A question has me stumped...

[laurad1125]

Over the months I've been on this board I've seen what appears to be consensus on two different ideas that I just can't reconcile for math.

 

1. 4 days a week are enough.

2. we finish the book

 

Now, by my math, 4 days a week for 36 weeks is 144 days of instruction. (I've also read of quite a few people that don't do all 36 weeks.) Take out 10 days or so for sick days, field trips, and dr. appointments, leaving 134.

 

My son's Horizons math has 160 lessons AND 16 tests. = 176 days of instruction.

 

176 days of instruction in 134 days. :confused: Can someone enlighten me as to how they manage this discrepancy?

[gardening momma]

Could it depend on the grade level and the program being used? I'm using Right Start Math level A for my Kindergartener, and it has just 77 lessons.

[FairProspects]

Could it depend on the grade level and the program being used? I'm using Right Start Math level A for my Kindergartener, and it has just 77 lessons.

 

I'm not sure that's it because each of those lessons are intended to be 2 days worth of instruction. That's still 154 days of instruction if you do it as written. :confused1: I've often wondered the OP's question myself. We are going to go thru late June to finish RS A. Maybe they are thinking of schooling year-round with a 4-day schedule?

[Tutor]

Maybe people skip reviews and/or tests? Or maybe do multiple lessons in a single day?

[LarlaB]

Many times we do multiple lessons in a single day.

[Daisy]

Many people don't follow a traditional school year schedule. We follow a 36 week schedule for most of our subjects BUT during the summer months we continue math and add in unit studies & extra reading. So really, we never stop schooling. :D

[gardening momma]

I'm not sure that's it because each of those lessons are intended to be 2 days worth of instruction. That's still 154 days of instruction if you do it as written. :confused1: I've often wondered the OP's question myself. We are going to go thru late June to finish RS A. Maybe they are thinking of schooling year-round with a 4-day schedule?

One- or two-day lessons in RS A might also depend on the age of your K-er, I suppose. I also never really inferred that the lessons needed to be spread out over two days. I pulled out my book just now, and it says:

 

Kindergarten. Most of the kindergarten lesson plans have two distinct topics, which can be taught on alternate days. (page iv)

 

and

 

Number of Lessons. It is not necessary that each lesson be done in one day. Sometimes two days might be more appropriate. (page v)

 

I take those to mean I can spread lessons out to two days, but I don't have to (and I don't usually need to, but my K-er is 6).

[DawnM]

We learn for mastery. If a child is *gets* it and the rest is just busy work and I feel he is ready to move on.....we skip lessons! ;)

 

Dawn

[HRAAB]

I don't test in the early years - no need to. Also, we continue math over the summer. We always have one day a week where we put aside our regular math curriculum and play games or use some other supplement.

[Sugarfoot]

We often do multiple lessons per day, especially if we're "on a roll" with something.

 

I think that there are many different ways to interpret a 4-day week. For instance, our 5th day is spent at piano lessons, where we'll review Latin and I'll spend one-on-one time doing Logic with each child. They'll both read, of course, and work on an art project. My oldest will do a math lesson later, as well. I still consider us 4-day schoolers, since that day isn't anything like a "normal" academic day for us. And many homeschoolers actually squeeze 5 full days of academics into 4 calendar days.

 

Also, as the years go by, you'll notice that the first chapters of most skill-type books are devoted to review. If your academic calendar is like ours and doesn't include an extended break of several months, that review isn't necessary, which means that you're beginning the next level of math, for instance, at lesson 25 or 30. There have been some years where I've been totally shocked at how far into the book I've had to go to get to new material.

[ChristusG]

We may skip lessons. For Kindergarten, the lessons are often short, so we may do two or three lessons in one day. We may skip a part of a lesson and go on to the next one. We may not finish the book....but then again, we may finish the book. We're pretty flexible LOL.

[RegGuheert]

 

Over the months I've been on this board I've seen what appears to be consensus on two different ideas...

Perhaps you mean some other board? :confused1:

[Tess in the Burbs]

We use Horizons. We do 4 days a week. We finish the book. We do one lesson a day. The test is listed as part of another lesson. So those days are the test AND the lesson although if it's stuff they know we may do only one problem or skip it.

