How much daily work do you give your 6th grader?

[FlockOfSillies]

Before I go making curriculum buying decisions for next year, I'm trying to get a handle on how much daily work I can reasonably expect from my rising 6th grader. It always seems like I start out giving too much, then I back off too much, then I drop some things to catch up on other things with double lessons at the end of the year. I've done the divide the # lessons over 180 days thing, but I struggle with the fine-tuning as the year goes by. Has anyone else struggled with this? What have you done to fix it successfully?

 

So how much is too much? Mine's a slowpoke, if that helps. We'll be doing the following next year:

TOG Y2

Singapore Math 4B or 5A

IEW SWI

Earth Science/Astronomy

Megawords or a word roots program (I bought VFCR used last year)

Latin

Grammar

Spanish? (oy, this always gets dropped)

 

How many times a week do you have them:

--outline a passage?

--write summaries?

--SM exercises: 1/day is too slow, 3 is usually too much, unless they're short

[Peela]

Realistically, 5 hours to do a solid 4 hours worth of work. :) Lots of unscheduled breaks, complaining, trying to get out of work, etc goes on with my son.

[FlockOfSillies]

Realistically, 5 hours to do a solid 4 hours worth of work. :) Lots of unscheduled breaks, complaining, trying to get out of work, etc goes on with my son.

 

We've hit that big time the last few weeks. Only here it takes the form of redhead drama. Lots of whining, tears, and me asking, "Do you not yet realize that you have to do schoolwork and chores every day? You can't just wander around sticking your nose into everyone else's business, or straightening your desk again, or brushing those same 50 strands of hair, or going to the bathroom."

[Caroline4kids]

My going-into-6th grader (11) does about 4 hours of work on his own. He reads and narrates (either a written two times a week or oral, also two times a week) science and history, does grammar, latin, reads from his readers, does a math lesson, reads his bible, piano, etc.

 

My kids get up at 6:30 and are at it by 7:30. They go great guns with only two 10 minute breaks until 12ish. Then I have my mommy break from 1-3 while they finish anything that is left over and play or watch something educational.

 

It is all very structured and a bit military like, but my kids like to play outside a lot, so I know that if it isn't done by noon it is not going to get done.:tongue_smilie:

 

I do read alouds at night after supper.:)

[NancyNellen]

Hi Brenda~

 

Here's what my 6th grader did this year:

 

Bible Reading (10-15 minutes)

Memory page: daily review of Latin, poetry, Scripture, math facts, etc. (15-20 minutes)

Piano practice (20 min.)

Singapore Math 6A/B (45 minutes or so...usually 2 exercises or 1 practice/review)

Logic Maths (10 minutes/ 1 exercise)

History (He has completed the Teaching Co.'s Early Middle Ages course and is almost finished w/ The Late Middle Ages course. He watches the DVD lesson, takes notes and creates an outline one day then writes a paper on the next day. We do history 3x/week)

Science: Noeo Chemistry II (30-45 minutes/ 2x/week)

Latin for Children Primer C (15-30 minutes)

Classical Writing Homer A & part of B: (60 minutes)

Harvey's Grammar (10-15 minutes)

IEW's Poetry Memorization (10-15 minutes)

Scripture Memory (10-15 minutes)

 

He probably outlines 2-3x/week

He writes 2-3 summaries/week

 

We school 6 weeks on/ 1 week off which allows me to tweak as I go, adjusting everything so we stay roughly on schedule. This extends our school year, but keeps me sane :-)

 

Does she need both a roots/vocab. program and Latin? Maybe you could streamline by dropping one of those. I'd also include your grammar studies in your writing. I don't know if IEW does this or not. Just a thought.

 

HTH,

[FlockOfSillies]

Does she need both a roots/vocab. program and Latin? Maybe you could streamline by dropping one of those. I'd also include your grammar studies in your writing. I don't know if IEW does this or not. Just a thought.

 

Nancy,

 

I was hoping I could drop the roots program if we're doing Latin. I'd seen where other people here have done both word roots and Latin. But I just realized I left logic off my list. I'll have to drop the word roots for sure, now. The Goose will be bummed. She loves Megawords.

 

IEW doesn't weave in grammar like CW, but I think I actually prefer that. I have too much fear about gaps or getting things out of order if the grammar is integrated.

 

And I shouldn't even have to do Spanish, if my native-speaker-Mother would just talk to the kids in Spanish. The only one she speaks Spanish to is the toddler. :glare:

 

Thanks for the details on your schedule. I swear, I feel like such a rookie, even though this is my sixth year of homeschooling. The logic stage pretty much walked up behind me and whacked me in the head with a baseball bat. I'm planning to file charges, lol.

 

So you're basically looking at 4-5 hrs. of solid work each day. The Teaching Co. plan sounds great, btw. What have you done for logic-stage earth and space study?

[FlockOfSillies]

Thanks, Caroline. From the responses so far, it looks like 4-5 hrs. a day is the norm, with outlines/summaries 2-3x a week each. I don't think my kids will ever start school at 7:30 on a regular basis, though. There's just too much mischief to be made whenever Mom's back is turned. :-)

[NancyNellen]

Yeah, logic stage kind of crept up on me, too ;-)

 

I have not been lining up my science studies a la WTM. We actually did Noeo Chemistry II this year. Science is one area where I just follow my kid's interests in the younger years. So we have done astronomy, Botony, rainforests, etc...Lots of the Apologia courses as well as My World Science.

 

4-5 hours/day sounds about right, usually. Except the super-pokey days :-)