s/o if you count hours, what do you use?

[Farrar]

So, I might start playing around with counting hours for 8th grade, just to get a sense of what time goes where and how long we take in a more specific sense so that I can do it a little better in 9th grade. As it is now, we just start work and things take as long as they take and I don't pay much attention to the clock. Especially because my kids waste a ton of time transitioning between things and distracting each other and so forth (and Mushroom has days where he wastes a lot of time on his anxiety). I figure they'll learn not to... eventually. Sigh.

 

If you count hours for specific subjects, do you have a particular planner or style of planner page that works for you? I currently don't use a planner at all for me - the kids have planners where I write their work and they check things off and record things like books they read, but I don't keep one for me.

 

I know I wouldn't use an online tracker, unless maybe it was on my iPhone. I'm envisioning a checklist for each half hour for each subject, but I have a feeling no one does it that way.

[freesia]

When I have done this, I make my own plan books and, for each subject where we count, I put 5-7 circles that are divided into fourths. For each 15 minutes the student works s/he fills in a wedge.  We round up or down if need be--b/c it evens out.  I recommend the wedge vs the check b/c if you only work 15 minutes or 45 minutes you would have to come up with a way to keep track of that.

[deerforest]

I've tried and considered so many things. We use set times to help scaffold DD, and our current method is me writing down -- spend xx minutes on y subject. She keeps track of time using her phone timer. 

 

Sophisticated, I know.

 

 

Edited July 9, 2017 by deerforest

[HomeAgain]

I use HomeschoolSkedTrack.  It's free and I can plug in the exact time spent along with what was done.  It also tallies it up for me by subject.

[regentrude]

I made an excel spreadsheet that has columns for each subject and adds the hours automatically per subject and per day, and adds for subject areas as well.

If you pm me your email address, I can email you the file. The forum does not allow me to attach it.

[Arcadia]

I record the start and end time per subject for each kid on my iPhone calendar app. For example DS11 started doing his summer math class homework at 9:30am and stop at 11am on Friday (2 days ago). So he spent 1.5hrs on math that day. DS11 is slower in reading and also has weaker executive function skills so we keep time to better manage time for him. For DS12, it was just fun/curiosity information.

[SoCal_Bear]

I use Homeschool Tracker. I just log in what we did each day. Love that I can integrate his free reading, field trips, outside classes, educational videos, and sports. I just closed out the year and printed my year end summary where I can see exactly how many hours were devoted to each subject. 

[Guest]

Simple log in Evernote.

[MerryAtHope]

Do you have a general idea of how long it takes them to complete the assignments you give them? Maybe you can use what you are already using.

 

I counted days and estimated hours (for some subjects).

 

My "planner" was more of a journal in table-format; I simply jotted down page numbers or chapter numbers they did for each subject each day. For lit, I wrote the book title at the beginning and each day they read, put in either a checkmark or the chapter #'s. For writing, I wrote the assignment on day one and put a checkmark each day they worked on it, etc...

 

I had them read 30 minutes (or so) and write 30 minutes--so if the days were checked for both subjects, that fulfilled that day's English credit (and I knew they did the work by either reading what they wrote, talking about their brainstorming ideas, discussing the lit etc...). 

 

So, counting days roughly equated with counting hours. I never worried about trying to track our discussion times--I just figured that was usually time on top of the reading and writing they did. 

 

I'm thinking if your kids regularly use some kind of planner, maybe you can tell just from that.

 

I also think you're the type of schooler who could go by the "plan" though. You're thorough and you have a strong academic school. I wouldn't overly burden yourself with record-keeping when it comes to tracking hours (if needed) for a subject. Make it simple and easy to do.

 

I used a combination of time and program options for determining credits because I felt it kept me from going overboard on expectations in certain areas.

[Farrar]

I like the idea of circles that I fill in. Good suggestions above. Thanks, y'all.

 

I don't think I can use their planners, not the way we use them now. I alternate between spend X time on this and complete this all the time. And it's not unusual for me to start one way - thinking that something will be easy or hard - and finish the other way during the day because I realize it needed to be adjusted. This is especially true for Mushroom when he gets anxious. Plus, we do "light school" maybe once a week where we cheat and the kids just do math and one other thing and I don't end up writing anything in the planner. Because we're chill like that.

 

I could possibly change their planners to track. They have extra pages in them this year. I'll think about that. I'm not sure if I want a planner. Maybe I can draw in a page of 180 circles to see. Right now, we're doing unit studies type work, so it varies SO much. I need to think about all that.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I made an excel spreadsheet that has columns for each subject and adds the hours automatically per subject and per day, and adds for subject areas as well.

If you pm me your email address, I can email you the file. The forum does not allow me to attach it.

 

This is how I track it, too, but dd writes her time per subject on her weekly worksheet. This is a sheet from excel that I print out for her on Monday mornings, it has the days across the top and the subjects in the column at left, and ~ a day's worth of work for each subject in the box. She doesn't have to do work for each subject each day - she can binge on one subject and then make up other stuff on other days - but this is the expectation for what should get done in a week. I also have rows at the bottom for appointments, extracurriculars, etc.  When she does the work inside of a box, she crosses it out and writes how much time she spent. I transfer that to the spreadsheet that automatically tracks time and keeps a running total. I may just do that once a week. So it's not a lot of work for me. She did have to get in the habit of starting the timer on her laptop or phone and stopping it when she's done, but that wasn't that hard. Every once in a while we forget to start the timer, so we just estimate. It's not rocket science, it's not rigid, but it gives us a good idea about how much time she's spending per day/per subject and helps us know where she's at for all her subjects pretty much all the time.

[mamaraby]

I have used Homeschool Skedtrack in the past, but I find the site clunky and not particularly easy to use. Right now I use a spreadsheet.

 

If I wanted my 12yo involved, the spreadsheet can be accessed on any device in the house so I could train him and set him loose. I think I'd probably have to look into locking some cells since I use some if/then logic in tabulating the totals. Yes, I'm dorky like that and enjoy playing with spreadsheets in my spare time.

[theelfqueen]

I use my kids' planners ... they have the daily lust. At the end of the day we not down how long each activity took (or if they're having an especially cooperative day they do it as they Mark off completed tasks. So it might have said Algebra, lesson 27 problems 1-20 then next to that I jot down 1.25 because it took 1 hour 15 minutes. We round to 1/4 hours for most things.

 

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[theelfqueen]

List not lust lol

 

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[MerryAtHope]

I don't think I can use their planners, not the way we use them now. I alternate between spend X time on this and complete this all the time. And it's not unusual for me to start one way - thinking that something will be easy or hard - and finish the other way during the day because I realize it needed to be adjusted. This is especially true for Mushroom when he gets anxious. Plus, we do "light school" maybe once a week where we cheat and the kids just do math and one other thing and I don't end up writing anything in the planner. Because we're chill like that.

 

Do your "complete this" type of assignments vary greatly in how long they take compared to your time method? If not, maybe you already have an approximation of time. But I guess I'm pretty comfortable saying "spend X time" or "do this and call it done" with regard to deciding what's enough. There were things I had to adjust for similar reasons. 

 

We always did light Fridays here. Some years they were subject specific (usually math and something else) and some years they rotated the Friday subjects. I tended to count them as half-days. 

[Farrar]

List not lust lol

 

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:lol: Daily lusts are more for a private diary than a planner. 

[theelfqueen]

[emoji38] Daily lusts are more for a private diary than a planner.

I mean they're 16 and 12 .. they probably have daily lusts but I don't keep a record of them

 

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