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How much time is your 5th grader spending on school work?


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I have seen bunch of threads like this, and I am really wondering what other fifth graders are doing. I feel like we have no time for anything. Today we started at 9 AM. It's 4:30 PM, and we are just wrapping up. This time included one hour of lunch, one hour of piano practice, and 45 minutes of reading. Sigh. He is doing aops Algebra, so that's a big chunk of time (about 1.5 hours). Foreign language is another hour. I can't even fantom adding anything else in. Is this about what a school day (assuming you factor in reading and piano) should take? Or am I going really overboard? Keep in mind that this isn't a very concentrated study time. He gets up, jumps, drinks water, chats with a siblingĂ¢â‚¬Â¦. normal stuff that can't be really eliminated. 

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Don't have a 5th grader but have been a homeschooled 5th grader. 

 

When I was homeschooled that grade our schedule was approximately start at 8am, finish at 12 noon for lunch. We would take a very short break at 10am. Music practice would happen in the late afternoon/early evening, the same time public school kids do homework. Reading happened in bed before lights out, for about an hour. So, probably around the same amount of time, but it was spread across the day in a far less invasive way. I could have free time all afternoon, then spend a half hour on music practice before dinner. Reading in bed before lights out is a habit my parents started when we were little, at by the time I was a teenager I regularly read for two hours a night and usually left my science/history reading until that time. Again, it was far less invasive to my day, and more flexible, doing it before bed than in the afternoons. 

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Five hours on a full day. That typically included lunch with a documentary (usually not the whole thing) and some break time.

 

An hour and a half of math seems like a lot - I keep us to an hour. But since he's doing algebra, you're clearly not losing anything if you cut back a little time. He'll still be ahead. It's okay if he takes a little longer on AoPS, after all.

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And, if I could quickly add to the above response, as I got older I didn't work later, I began starting earlier. I would work on math over breakfast, and in high school I began setting my alarm for 6am. Think about it, what constructive things happen between 7 and 9am? But, take those two hours and put them between 1 and 3pm and a LOT of things can happen in that time. It's about efficient use of time. My husband works 6-2:30 and he loves it, because he knows if he worked 9-5 he would do nothing at all with those extra morning hours, but he does a lot with the extra afternoon hours his early finish gives him. 

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My older one was in fifth grade last year. We didn't really count music time and reading in our time on task either. 

 

One thing you can do is to not do every subject every day. Since he is ahead in math, you could have him do shorter math assignments of some other kind on some days, or not do math at all on some days. We found that we had some days where LA was really flowing (usually not a day that math was flowing), and some days that were great math days, but the verbal side of things was kind of stuck. We would ride the wave of what was going smoothly and tweak the time spent on it the rest of the week. We might do a week's worth of grammar in one day and then call it quits for several days with grammar. We tried to outline what we thought was good weekly progress in each area and look at the whole week, not at a single days.

 

If we focused on single days as our way of gauging progress, we'd be going in circles, honestly, but we do a bang-up job of smoothing things out over time.

 

If your son really does take things in smaller bites (sounds like lots of breaks are happening), you might need to run your day with a timer instead. (That would drive us nuts!)

 

I've also found that letting my son have some control over his week has helped a lot. If he knows when he's supposed to be doing school and when he has appointments, tutoring, etc., and he knows what has to be done for the week, he enjoys the challenge of trying to plan it out and fill it all in. And he's less likely to just procrastinate or take lots of meaningless breaks. 

 

I have no idea what my other boy will be like in fifth though. He's SO different.

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We tried to outline what we thought was good weekly progress in each area and look at the whole week, not at a single days.

 

I forgot about this, but it probably helped a lot with my schooling. I run school the same way now as teacher. We have weekly goals, not daily, because starting and stopping, changing gears and remembering what you were up to last time takes a lot of time. My school week as a kid might have looked like

 

Monday - Grammar and Vocabulary (weeks worth of lessons), History (3 days worth), Math (1 day worth)

Tuesday - Math (3 days worth), Science (5 days worth)

Wednesday - Weeks worth of reading assignments

Thursday - Writing (5 days worth), Art (once a week lesson)

Friday - History (2 days worth), Math (1 days worth), Health and PE (once a week lesson) 

 

I would not PLAN the week this way, but, I would just do each day what I felt like doing. As long as all my work was completed before dinner friday night my mum didn't mind what I did when. It helped me so much as I am the sort of person who just wants to focus on one thing to completion. I never did every subject every day well at all, it felt like a waste of time. 