 

I did pull some early lessons outs and skipped completely. Depends on the problems. they know time and addition facts so early on I let my son skip some of the review.

 

We have had 3 sick weeks already this year and won't finish until end of June right now...assuming we have no more illness :glare:

 

I know the ps doesn't finish the book. You could look at which lessons in the chart in the teacher book are new or review and skip over things you know they know and not do the review.

 

I agree...it's a lot if you want to finish the book with a 4 day schedule but it's possible...our third year with Horizons

[coffeegal]

Over the months I've been on this board I've seen what appears to be consensus on two different ideas that I just can't reconcile for math.

 

1. 4 days a week are enough.

2. we finish the book

 

Now, by my math, 4 days a week for 36 weeks is 144 days of instruction. (I've also read of quite a few people that don't do all 36 weeks.) Take out 10 days or so for sick days, field trips, and dr. appointments, leaving 134.

 

My son's Horizons math has 160 lessons AND 16 tests. = 176 days of instruction.

 

176 days of instruction in 134 days. :confused: Can someone enlighten me as to how they manage this discrepancy?

 

But 4 days for 44 weeks is 176. ;) It's simply trading a shorter week for a longer school year.

[gardening momma]

My son's Horizons math has 160 lessons AND 16 tests. = 176 days of instruction.

 

We use Horizons. We do 4 days a week. We finish the book. We do one lesson a day. The test is listed as part of another lesson. So those days are the test AND the lesson although if it's stuff they know we may do only one problem or skip it.

Yeah, in school, unless it was a major exam, we took a test and then, in the same class period, started the next math lesson/chapter. I don't recall tests taking a whole hour (or 55 min, whatever ;)).

[zaichiki]

We do fewer days per week, but we school year-round (with a week or two off here and there). I always finish the book, but we also frequently skip lengthy reviews if mastery has been attained and retained. We use Singapore Primary Math.

[Denisemomof4]

you know, I've been homeschooling for 12 years, and I *never* schedule or plan. We finish the book when we finish it. We finish EVERYTHING in ALL SUBJECTS every year, and we usually complete our school year sometime in April or May. I can tell you that we have 150 math lessons but if a lesson is real easy we may do two that day or skip one. Same with English, which I believe has 125 lessons. I don't know, it just always works out and I don't stress about it. In fact, I don't even think about it. I never quite understood all the planning people put into schooling, but Tapestry of Grace has never been an option for our family. ;) I know that's pretty heavy teacher prep time.

[rookie]

multiple lessons a day and do math/english year round.

[tex-mex]

We do math year round -- as soon as one book ends, the next textbook begins. It is the only way to do it. I aim for 5 days a week -- but take into account holidays or sick days or club/extracurricular activities. 10-12 months fit my schedule to do the entire book for Algebra I.

Edited December 3, 2009 by tex-mex

[lionfamily1999]

Over the months I've been on this board I've seen what appears to be consensus on two different ideas that I just can't reconcile for math.

 

1. 4 days a week are enough.

2. we finish the book

 

Now, by my math, 4 days a week for 36 weeks is 144 days of instruction. (I've also read of quite a few people that don't do all 36 weeks.) Take out 10 days or so for sick days, field trips, and dr. appointments, leaving 134.

 

My son's Horizons math has 160 lessons AND 16 tests. = 176 days of instruction.

 

176 days of instruction in 134 days. :confused: Can someone enlighten me as to how they manage this discrepancy?

Schooling year round. If we miss a week due to illness that's our vacation for that month. We also have a few extra weeks to play with, so we end up with at least 36 weeks. Most of our classes are one lesson a week, for those that are a new lesson every day, if there's more lessons than time, then we will sometimes double up.

 

I'm pretty flexible and for math we don't use a set curriculum at all. I use the state's SOLs as a guide and teach whatever is necessary to the extreme point of ds's ability. IOW, he's only required to multiply a two-digit number by a single digit, but he's capable (now) of multiplying multiple digit numbers by multiple digit numbers. He only has to know how to add an subtract fractions, but he knows how to multiply and divide them. We're struggling on measurements, but that's what we'll tackle in January, until he conquers it :)

[Sahamamama]

Maybe some do math year-round. That's what we do.

