How to Homeschool Your 8-Year-Old

Young boy homeschooling with the All About Spelling program

Homeschooling your 8-year-old can lead to wonderful adventures! One of the significant advantages of homeschooling is to tailor your curriculum around your child’s needs and interests, allowing him to progress at his own rate and to delve into topics that interest him the most. Fit the education to the child by nurturing his curiosity, which will help keep him motivated, foster a love of learning, and encourage independent learning.

Part of learning how to homeschool your 8-year-old is to watch your child for strengths and weaknesses. Doing this means you can ensure your child is challenged in areas of strength while also getting one-on-one help in areas of struggle.

What Should an 8-Year-Old Learn?

Your 8-year-old is ready to move toward more formal schooling and gain independence. Developmentally, an 8-year-old can understand her place in the world and that others are different from her. She wants her friends to like her and lets her peers influence her more.

She is still studying the same subjects as last year, but her critical thinking skills are developing, which leads to more questions about why things are the way they are.

Homeschooling for 8-year-olds includes these subjects:

Language Arts – Reading, spelling, and writing. Your child should be improving in reading comprehension using chapter books, writing short stories, continuing to build on spelling skills, and increasing his vocabulary.

Math – Applying addition and subtraction to real-world scenarios, memorizing multiplication facts, two-digit division, fractions, and measurements are just some of the skills to build this year.

Child working on a homeschool environmental project with seedling plants and a model wind turbine

Science – Learn about the human body, digestion, good nutrition, and the importance of personal care. Animal studies, photosynthesis, marine biology, earth science, and simple machines are possibilities. Follow your child’s interests and make lessons hands-on as much as possible.

Social Studies – Continue to build on geography from previous years, study more cultures from around the world, introduce the concept of economics, or delve into some world history.

Art/Music – Draw or sculpt favorite characters from books or movies, explore collages, introduce a variety of media. If your child is interested, start music lessons. Or expose him to a wide variety of musical genres.

For more specific homeschool ideas for 8-year-olds, check out this article full of homeschooling tips.

Socialization – Get out on field trips and meet people of all different ages, cultures, lifestyles, and backgrounds. Discuss how to greet people. Brainstorm ways to serve others, like visiting a nursing home or making up backpacks of supplies for children in need.

How to Get Homeschooling Started for an 8-Year-Old

When you start your homeschooling program with your 8-year-old, our first recommendation is to get familiar with your state laws. The Homeschool Legal Defense Association has a page on their website with the laws for each state. HSLDA.org

Do a search for any state associations as well for additional help. You should be aware of which requirements you do and do not need to meet. Getting this information as soon as possible will help you have any documentation you need already in place if you need to file an intent to homeschool with your state or county.

It’s essential to know your responsibilities, especially if you live in a highly regulated state, so your request to homeschool will go as smoothly as possible and you won’t risk having to place your child back in public school while you sort out paperwork. This can be disruptive to your child’s learning.

Homeschooling for 8-Year-Olds: How to Create a Homeschooling Curriculum

Choose a curriculum and teaching method that matches your child’s learning style and allows him to study topics of interest. You have a lot of flexibility in the topics of study, especially in science and social studies. Take advantage of the opportunity and let your child’s interests lead the way so his natural curiosity is nurtured and encouraged. This will help build confidence and a love of learning.

Interest-led homeschooling encourages independent learning as children take more ownership of their studies and develop critical thinking skills.

Mother helping her daughter with homeschooling

Helping your child take some ownership of her education can be as easy as providing age-appropriate opportunities for your child to choose for herself what to study, where to study, and even some choices about what time of day to tackle each subject. Set up the options and let her decide between the options you lay out.

Formal bookwork should take no more than 2 hours a day to do reading, spelling, writing, and math. The other subjects can be more hands-on or project-based, depending on what works best for your child’s learning style.

Interest-driven pursuits, arts and music, or hobbies can follow a half day of school subjects. Include real-life experiences as well.

Even a trip to the grocery store can be a learning experience as you help him learn about prices by unit, comparison shopping, lbs. vs. ounces, fluid measures, budgeting, organizing the list, meal planning, and choosing ingredients.

5 Tips for Homeschooling an 8-Year-Old

Keep a consistent routine. Establish a daily or weekly schedule that includes structured lessons and free time. All work and no play is a recipe for burnout. Be sure to include some field trips to keep things engaging.

Seek out opportunities to engage with other children. Scouting, athletics, local drama clubs, 4H, local recreation centers, library events, and so much more are available. Time spent with various peers will help your child build valuable social skills.

Make learning hands-on and engaging. Use interactive homeschool activities, experiments, and creative projects. This is a great time to introduce word games and puzzles as your 8-year-old gets more comfortable reading and spelling. Here are some reading games and activities to get you started.

Practice the feedback sandwich method! It only takes one criticism to undo days of positive encouragement. Choose your words carefully. If you need to correct your child, start the conversation by acknowledging what he is doing well, and gently make the corrections, making it clear the child is not wrong or bad; he just needs to correct an error. Then end with another affirmation of where he is doing well.

Encourage responsibility. An 8-year-old can be responsible for keeping track of his school materials and ensuring everything is put away at the end of the day. Along with increased responsibilities should come increased privileges. You can include your child in discussions about both and even sign a contract together with your expectations, what kinds of privileges you’ll allow, and what types of consequences you agree will be imposed for not taking care of his responsibilities.

FAQ

How many hours a day should an 8-year-old homeschool?

Each formal subject using books and workbooks, like reading, writing, spelling, and math, should be limited to about 20 minutes each. Hands-on activities and projects can take longer chunks of time if your child remains engaged. Four hours total is usually sufficient for homeschooling an 8-year-old, with the rest of the day reserved for breaks, play, chores, and real-life adventures.

How can I make learning more engaging for my 8-year-old?

Start by giving him as much independence as appropriate for his maturity level. Letting him decide if he wants to study math first or do his reading assignments before math helps him feel more in control of his education and is a beginning step to the time management skills he will need in high school and beyond.

If he has younger siblings, allow him to help teach the younger kids occasionally. Teaching what he knows to someone else is an excellent way to ensure he has mastered the topic.

Hands-on materials and projects are another terrific way to make learning more engaging for your 8-year-old. Math manipulatives, spelling games, building models, timelines, salt dough maps, and making his own books are all great additions to your curriculum.

How do I help my 8-year-old with reading comprehension?

Reading words and reading comprehension are not the same. A child may struggle with comprehension if she was taught to read without becoming proficient in decoding skills, fluency, vocabulary, and background knowledge. All About Reading can help with comprehension even at higher grade levels. This article on reading comprehension explains the process in detail. Be sure to scroll down for a video that shows how All About Reading teaches reading comprehension.