We go to the gym 4 of the weekday mornings, so our day "starts" at 5:50 as I categorize this as PE. (Wednesday is a sleep in until 8:30 day--whew!)
But, we too have many challenging subjects, two of which are on line courses through Memoria Press (Latin and Logic) that require chats and tests outside the daily lessons on her own. I hate to say this for fear of those who may think I am too over the top, but many days we go until dinner around 5:30. I know, nearing 12 hours sounds insane!
Here's the deal though, we work all day in a "broken continual" cycle--meaning things interfere, we sometime meander, and we are OK with that. But, we don't stop until the daily lesson plans are completed. Also, my husband took over math this year, so my daughter needs to be flexible around his schedule, which is weird since he works hospital shifts.
I can't give you a real time value, but here is an example of why: Yesterday the weather was beautiful for mid-January, so we set up our lawn chairs in the backyard and completed a vocabulary review while playing with a bunny rabbit and intermittently stopping her from burrowing in the wood pile, then I had my daughter pick up dogie droppings as we orally invented copia for alternative line endings to a poem in Classical Writings, then she was swinging while I drilled her Latin words for the week. A snack was thrown in there too.
So, at the desk--that should have been about 45 minutes worth, but in the backyard it stretched out to almost 2 hours.
We pretty much do what we want when we want and for how long we want, but, trust me, it gets done . . . and well! They are long days, but w actually enjoy them.
And, if we need to do something outside the house, we reign it in at the desk and get it finished in half the time.