How many hours per day do you spend on school?

[Guest mrs. logic]

This question came up at the home education group I facilitate, "How many hours per day do you spend on school?

Edited January 16, 2010 by mrs. logic

[Cynful]

Mine are both about at the 5th grade level. My daughter a bit under and my son a bit over (he has delays). We school from about 9am (sometimes 10am) to 2pm every day with about 30 minutes for lunch. They have a few things they do outside of this time if they don't finish them during this time and reading. My son tends to be there till 3pm since we do extra to help his dyslexia right now. Any more would fry their brains and mine. :ack2:

[Mynyel]

For mine it depends on what they are doing and how long they take for each. I try to keep it 4-5 hours through out the day. Sometimes it is more if they seem to want to dilly dally :001_smile:. Sometime shorter if they hunker down.

We don't sit for that long, we do an hour here an hour and a half there. It breaks it up and keeps them interested.

 

:grouphug::grouphug:

[TXMary2]

I have a K and an 8th grader and I spend about 5-6 hours combined with the two of them, on average.

[kls126s]

That depends on if I'm bribing them with Wii time or not... :glare:

 

My ds doesn't really count since it's just K5 work, but my dd is doing second grade. If she's not dawdling too much it takes her about 3-4 hrs, including 30 minutes of structured reading time. If she's dragging her feet it sometimes takes over 5 hrs. Which is why I bribe.

[nukeswife]

Our minimum is usually 1.5 hours and the maximum is 4 hours. We've had very few days that take longer than that, but this is my first year with an almost middle schooler, so it may get longer in the upcoming years.

[elegantlion]

My ds is in 6th grade and we school from 10am to about 2:30 - 3pm, depending on the day. That includes 45-60 min of break. When he was younger 2-3 hours was the max/day. He also does 40 minutes of free reading each day, usually in the evening.

[chaik76]

About an hour and a half to two hours for second grade...this does not include literature reading at night.

[EKS]

8th grader spends about 5-7 hours per day. 2nd grader spends 2-3.

[arcara]

We school in our house from 9am to 3 or 4pm, with a 1 hour break for lunch. My 4yo only works for 30 minutes/day. For the older 2 girls (grades 2 & 4) it depends on how much they're dwaddling. I've just had to accept that my oldest never gets in much of a hurry about anything!

[melmichigan]

It seems like I school all day with my group right now. We are in transition and changing materials and schedules. My oldest is also a dilly nilly. I'm going to try and crack down this week. Before the holidays it was usually about 9-4 with all the kids rotating through their subjects so they definately weren't spending that much time themselves. :tongue_smilie: It is taking my DD longer since she hit the higher subjects/levels. I need to find her some motivation.

[Dina in Oklahoma]

Hello ~

 

My DD 12 usually spends between 4-5 hours.

 

Dina :001_smile:

[Tree House Academy]

My 5th grader works from about 9:30am until around 3:30pm with two 15 minute "free time" breaks, and a 30 minute break for lunch.

 

My 1st grader works from around 10am until around 12:30pm.

[FO4UR]

My 1st grader spends about 2-3hrs on things I consider "school." About an hour of that time is seatwork (math & spelling & copywork).

[Crimson Wife]

Formal schoolwork is usually 2-3 hours in the morning. She usually does another 1.5-2 hours of informal school work most afternoons.

[abbeyej]

3rd grader: 2-3 hours, maybe some additional reading on her own. 6th grader: 6-7 hours per day. *My* time is somewhere between the two.

[NancyNellen]

Roughly:

 

1st grader: 1.5 hours

4th grader: 4 hours

6th & 7th graders: 6 hours

 

I usually spend 4-5 hours actively teaching, another hour or so correcting.

[Mom22ns]

7th grader - a solid 7 hours

5th grader - about 5 1/2 hours

 

That is 4 days/week. On Friday we spend 2 hours at orchestra, an hour and a half driving (the kids usually read) and maybe 2 hours "in class".