[Cindyg]

Our curriculum has 160 lessons per subject, and we have an AWFUL time getting them all in. We have school 4 days a week (one day in enrichment), year round, minus the usual holidays/sick days/vacation days. It's very hard to get 160 lessons in, but we do.

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

If the consensus if 4 days a week, then I disagree;) I think that most weeks should be 5 days a week of math. My ds's cyber school schedules 5 days a week of math. Sometimes we do double on math, but we generally do math 5 days week.

 

I also plan to do some math over the summer:)

[JoyfulMama]

Over the months I've been on this board I've seen what appears to be consensus on two different ideas that I just can't reconcile for math.

 

1. 4 days a week are enough.

2. we finish the book

 

Now, by my math, 4 days a week for 36 weeks is 144 days of instruction. (I've also read of quite a few people that don't do all 36 weeks.) Take out 10 days or so for sick days, field trips, and dr. appointments, leaving 134.

 

My son's Horizons math has 160 lessons AND 16 tests. = 176 days of instruction.

 

176 days of instruction in 134 days. :confused: Can someone enlighten me as to how they manage this discrepancy?

 

This is my 5th year using Horizon. There are review lessons in the beginning and at the end, which are detailed in the beginning of the teacher manual. Also, I may skip a lesson here or there (esp in the earlier years) if concepts are mastered. I often skip problems for this reason.

This year we are doing Horizon 4, and there are 180 lessons + 16 tests + 4 quarter tests = 180. However, if you take out the 10 review lessons + 1 test in the beginning and the review lessons at the end (maybe 10 - guessing), you are back to 160.

I do math 4 days/week, but we don't stick to a 36 week school year. We started in July, and will complete exactly half of the program by Christmas.

[mcconnellboys]

I do math four days a week. I divide the number of lessons, tests, etc. (or total number of pages) that I need to get done by the total number of days that we'll do math. That tells me how many pages per day we need to do and that's what we do.

[dragons in the flower bed]

176 days of instruction in 134 days. :confused: Can someone enlighten me as to how they manage this discrepancy?

 

Do more weeks than 36. Even folks who take a summer break often continue doing just math because skills-focused subjects get rusty fast.

[joannqn]

We're in a different but similar situation. We do school two half days and three full days, for a total of 18.5 hours of school, not counting breaks, lunch, and outside classes and field trips. We finish all of our curriculum in all subjects every year.

 

I take the number of lessons or pages and divide that by 36, rounding up to the nearest whole number, to know how much to do in a week. Then I use that to figure out how many days per week and/or how many pages per day we need to do in order to finish before we take our summer break.

 

For example:

 

A 176 page workbook divided by 36 weeks, gets 4.88. I know I need to do 5 pages a week. If the pages are single-sided, I'll schedule that as 1 page per day, 5 days per week. If the pages are double-sided, I'll schedule 6 pages a week. I'll break those up as either 1 side of a page per day, and add in an extra side on whichever day we have the most time, or I'll schedule 2 sides of a page three days per week.

 

For math, we use MUS which has 30 lessons. I schedule 1 lesson per week. Each lesson has 6 pages and a test. On Mondays, I teach the new material and they do one page. Then they do one page a day the rest of the week, with one day having an extra page to complete. We skip the tests because I can tell if they understand the work from their daily work.

 

Our science text has 14 chapters so I schedule one chapter every two weeks. How I split the work up depends on the rest of our schedule that year. This year, we are doing the reading and a corresponding worksheet the first week. The second week we do any hands on activities and experiments suggested in the text.

 

History is the hardest for us to finish in a year. SOTW has 42 lessons. I schedule 1 lesson a week, but 6 weeks have two lessons a week. Usually these are early in the year so we have time to catch up if we get behind. Normally, we take the entire month of December off. This year, we got behind in history but it is the most interesting chapters of the year (the knights and castles part of medieval history) so we are doing history during December, in more depth than we normally would have time for.

[Mrs Mungo]

Over the months I've been on this board I've seen what appears to be consensus on two different ideas that I just can't reconcile for math.

 

1. 4 days a week are enough.

