Remember Our Focus Before Incorporating Homeschool Electives

In many situations in life, we find ourselves needing to get “back to the basics” or refocus on our purpose. Homeschooling is no different. The first step to contemplating how fine arts training, homeschool electives, and extracurricular activities fit into the big picture of our homeschool benchmarks and scheduling is to regularly re-evaluate the foundation of purpose we just discussed.

Often when we refocus, we find that the nonessential extras reveal themselves without difficulty, and we are able to trim and recenter.

But, other times it is not so easy to practically evaluate our homeschool. Have we committed to nonessentials, or are the things we’re doing essential to the overall well-being and development of our children (even if they may look like nonessentials to other people)? Are we really over-scheduled, or do we have a time management issue?

How can we simplify in such a way that we are honoring our primary purpose while still enjoying the fullness of an education that stretches and grows us and our children?

These uncertainties require more in depth searching through answering questions like these:

1. What does my time balance look like?

How much time each week do you need to spend on the essential subjects in order to reach your benchmarks?

Obviously, for little ones this will be much less than for the average high school student who needs to invest anywhere from 120 to 180 hours per subject each school year (depending on state regulations and expectations) to earn a full high school credit. But, what is more important than a fixed number of hours per week is the amount of time you are free to consistently invest.

Can you regularly invest 12-20 hours per week (depending on the age of your child) ensuring that your student is getting a solid foundation in history, science, math, and language arts?

Now, use this evaluation to help you know how much time you can spend on the “extras.” Yes, even though fine arts courses and activities provide an essential component to a solid education, these still should require much less time investment. That should be reflected in your benchmarks.

It is not unreasonable to expect a combined 30-40 minutes of instruction and work time on a language arts lesson. But, frequently a simple 15 minutes of daily instrument practice, combined with a 30-minute lesson once every week or two, can allow a student to confidently learn to play.

If you are barely able to squeeze in 10-12 hours per week of essentials but your benchmarks have committed you to spending 20-30 hours on music lessons or sports practices (including travel time!), your schedule is unbalanced.

The extracurricular needs to reduce and the essentials need more freedom to breathe.

When we choose to simplify our benchmarks and expectations, we are not only ensuring that our children receive the foundational education they need, we are also teaching them how to grow into balanced adults.

We exemplify success by showing them how to determine the difference between essentials and homeschool electives and extras. We also help them learn how to prioritize essentials over extras while not losing the benefit of the extras. We teach them how to set boundaries and keep margin in their lives, helping them see how to simplify their lives for the purpose of success.