 

Having said that, some kids need the variety and the daily reinforcement, so it's not for everyone, especially for things like math and foreign language. 

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Our guy last year (grade 5) did probably 3-3.5 hours of school in the am, probably 2 hours of music practice in the afternoon (he really likes music). He definitely did less math, 45 mins for most of the year, closer to 1 hour for AOPS. And about 10 mins on French and 20 mins on Latin. He would do a 1.5 hour French class on Friday and review through the week. This year I'm planning on about 4 hours of school time daily. I tend to do most things most days, but pretty short lessons and assignments. Most stuff can get done in under 20 mins other than math. Otherwise he gets bogged down.

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My 5th grader has an art and drama tutorial one morning a week and we have activities mid-afternoon two days a week.

 

She does piano first thing after breakfast and reads whenever she can (constantly). We take and hour for lunch and RA. She averages 5-6 hours M,T and TH, not counting music, personal devotions or lit reading. Wed is 4 hrs. Friday is 2 after tutorial.

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Five hours on a full day. That typically included lunch with a documentary (usually not the whole thing) and some break time.

 

An hour and a half of math seems like a lot - I keep us to an hour. But since he's doing algebra, you're clearly not losing anything if you cut back a little time. He'll still be ahead. It's okay if he takes a little longer on AoPS, after all.

I like the idea of lunch with a documentary! Now to figure out what to watch.

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Our schedule is really loose right now- 

 

~ 60-75 min on Math- plan is for 60 min but that usually runs late

15 min grammar

15 min spelling

30 min writing

30-40 min science

30-40 min history (both history and science may be reading, activities or documentary/shows)

 

3-3.5 base work

 

He also reads and I read to him. I don't time his reading or require it he reads like crazy, averaging well over an hr a day. My reading to him is 20~ minutes I'd guess. 

 

We have family nature walks and various other extras; we sometimes watch other shows during lunch.

 

Today we started at 9am and officially got done with everything at 3 but there was chill time in there, we were outside about an hr for nature time. He had a solid 40ish minutes at least for lunch and probably a good 30 min throughout the day, although almost any down time he was reading by his choice so I don't know how to count that.  

 

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Last year was a pretty solid 9-12 with an hour for lunch, followed by 1-3. We goof off a little in between subjects. The time included 1 hr for Latin, 1 hr for math, 40 min for grammar and spelling; then the hours after lunch included 30 min for tea and poetry recitation, 1 hr of writing and 30 min for history or science.

 

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Five hours on a full day. That typically included lunch with a documentary (usually not the whole thing) and some break time.

 

An hour and a half of math seems like a lot - I keep us to an hour. But since he's doing algebra, you're clearly not losing anything if you cut back a little time. He'll still be ahead. It's okay if he takes a little longer on AoPS, after all.

So 4 hours withou documentary and breaks. That's so reasonable. How do you accomplish all? How do you break down the day? If you Take math out, it leaves you with three hours. For us writing takes about an hour. French 45 min. and nothing is left.

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Well, for starters I don't plan to add foreign language until next year, so that is an hour we don't have. But we do have an hour of Morning Meeting all together, so I guess that is even.

 

1 hr Morning Meeting

1 hr Reading Time

1 hr Math

1/2 hr to 1 hr science or history

1 hr LA

30-45 min instrument practice

 

5 1/2 - 6 hrs. I think that is about right for the age. We just start later in the morning than some and so we end later too.

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So 4 hours withou documentary and breaks. That's so reasonable. How do you accomplish all? How do you break down the day? If you Take math out, it leaves you with three hours. For us writing takes about an hour. French 45 min. and nothing is left.

 

We don't have a set schedule so it's hard for me to say exactly. I just keep a generalized goal in my head of moving forward across the board. I will say... that doesn't include the hour of reading and lit read alouds before bed. My kids did do piano last year (fifth grade) but didn't practice for a ton of time. They didn't do foreign language. We did science once a week with a group. We weren't doing formal history last year, though we were doing "projects" instead. Some days we do more with projects and so forth. Other days we do less though. I just write down an agenda at the start of the day in their agenda books. So, okay, here's a few examples...

 

Something like this:

* Jousting Armadillos with Farrar

* 2 problems in Process Skills independent

* work on spelling with Farrar

* work on revising writing project with Farrar

* piano practice

* play math game together

* documentary with lunch

* finish up graphic design project

 

Or maybe, on a totally different day for my other 5th grader:

* poetry tea

* dictation

* piano practice

* books on the sofa

* science reading to get ready for science group

* MEP lesson with Farrar

* MEP page on your own

* documentary with lunch

* logic page in workbook

 

It soooo depended.

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It is hard to keep track of time with multiple children.

 

I would say five hours average or a bit less, which includes all the reading for school, but not music practice. It can be a little shorter, or a little longer if we do a lot of science demonstrations or art projects or something similar. If we watch a documentary or relevant movie I wouldn't think of that as academic time, even though of course it supplements our studies. Again, it's variable. Definitely longer than three hours but less than six.

 

We do study Latin, but in fifth grade it is about 30 minutes 4 days per week.

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My 5th grader spends 4.5 to 5 hrs daily. He starts at 8 am and is generally done by about 3 pm. He takes an hour-long break midmorning to practice piano, and he takes an hour-long break midday to play outside and eat lunch. He could be finished much earlier without the breaks, but he really needs them. He usually spends:

 

1 hr each: Math, English, History

30-40 min each: French, Science, Logic

 

He also has an assigned literature book to read each week, but I don't schedule that; he reads on his own in the evening. Fridays are "short" days with only math, French reading, logic, and art, so he usually spends only 2.5-3 hrs.

 

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My 5th grader rough breakdown

 

Math - AoPS classes 3hrs per week (will drop to 1,5hrs per week once algebra B finish),

bookwork and online homework 1.5 hrs per day

 

Science - 2.5 hrs per week in homeschool class, 30 mins per week on class homework

 

Language arts - 5hrs per week

Reading (leisure) - 1hr per day including weekends

Chinese - 1.5 hrs per week in class, 30 mins per day revision/homework

German - 2.5 hrs per week in class, Ă¢â‚¬â€¹30 mins per day revision/homework

 

Cello - 1hr per week in class, 45 mins per day (tuning and practicing).

 

History and Art is adhoc and mostly done the summer before school starts.

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I have had 3 children go through 5th grade.  At that age our school day is basically 9-noon.  (We do school year 'round.)

I have had 3 children go through 5th grade.  At that age our school day is basically 9-noon.  (We do school year 'round.)

I was going to say something similar. Our school day is 10 to 1. We also school year round. Thursday is what I call a reading day. The boys have piano lessons, and one subject to do. This is a subject they find difficult/need lots of practice with. For eldest right now that is spelling and for youngest it is copy work. Other then that they have to read a lot. I usually stop at the topi rare in the way home from piano with a pile of books.

 

It also is a floating day so they can catch up with anything they put off earlier in the week.

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Our schedule is:

 

Language: Grammar, Spelling, Writing - 1 - 1.5 hours

Math - about 30 minutes (this is after we changed from a more intensive math, such a relief!!!!)

Bible/History/Science/Latin - 1 - 1.5 hours

Rotating Loop: Poetry/Art/Composer/Geography/State study - 20 minutes (although if they are coloring or doing an art project, this could take much longer)

Independently: Reading, Typing, Flashmaster (math facts), Cursive - 1 hour (?)

 

So, let's call it 5 hours with bathroom breaks, water breaks, waiting while I'm working with his sister, etc., etc., etc. That makes sense, we normally finish almost everything around lunchtime. We usually will have something to do to finish up school after lunch plus our fun read aloud at that time.

 

Reading Aloud, piano, working with the dog (4-H), and swimming are all extra curricular, but not something that I count as part of our "school" day.

 

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We just started last week, so I expect the amount of time will ramp up, but right now, my 5th grader works from 9 am to about 3 pm, with 45 minute break. 

 

Are you including music and reading? if not we are doing about the same.

 

 

I am really giving up this year the idea of dubbing up on the curriculum. No additional anything with Aops, and only alternating WWS with W&R, not at the same time. 

I think the subjects are getting harder, he is asking for more, and we are trying to cram it into the same amount of time as we did grade 4. I might be alone here, but we are finding algebra harder than preA. He did most of start problems in preA on his own. The matrix problem in chapter five had us both scratching the head. It's just harder. We are coming up with regular problems sometimes that are hard to solve. That was unheard of in preA. So we need more time, or we need to slow down, which he doesn't want to do. I wonder if I can schedule 3 hours of math on weekends to lighten up the week. 

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I wonder if I can schedule 3 hours of math on weekends to lighten up the week.

DS9 who is "slower" than DS10 has the stamina to sit through more than 3hrs of math work. Are you doing any math on weekends at the moment? I started with an hour after dinner and my kids just go into overtime rather than sleep.

 

Some chapters took DS9 longer than others but I didn't keep score since he knows he is completing stuff slower than DS10. DS9 is less careless though.

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My 5th grader now is a whole lot faster than my 5th grader two years ago.   :glare:

 

Sylvia knows how to sit down and get things done.  She almost never gets distracted or off track.  I'm thinking maybe 3 hours, 4 at the absolute outside.  I end up giving her extra reading, projects, coloring, activities to keep her busy so she doesn't distract the distractible big sister...  :glare:

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DS9 who is "slower" than DS10 has the stamina to sit through more than 3hrs of math work. Are you doing any math on weekends at the moment? I started with an hour after dinner and my kids just go into overtime rather than sleep.

 

Some chapters took DS9 longer than others but I didn't keep score since he knows he is completing stuff slower than DS10. DS9 is less careless though.

They haven't done anything in the weekends or evenings. Alcumus is the exception. For some reason he treats Alcumus as a game, so he can be on it for hours if I let him. He hasn't done any bookwork on weekends though. He also goes into overdrive on writing assignments. "One more paragraph, please!" Well, that's how 45 minutes turns into two hours. So, do I encourage this? Or should I just say that an hour is up?
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He also goes into overdrive on writing assignments. "One more paragraph, please!" Well, that's how 45 minutes turns into two hours. So, do I encourage this? Or should I just say that an hour is up?

Both of mine does that. I set my limit at 2hrs and they have to take a break from their laptop. I'm worried about eye strain as DS9 has astigmatism like me.

I also put math as the last item of the day else nothing gets done. The same problem if it is hands on science, they get absorbed into it.

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They haven't done anything in the weekends or evenings. Alcumus is the exception. For some reason he treats Alcumus as a game, so he can be on it for hours if I let him. He hasn't done any bookwork on weekends though. He also goes into overdrive on writing assignments. "One more paragraph, please!" Well, that's how 45 minutes turns into two hours. So, do I encourage this? Or should I just say that an hour is up? 

 
 

I don't quite have that problem with assignments (occasionally with creative writing-but rare). I do, however, have that problem myself. If left to my own devices, I forget things like dinner in the quest to work on a character profile, or I might be reading a book, struggling to get to the end because I've just got to get there! 

It helps me to remind myself of what I tell the boys: there is a point of diminishing returns. You don't want to get there. In artistic terms, it would be running the creative well dry. You need to recharge the water. You can do that by shifting activities for a while. A session of working on the computer might need a good burst of physical energy to follow. Writing might be followed by something involving visual input-art study, or maybe some music? 

So you can approach it from the idea of needing to keep the mind from getting stagnant or from running into that diminishing return area.

 

It can also be a good time to work on time management. Having a certain amount of things to get done in a day means that a schedule could be useful, and it might be important to figure out how much time can reasonably be used on any given day. It may well be that writing and some math should be done during "free time" when he can get absorbed and pursue them for longer than usual. Kind of like a "long run" day. Those are good to have now and then. But it's also good to have days where time limits are used and other subjects get their time to work the brain.

 

Just my two cents. It's what I try to tell myself when I have to get up and head to the kitchen or we starve. :laugh:

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My 5th grader now is a whole lot faster than my 5th grader two years ago.   :glare:

 

Sylvia knows how to sit down and get things done.  She almost never gets distracted or off track.  

 

Yeah, we are also extremely efficient.  They know that morning exactly what subjects they have - it's all laid out for them.  I email my older two kids all of their writing assignments with directions, videos they need to watch, etc.  And my kids usually don't take breaks.  They generally sit down and work until it's finished.  

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Those of you who said you were efficient, how do you prevent talking between kids? Do you keep them in different rooms?

 

I have six students. We don't have that many rooms. :tongue_smilie:

 

To speed up efficiency....

-planner filled out a week in advance, clear enough that she can grab it and go without waiting for me (DD/5th has her own "teacher planbook" that's used as her student planner. It's roomy enough for notes back and forth and extra instruction.)

-prepare each subject so they're open and go, whether that's printing ahead of time or making a personalized syllabus (I prepare the whole subject for the whole year over the summer before we "start.")

-keep school things organized so they're easily found and put away

-establish school day routines and stick to them

 

 

A large part of it here is DD is just quick. If I were to make the same time estimates in a month or two the time would be shorter. She'll be accustomed to it and flying.

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Those of you who said you were efficient, how do you prevent talking between kids? Do you keep them in different rooms?

 

Mine usually leave each other alone.  The worst ones here are Kid #2 and Kid #3.   :glare:   If I tell them once, they usually quiet down or I'll just send them out of the room.  (sheesh, I sound harsh) 

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The short answer is that we don't practice piano for 1 hoiur, The longer is that after math and the foreign languages, everything else sort of fitted in haphazardly. We never finished the history book and our language arts are pared down and fun (galore park).

Eta: I don't think we work hard enough during the week, so we do light work (at most 2 hrs) on one weekend day as well as all summer

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The short answer is that we don't practice piano for 1 hoir. The longer is that after math and the foreign languages, everything else sort of fitted in haphazardly. We never finished the history book and our language arts are pared down and fun (galore park).

Eta: I don't think we work hard enough during the week, so we do light work (at most 2 hrs) on one weekend day as well as all summer

We are too ambitious. :( I need to learn that everything can't be done 100%.

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Our school day is a lot longer than it was last year. I have a 5th, 3rd, and K. We aren't finishing up until 3 or so this year. We start around 8:30 or 9. We break for about 45 minutes for lunch.

 

I have simplified a lot more than what I really wanted to, but we are still covering the important stuff. One day we will get to Latin, art, and music. Or not. :lol:

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I really need to look I to loop scheduling with language arts. I think that could relax us a bit. And what if we take two years with American history? Right? At least we will go in depth instead of foo-fooing quickly and skipping what matters - discussions. By the way, we are loving the Drama of American History. So mature! He is sometimes reading it with his mouth open. :)

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If my kids were like you describe, getting in the zone with something, I'd totally do a loop or block schedule or I would assign work that's on a weekly, not a daily checklist. I think most kids do better with switching it up more daily, but if he's the kind of kid who will work well for a long chunk of time, use that. I don't think that's poor time management - that's recognizing what works well for you. So don't do language arts every day - he's clearly going to be happier doing a lot on one day and none the next.

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Last year my fifth grade DD was probably doing 3-4 hrs of schoolwork, plus chores, bible reading, and maybe 20-30 minutes of guitar practice. I wish the guitar practice was longer, but that seems to be all she can do in one day w/o getting really crabby about it. Hoping she can have the stamina for a bit longer schoolwork and guitar this year (we haven't started our full workload yet this fall).

 

She is very independent and spent a lot of time working upstairs in her bedroom or my bedroom...so she could often plug away and get a ton of work done in a short period of time (even less than three hours on a good day). The downside of this is that if she got distracted or sidetracked, she got very distracted/sidetracked and I didn't know what was going on because she was upstairs and we were all on the main level.

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