2. we finish the book

 

Now, by my math, 4 days a week for 36 weeks is 144 days of instruction. (I've also read of quite a few people that don't do all 36 weeks.) Take out 10 days or so for sick days, field trips, and dr. appointments, leaving 134.

 

My son's Horizons math has 160 lessons AND 16 tests. = 176 days of instruction.

 

176 days of instruction in 134 days. :confused: Can someone enlighten me as to how they manage this discrepancy?

 

I would say most people who only do math four days a week do two lessons on one of those four days. Speaking for ourselves, we do school year-round.

[Mommyof4ks]

We strive for mastery, and then we move on to the next lesson. There are some weeks we go over 4 different concepts in math, but some weeks we spend all week on one. It tends to even out so we finish the book by years end. Sometimes we simply don't finish, but we work on stuff over the summer if we need to on days when it is too hot, rainy or whatever.

[Mandy in TN]

Many people don't follow a traditional school year schedule. We follow a 36 week schedule for most of our subjects BUT during the summer months we continue math and add in unit studies & extra reading. So really, we never stop schooling. :D

ditto. We also continue math during the summer.

Mandy

[Ellie]

Over the months I've been on this board I've seen what appears to be consensus on two different ideas that I just can't reconcile for math.

 

1. 4 days a week are enough.

2. we finish the book

 

Now, by my math, 4 days a week for 36 weeks is 144 days of instruction. (I've also read of quite a few people that don't do all 36 weeks.) Take out 10 days or so for sick days, field trips, and dr. appointments, leaving 134.

 

My son's Horizons math has 160 lessons AND 16 tests. = 176 days of instruction.

 

176 days of instruction in 134 days. :confused: Can someone enlighten me as to how they manage this discrepancy?

It doesn't look like a discrepancy to me. You do 4 days a week until the book is finished. Problem solved.:D

[laurad1125]

Thanks for all the ideas. It always helps to see that people are handling the same problem different ways. Right now, math is really easy for DS(10 - who actually just turned 11) so we'll start doing fewer problems on each of 2 lessons each day. Horizons has tons of review and he doesn't need it right now. We'll get ahead of the goal of finishing by the end of May (we school year round and start the new year on June 1) but I'm sure eventually we'll hit some topics that need more time. Thanks for all the replies.

[Rosy]

I don't think anyone has said this yet...we don't worry about finishing the book. Wherever we are when June rolls around, we stick a bookmark in the book and that's where we start in September. The nice thing about that is that we end up being able to skip a lot of the review when we start a new book. :)

[Guest janainaz]

you know, I've been homeschooling for 12 years, and I *never* schedule or plan. We finish the book when we finish it. We finish EVERYTHING in ALL SUBJECTS every year, and we usually complete our school year sometime in April or May. I can tell you that we have 150 math lessons but if a lesson is real easy we may do two that day or skip one. Same with English, which I believe has 125 lessons. I don't know, it just always works out and I don't stress about it. In fact, I don't even think about it. I never quite understood all the planning people put into schooling, but Tapestry of Grace has never been an option for our family. ;) I know that's pretty heavy teacher prep time.

 

Exactly the same here.

[Margo out of lurking]

176 days of instruction in 134 days. :confused: Can someone enlighten me as to how they manage this discrepancy?

 

Because a typical school year is 172-180 days. It is not measured by weeks. This is a number set legislatively for public schools; many state's homeschool laws also require a similar number of days.

 

Your kids are younger; you know your kids. You certainly have the freedom to tweak your curriculum as you see fit, whether it's in content, amount of work, lessons per day, lessons per week.

 

An earlier poster wrote that they have never scheduled yet finish every subject every year. Up until this year (dd reached 9th grade), we've done the same. I don't pay attention to start/end dates, just loosely am aware that we need to finish each book within a year's time. Some books take longer (Story of the World has, what, 42 chapters).

 

The most important thing is doing what works for your kids, your family, your homeschool--to finish a book or not, to begin each book in September or not, etc. Personally, even when my kids were younger, I would not have felt comfortable doing four math lessons a week for 36 weeks on a regular basis. I'd double up a lesson, something they were grasping easily so we could skip over, or I'd do math for more than 36 weeks. But that's just me.