[rosehaven]

we start at 9:30 and finish up around 3:30 to 4pm with breaks and lunch....

 

:001_smile:

[Karen in CO]

3rd grader spends about 4 hours solid not counting reading time that is 4 days a week. She goes to a school one-day-a week for 7 hours

 

my 5yo is not in K this year, but she spends about 15 minutes a day on phonics. I don't count time for anything else she does since its all optional except the phonics.

[rafiki]

.

[Moniksca]

2-3 hours for a 3rd grader which is mostly mornings for us. It could be less without a toddler running around.

[2cents]

We're spending around 5-6 hours per day for both dd in middle school.

[Stacy in NJ]

They do between 4 and 5 hours worth of real work. My boys are 11 and 12. For younger students that much time on task isn't necessary, imo. DS12 has on online class and completes homework for it as well.

[nmoira]

Three with my 8yo and 1/2 hour with my 5yo. Sometimes we'll go a bit over with DD the Younger as she often wants to embellish her math sheets.

[m0mmaBuck]

DS is in 2nd grade and we try to shoot for 4 hrs/day plus independent reading time.

[MamaT]

About 4 hours for my 4th and 5th graders, about 5 hours for my 7th grader, and 6-7 hours for my 10th grader.

[Leila]

Wednesday we do morning PE class/ afternoon trip to the library and a little bit of school (2 hrs) AWANA @ 7pm

 

So we basically do school full day (4 days) from 8 - 3pm with 1 hr lunch break.

(this is for my 5th grader)

 

For my K5, he does around 1 hr of work and I read to him about 2 stories each day that takes us about an hour to do.

[Sahamamama]

This is our first year officially homeschooling, but the girls are used to learning at home. We have a K'er and twin preschoolers. After our morning routine (bath, breakfast, chores), we do seatwork (four days/week), which usually lasts about an hour (hardly ever longer, sometimes less) and includes:

 

• Math Fact Drill
  
• Math Lesson
  
• Handwriting OR Copywork
  
• Grammar OR Narration
  
• Memory Work
  
• Spelling
  
• Phonics OR Early Readers
  

During this time, I'm bouncing between the 5'er and the 3'ers. Then we take a break/snack, I switch out laundry, and we downshift to a more relaxed pace for our "Subject" periods -- Bible/Prims (Mon/Tues), Music (Wed), Library/Grammy's House :D (Thurs; my mom laughs to think that she's a "subject"), and Science w/Art (Fri). Subjects last anywhere from 45-90 minutes, it depends on the day! Next comes lunch, then our Read Aloud time (about 45-60 minutes daily), then nap. In the evenings, we try to read aloud again, but it depends on when/if Daddy gets home. Some nights the girls fall asleep listening to an audiobook, otherwise it's music.

 

So far, this seems to be working. It's pretty much what we did last year, without being "official," so it isn't really new to us. The girls are happy, learning a ton, and have LOTS and LOTS of time to play and be children. HTH!

Edited January 17, 2010 by Sahamamama

[AngieW in Texas]

My 6th grader works on school from 9am-2pm. Sometimes she finishes as early as 1:30pm. She takes 30 minutes for lunch and 30 minutes to take care of the neighbor's dogs, so she spends 4 hours doing schoolwork.

 

My 9th grader works on school from 9am-4pm most days. She usually manages to finish by 1:30 on Fridays, but sometimes she works until 5pm on Mondays to make sure that she can be finished early on Fridays for parkday. We'll still go to parkday whether she's done or not, but she really doesn't deal well with having school left to do after parkday, so she tries to make sure that she can be done by 1:30 on Fridays by working extra on the other days. She takes 30 minutes for lunch and 30 minutes to take care of a neighbor's dogs, so she spends 6 hours/day on school.

