How to Homeschool a 9 Year Old

What Should a 9 Year Old Be Learning?

Have you ever stared at that bright yellow bus driving down the street and wondered what the kids your child’s age were doing when they reached their classroom? In traditional education settings, nine year olds are exploring a wide range of new information. Age nine is a common year to learn about:

• Creating multimedia projects on the computer
• Using root words and context cues to figure out new words
• Using inference to understand what they are reading
• Interactions between organisms and their environment
• Local and state government structure
• Myths, legends, fantasy, and adventure writing

When it comes to math, it’s important that students master their math facts early on. Time4MathFacts is a fun, engaging way for your 9-year-old to gain the skills and knowledge to be successful in math.

How to Start Homeschooling a 9 Year Old

When you begin your research on how to homeschool a 9 year old, you’ll want to start with your state homeschool laws. Many states have specific subjects they require homeschool families to cover in their instruction. But beyond that, homeschooling provides you the flexibility to truly customize your child’s education to fit with your own personal homeschool style.

As you plan out your homeschool year, there are several steps you’ll want to take to make sure you are covering all your bases.

• Step 1: If you haven’t already, spend some time understanding your child’s preferred learning style. This will help you with everything from choosing the best homeschool curriculum to keeping your student engaged in his/her own learning.
• Step 2: Create a homeschool budget, and don’t forget to include extracurriculars such as homeschool field trips, athletics, and outside classes.
• Step 3: Will your homeschooler be working at a fourth grade level? Find out what subjects and themes are typically covered when homeschooling fourth grade.
• Step 4: Think about how you’ll want to schedule your homeschool day. Keep in mind that you aren’t bound by the constraints of a traditional school schedule anymore. Your learning time may be determined by your work schedule(s), the time of day your child is most alert and primed to learn, and how your curriculum is structured.
• Step 5: Start having fun learning together!

Homeschooling Planner

Start planning out your homeschooling days with this free easy to use daily planner.

Get Started With This Daily Planner

What Should a Curriculum for a 9 Year Old Look Like?

As they exert their need for independence, your nine-year old may push their boundaries and your buttons this homeschool year. But their yearning for taking the lead in their own lives doesn’t have to be a negative thing. This can be a good year to try out an online homeschool program. Online curricula have the advantage of letting a child work independently while still keeping parents informed of their child’s progress.

As you choose a curriculum for your 9 year old, you’ll want to seek out a program (or mix of programs) that:

• Meets all your state homeschool requirements
• Is flexible enough to personalize for your individual student
• Covers all the core subjects such as math, language arts, science, and social studies
• Prepares your child for any potential standardized tests they may be required to take in your state
• Works with students of all levels, including homeschoolers with special needs and gifted students
• Makes learning fun!

How Time4Learning Helps You Homeschool Your 9 Year Old

One thing many nine year olds have in common is their love for learning with technology. In fact, you may already be having a difficult time pulling them away from their favorite online games or apps. Time4Learning makes it easy to incorporate online educational games for 9 year olds into your homeschool. The lessons in the Time4Learning curriculum are multimedia, interactive, and engaging and keep kids enthusiastic about their homeschool day.

Some of the other reasons Time4Learning is so popular with families who are homeschooling a nine year old include:

• Subjects are organized into chapters composed of interactive lessons, printable worksheets, quizzes and tests, keeping your homeschool day varied and interesting.
• In addition to core subjects, students have access to an educational playground designed to reinforce concepts through age-appropriate lessons and fun learning.
• Detailed homeschool lesson plans so that parents can explore lessons in advance
• An automated system that grades lessons and keeps reports for homeschool portfolio usage
• Flexibility to use the curriculum as the core of your homeschool or as a supplement to other programs
• The option for parents to set grade levels independently for each subject

Is Time4Learning the only online curriculum you can use when you homeschool your 9 year old? No. You can compare Time4Learning to other popular online curricula, to see which curriculum may be the ideal fit for your child. Remember that you can always choose to blend the best parts of more than one curriculum (called an eclectic approach) to truly fit the needs of your 9 year old.

Tips for Homeschooling a 9 Year Old

Your 9 year old may surprise you this year. They are able to handle increasingly complex tasks and projects in school, so don’t hesitate to challenge them. Understanding what motivates your child can go a long way toward helping them fulfill their educational potential. Try to incorporate their current interests and curiosities into their homeschool plan and then watch them thrive!

Other homeschooling ideas for 9 year olds that you may want to consider are:

• Homeschoolers don’t have to study every subject every day. Some homeschoolers focus on one subject per day, some do specific subjects on specific days, and some use a block schedule approach with different subjects at different times of the year.
• Incorporate fun art projects into your child’s lessons. They can draw a sidewalk mural with chalk, create sculptures out of modeling clay, collect rocks and paint them, or recreate a famous masterpiece.
• Children who have a hard time concentrating for long periods might be helped by breaking homeschool study periods into 15-minute chunks. Between chunks, the child can play outside, have fun with an educational computer game, or relax for a few minutes.
• Encourage your child to keep a journal and write their thoughts (hopes, dreams, fears), things they are grateful for, poems, etc. They’ll practice their writing skills while having an outlet for expressing themselves.
• Planning lessons for your 9 year old can be as involved or as simple as you want it to be. Some homeschool parents find that they need to plan out most every detail of their homeschool day or week, while other parents are fine with jotting down some general things they want to cover and letting the flow of the day dictate how they get lessons accomplished.
• Encourage your child to help others whenever possible by offering to rake leaves/shovel snow for neighbors, participate in a neighborhood/beach clean up, write letters to servicemembers or residents of a nursing home, etc.
• Give your nine year old as much input as possible into their homeschool day. The more choices they have in how, where, and what they learn, the more responsibility (and enjoyment!) they will take in their own education.