 

:)

[Nestof3]

My boys each skipped ahead this year because there was so much review at the beginning of the book. I had them "test out of lessons" by completing the tests. Ben skipped the first 15, and Nathan skipped the first 30.

 

We sometimes have a few lessons to finish over the summer, but that's not a big deal for us. Though we aim to do math five days a week, in reality, we probably only complete all subjects four days a week. Last year, we got behind because of home renovations, but the boys completed two lessons in one day for a month. I taught two lessons, but they did the work of one lesson because I hand-picked the problems.

[Laura Corin]

Hobbes has at least nine exercises to do each week, but we don't do maths every day. He chooses when to do his maths, and usually gets it all done by Thursday. He does a main programme, a supplementary programme and two revision tests per week. I just split the work in the main book up so we cover it during the year. We do study for 39 weeks, however.

 

Laura

[Stacy in NJ]

Over the months I've been on this board I've seen what appears to be consensus on two different ideas that I just can't reconcile for math.

 

1. 4 days a week are enough.

2. we finish the book

 

Now, by my math, 4 days a week for 36 weeks is 144 days of instruction. (I've also read of quite a few people that don't do all 36 weeks.) Take out 10 days or so for sick days, field trips, and dr. appointments, leaving 134.

 

My son's Horizons math has 160 lessons AND 16 tests. = 176 days of instruction.

 

176 days of instruction in 134 days. :confused: Can someone enlighten me as to how they manage this discrepancy?

 

You'll find this is not the only contridictory advice on this board. You can't follow all of the advice you find here all of the time.

 

Use your own common sense and do what makes sense for you, your dc and your family.

 

:001_smile:

[elegantlion]

Do more weeks than 36. Even folks who take a summer break often continue doing just math because skills-focused subjects get rusty fast.

 

This is what we do. Math is always done over the summer here, even if we finished the book during the school year.

[Nestof3]

You'll find this is not the only contridictory advice on this board. You can't follow all of the advice you find here all of the time.

 

Use your own common sense and do what makes sense for you, your dc and your family.

 

:001_smile:

 

It seems a lot of people have shown that this advice is not contradictory. :confused:

[Lizzie in Ma]

CLE has 10 workbooks that in 3rd grade take 17 days to complete = 170 days to complete a grade level.

We skip the first book because it is all review making it 153 days leaving room for math on the computer days with Math Missions and Scoyo.

[Stacy in NJ]

It seems a lot of people have shown that this advice is not contradictory. :confused:

 

I haven't read all of the replies. Perhaps it's not, but a lot of the advice here is contridictory. Hold off on grammar until the child is older - start grammar in Kindergarten. Do math informally with games - use a structured program. Use a structured phonics program for reading and spelling - If you read a lot your your dc they'll pick up reading naturally.........I could go on and on.

 

:D

Edited December 3, 2009 by Stacy in NJ
sp

[Denisemomof4]

I haven't read all of the replies. Perhaps it's not, but a lot of the advice here is contridictory. Hold off on grammar until the child is older - start grammar in Kindergarten. Do math informally with games - use a structured program. Use a structured phonics program for reading and spelling - If you read a lot your your dc they'll pick up reading naturally.........I could go on and on.

 

:D

 

of course it is. It's silly to think the numerous members here are going to agree about everything, especially homeschooling. Instead if thinking of it as contradictory, which has a negative tone to it, look at it as differing opinions. What works for one or makes one happy isn't for everyone and it's silly to think that we would all be on the same page.

[Stacy in NJ]

of course it is. It's silly to think the numerous members here are going to agree about everything, especially homeschooling. Instead if thinking of it as contradictory, which has a negative tone to it, look at it as differing opinions. What works for one or makes one happy isn't for everyone and it's silly to think that we would all be on the same page.

 

I don't think "contradictory" has a negative tone. :001_smile:

 

But, then I'm a contrarian.

[Tree House Academy]

See...we use CLE and there are 170 lessons or so. If we don't finish the book, we keep working a bit through the summer (we do a really light summer schedule of a subject a day just to keep some routine). If we finish the last 20 lessons in the summer, it is no big deal for us. Even if it went into the next school year a bit, it is no big deal. Most of the time, though, since I am required to school for 180 days per my state, we end up finishing on time, easily.