[missmoe]

8:30--4:00 with a one hour lunch break on Mondays

8:30--2:30 also with a one hour lunch break T-F

 

One evening to finish anything up we didn't get to or for projects.

 

My kids are 10 and 11(soon to be 12). I am there with them the whole time, but I am able to be in the area doing chores, checking email, planning lessons, ect.

[Narrow Gate Academy]

The 5th grader has 6 hours scheduled, but can finish in 5 when she wants.

 

The 3rd grader has 5 hours scheduled (only because she dawdles), but can finish in 3-4.

 

The Ker takes about an hour of actual time.

[Ester Maria]

It depends on a lot of things, how much time they have scheduled with me and how much independent work, their own time management with regards to tasks, etc., but I'd say that in total their schoolwork takes 7-8 hours a day Sunday through Thursday, and about 5-6 Friday, not counting breaks and not counting the academic things they do in their free time that are not specifically school-related (other books they read and such).

 

I have a 6th and a 7th grader, age-wise.

[2squared]

My best answer is that all of our formal schooling is completed while my 1yo naps. My K gets 15-30 min and my 2nd grader gets the rest of the time.

 

2nd Grade - Formal

RightStart Math ~ 25 min

WWE ~ 15 min

Copywork (grammar, spelling, handwriting) ~ 15 min

Religion ~ 15 min

Silent Reading (SL Readers) ~ 20-30 min

 

2nd Grade - Informal

FIAR

Public School PE & Music

IEW Poetry Memorization

Nature Study

Read Aloud

Edited January 18, 2010 by 2squared

[Closeacademy]

I have a 2nd and 4th grader.

 

We spend between 2 to 3 hours a day on school. I am also starting to use a boxed curriculum (Oak Meadow 2 & 5), use 2 math programs for each child and do lapbooks. I do overlap the children though having my oldest do independent/review work while I work with my youngest. Then I switch to working with my oldest.

 

:001_smile:

[lauracolumbus]

My goal is 9-4 for my 4th and 6th T-F (Mondays we do a coop 9-1). For my dd6 its 10-12. She's free to sit in on our afternoon subjects, history, art, etc, but doesn't have to.

 

Laura

[Paisley Hedgehog]

..

[kalanamak]

From nothing to 6 hours (days with art and an experiment). I worked out how many hours a year per subject for a given grade from WTM as a goal, divided by 12, and try to get that in every month. I think it is working well.

On "typical" days, it is 1-2 hours on weekdays (late afternoon), and 3-4 on weekends (after breakfast), usually 6 days a week.

[PeterPan]

I always tell people grade plus one. So far (now in 5th) it has worked out just fine. I use it as a common sense limit to know when to stop piling it on, lol. The real difficulty is what people call school. I don't parcel time for reading particularly, so I usually just trim my expectations down by an hour to leave some sensible time in the day to read beyond what she normally sneaks in. But as a matter of common sense for planning, I just know the day, when it's all told, is going to take an hour longer than her grade. I'm also a stickler about school time and having her do *my* work during school time, not letting her be off reading comics or potato chip stuff.

[johnandtinagilbert]

Me? from 6am -- 4pm with quick breaks to the Teacher's Lounge whenever I can ;), then about 4 hours each week between late night and weekends.

 

7th and 8th graders 7-5

 

6th grader 7-3

 

4th about 5 hours

 

1st and 2nd graders 5 hours

 

These times include meals (b, L, 2 snacks), PE (45 min.), and free reading for the littles. The elders read in bed at night for about 40-1hour.

[Mandy in TN]

This question came up at the home education group I facilitate, "How many hours per day do you spend on school?

I have several answers for this for my first grader.

 

The first is that every minute we are awake we are learning!

 

The second is- if you just want to count time spent doing something that looks like traditional education that one would see in a public school classroom, then that may would only encompass my first grader's language arts and math, so not much time.

