What is a reasonable amount of academic work for a 7th grader?

[lewelma]

Ok, new thread.  Let's say that I'm going to keep homeschooling ds.  He will do what I ask but no more.  He is two years ahead in math, science, music, and literature (but without any testing). Tell me your impressions of this work load:

 

Overall:  1 hour each of:

English

Math

Science

History

Music

Study Skills/remediation

 

Details:

 

English:

Skills taught: I'm considering LToW or WWS as a way to convince him how much is typical for his grade as he is very motivated not to 'fall behind'.

Writing a Literary Analysis paper every third fortnight

Literature: 1 novel every 2 weeks on average from the middle school Mensa list, so 25 books a year. Discussion with Sparkesnotes.

Shakespeare movie every month

 

Math:  really only 40 minutes a day which seems to be all he can do. Integrated 10th grade math

 

Science: Tarbuck Earth Science. buddy reading.  Lots of discussion, no testing.  Writing a paper every third fortnight

 

History/Social Studies:

3 doco per week.

Dad reading historical fiction at night.

1 National Geographic article each fortnight.

Writing paper every third fortnight  

(No independent history reading) 

 

Music: 30 min per day practice, 1 hour trio, 1 hour lesson, 1 hour ear work each week.

 

Study skills/remediation

10 min handwriting dictation, 30 min typing dictation.  Remediating spelling/punctuation/grammar/mechanics.

Executive function skills

Metacognition. Goal setting and tracking. etc

 

Extracurricular:

Next term: gymnastics, swimming, badminton, drama, multisport (1 hour each). Plus 3 week 8 hour a day production of Peter Pan

 

++++++

 

What would you change?   I don't want to argue with him so we are laying out content goals instead of time goals.

 

Please notice the total output across all subjects is:

1 paper every 2 weeks (about 2 typed pages double spaced, no references yet) ( (unless you count writing out math problems and typing dictation. We have no tests or workbooks)

 

Thanks,

 

Ruth in NZ

Edited June 15, 2016 by lewelma

[Mike in SA]

Well, our local public schools assign 6 courses per year at that age, with one being PE.  I'd say it's sufficient and appropriate in terms of course count.

[slackermom]

This seems comparable to what my daughter's school does in grade 7, except your ds's literature goal of 25 books seems much higher than her school would expect. They seem to take more than a month per book that they cover together. On the other hand, she often reads a novel per week on her own. Also, most middle school kids here have a foreign language class; dd does French 4 days per week. Also, they seem to do a lot of projects along with their papers.

[Dmmetler]

That seems reasonable to me. FWIW, DD generally does about 3 hours of schoolwork with me, about 2-3 hours independently, plus her science stuff, and an hour or so of sports a day.

 

I will say that it doesn't divide up neatly into hours. She tends to work in spurts, where she may spend a whole day on a single subject. I do try to make sure at least some math, piano, and Latin happen daily, and her outside schedule makes sure physical stuff happens daily. But for things like history, she usually reads and takes notes for a full section on one day (or night, because she does most of her independent stuff after 8pm), writes the next day, and then doesn't touch it for a week.

[slackermom]

The need to do things in smaller chunks several times a week was one of the bigger adjustments for dd when she switched from homeschooling back to public school. Although she was used to doing a bit of ELA, math and languages each day, when we homeschooled she often spent really long stretches on history or science, and on some writing assignments. When she was back in school, it was hard for her to accept making only small amounts of progress each day when she had to spend three weeks drafting and revising a single paper.

[Julie of KY]

Looks good to me other than I question the 25 books in a year. It really depends on the books and how fast of a reader your son is,

 

I tend to make a list of books - you can have a goal of one every two weeks. I set a minimal amount of reading time to be done daily. However, I find some books are short and can be done in a week; others are much longer and it'd be a big push to do those in two weeks - some take more like a month, depending on the length and the difficulty of the language. I have a ballpark idea how long each book should take when I give it to my son so I know if he's on "schedule". When we finish one book, we just move on to the next one on the list. I have a looser schedule than many, so your family may need more of the structure of saying how long each book takes.

[KSinNS]

Very reasonable and appropriate. You could include a second language but I would reduce something else.

[KSinNS]

BTW none of my kids would read 25 serious books in a year, maybe 15 for my biggest reader. But every kid is different.

[Arcadia]

I had one play (may not be Shakespeare), one "classic" novel and one modern novel for 7th grade (secondary school) per term. I think two weeks per book might be too short to enjoy a book but it depends on the book contents itself.

 

So for plays in 7th/8th we had

Twelve angry men http://www.umass.edu/legal/Hilbink/250/12Angry.pdf

Oedipus Rex http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/oedipus.html

Julius Caesar

Macbeth

Hamlet

 

Novels we had

Diary of Anne Frank

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole

The Little Prince

Things Fall Apart

[Loesje22000]

In my area 7th grade is the year we add another Foreign Language.

There is no track without foreign language in grade 7 here, so that is what I am missing ;)

[TerriM]

The need to do things in smaller chunks several times a week was one of the bigger adjustments for dd when she switched from homeschooling back to public school. Although she was used to doing a bit of ELA, math and languages each day, when we homeschooled she often spent really long stretches on history or science, and on some writing assignments. When she was back in school, it was hard for her to accept making only small amounts of progress each day when she had to spend three weeks drafting and revising a single paper.

 

It's kind of ironic isn't it, the way the schools do that.... Makes sense from a scheduling point of view I suppose, but adults have to focus on tasks for hours at a time... Unless you have a toddler in which case you only get 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there.  :)

[wapiti]

FWIW, that's a far larger number of books than my boys read in 7th grade at either school (we switched mid-year).  Their courses were slower/deeper.  Their new school did a lot of very in-depth discussion of the literature, with discussion questions and answers prepared in advance of discussion.  The novels were selected to coordinate with the history topics being covered and paper topics included comparing actions or character of a historical figure with a fictitious one, for example.  They were also required to support with quotes and use some specific citation format though I don't know how typical that is for 7th (vs 8th).  I haven't developed an opinion on whether fewer books with deeper analysis is better or worse for a particular kid than more books/faster pace.  My 2e ds13 definitely spent more time on Lang Arts than on any other subject.  While his teacher was super-strict and he was under the impression that she didn't like him much (guessing she thought of him as a slacker rather than one with issues - I never spoke to her about it), ultimately she had a high bar for particular things and he was stretched, he really had to think, and as much as it probably wasn't very enjoyable, I think it was a good educational experience for him.

 

I'd probably wait on the foreign language unless it's a specific interest for him, just due to all he has on his plate - that's a lot of ECs too.

[lewelma]

Wow! Thanks guys!!

 

The book project is of my ds's own making.  He saw the Mensa book list and decided that he wanted to do it in 1.5 years.  Given that this is the only academic goal that he has ever made for himself, I was game.  Some of the books are easy ones Across 5 Aprils, others are hard like Count of Monte Christo.  We are turning some of them into serials where he reads one chapter per week that would be Pilgram's Progress and King Arthur. It has been a very positive project.  And if you note my siggy, he has always been my big reader.  :thumbup1:

 

DS had been doing Mandarin for 2 years until last year.  I got to the point where I thought he should focus on his *English* before he tackled another language. So we took a break from it. He does struggle with *encoding* Mandarin -- the writing is painfully slow.  But he has a good ear.  I will add that there is absolutely no requirement to do *any* foreign language at all to get into university here in NZ, so he can skip it if we need to focus on English for him to master it with the dysgraphia.

 

Yes to the labs, presentations, and research paper.  All good points.  Would also add a bit of variety.

 

Glad to hear that what I consider low output seems to be ok with everyone.  I definitely have too high an expectations in general.

 

I'm surprised no one said anything about the lack of history reading.  This bothers me, but he is just not that interested.  He really likes the social issues in National Geographic and also loves the writing style.  He has been reading about half of it each month for 5 years. 

 

And also I kind of expected people to say that if you don't have tests or workbooks, you should be doing more papers.  He writes about 18 papers each year but that is the *total* across all subjects, not *each* subject.

 

He has also just spent 2 terms doing shop/home-ec at school, and now it is over, so we will be stealing that time for the study skills course. 

 

I think that answers everyone's questions/comments. Thanks for the help!

 

Ruth in NZ

Edited June 15, 2016 by lewelma

[slackermom]

Regarding history/social studies, what you listed in your goals seems to meet or exceed what the schools here cover in middle school. They don't seem to cover a more significant amount until high school, in grades 9/10/11. And that is one reason I went through a WTM-inspired 4-year history cycle with dd from grades 2-5, even though I did not officially homeschool until midyear in grade 4.

 

As for worksheets and tests, I think it is just an efficient way for a teacher to get a snapshot of the progress of a large group of people. Not so necessary in your setting, except maybe just get exposure to it a few times so it is not a curveball to him in the future. Maybe have a few papers be cold prompts based on stuff he has read, and give him 20-30 minutes to outline a response, and then however long you think is appropriate in order to flush it out to several paragraphs, or what ever output is manageable.