 

The third would be that I am certain that I can document the hours required.:D

 

HTH-

Mandy

[mcconnellboys]

We typically school from 8-3:30. Now, we do things outside the house almost every day of the week, so those things cut into our school time, but we can still get most things I've scheduled done by just sticking to our guns over time.

[8filltheheart]

This question came up at the home education group I facilitate, "How many hours per day do you spend on school?

 

Is the question "how many hours do I spend doing school or my kids?" They have completely different answers.

 

My kids spend approx. 1 hr per grade level (until ~7th grade) on school work. My late middle school/high school kids spend ~7-9 hrs/day on work.

 

I spend ~4 hrs in direct instruction/day. Some days are longer, like days I work on evaluating writing assignments with them.....perhaps closer to 6hrs. But, I am also homeschooling 5 kids, 2 are high schoolers and 1 more is taking 3 high school courses.

[siloam]

This question came up at the home education group I facilitate, "How many hours per day do you spend on school?

 

Me or the kids?

 

I spend probably 6-8 hours a day, that is with doing corrections at nigh.

 

My oldest can spend all day, it has been an ongoing thing between us. She has had homework to finish every single weekend. I even had her time how long it took her to do things, which confirmed she has plenty of time and is getting side tracked a lot. Then last week she suddenly clicked and is getting her work done, she even got it done one day before noon. :blink:

 

My 2nd dd is miss get this done so I can play. It is rare that she isn't done by noon, and it probably takes her 3-4 hours a day.

 

My 3rd dd is in between the two, probably a little more like my 2nd dd and takes about 2-3 hours a day.

 

My ds works one on one with me and hs for 30mins to 1.5 hour depending on what is going on with math and what games we play.

 

Heather

 

Edited January 18, 2010 by siloam

[robsiew]

School lasts from about 8:45am to about 1:00 generally. We have a snack break in there. The kids aren't all working the whole time. I usually work youngest to oldest. My oldest is a dwaddler so he usually ends up taking the entire time.

[Melissa B]

dds 12 & 10

9 hrs (5 days per week)

7:00 am - 1:30 pm - snack during French, but no breaks

7:00 pm - 9:30 pm

 

5 hrs (1 day per week)

7:00 - 8:30

9:00 - 10:30

11:30 - 1:30

 

 

 

ds 4 & dd 6

no set schedule at this time

maybe 1 or 2 hours per day

[Medieval Mom]

We "do school" from 7:00- 12noon, but this includes piano, singing, and reading as well as "seatwork", as well as art. This doesn't include the extra reading ds does "just for fun". We do have little breaks here and there for a snack, running around the house, chasing the toddler, etc. :D

[meldamo]

My son in 5th grade starts at 8am and is done by 3pm. He has a half hour break in the morning for a snack and quick chore, an hour for lunch and outside time, and an hour after lunch in his bed for silent reading time. Fridays are shorter, and he is usually done by lunch, except for the silent reading time.

 

My kindergartener spends about an hour on language arts, math, and memory work. Then she usually has about thirty to forty-five minutes later in the day for history, science, art, and read-alouds, depending on the day.

[iquilt]

3rd grade: 4 hours/day four days a week; day 5 is flexible for catching up or field trips

K/1st grade: 1.5 hours/day four days a week; day 5 is flexible

preK: 1 hour/day four days a week; day 5 is flexible

 

These times include piano practice for two olders and all joint subjects (we do history, science, art and bible together). During free time they have been known to spend more time reading a book they found interesting in history or continuing an art project they loved; we keep our kitchen table area well stocked in supplies that allow them to work independently on any number of activities. I tried to eliminate our flexible day this year for shorter work days but that didn't work well. We have found that flexible day to be invaluable for catching up, taking extra time when daddy can be around, field trips that may have nothing to do with our current studies but are fun anyway, and social activities with our friends. HTH

[Goodallmomma]

Too many! I would say on average around 8 or 9 hours. My daughter is not a very diligent student. I've been hoping this would change for 3 years....:001_huh: