What's your school day schedule like?

[scrapbookbuzz]

I'm asking because I have a friend, who's a homeschooling mom, who often is not finished with schooling her 3 children until sometime after supper.Their ages are 15, 11, and 8.

 

I have an 11yo and 5yo and I figure by the time it's 3pm (or 3:30 sometimes, for my dd) school is DONE! We'll pick up where we left off tomorrow. (Although, occasionally we do Read-Alouds at night.)

 

I'm curious how some of the rest of you handle your schooling day schedules? :lurk5:

[rookie]

Well, it really depends on your dc. If the dc hustle and focus you can finish early or on time. If the dc lolligag and dawdle, it can take forever. My two dds have the same amount of work. One of them is done, everyday, with excellent work by 3:00 :001_smile:. The other scrambles all day long, turns in lots of sloppy work, fusses, and makes excuses and is often still working at 7:00 :glare:.

[Nicole M]

You know, I almost asked about something similar on the HS board. One of the hardest mental adjustments that I had to make was to doing school after 3pm. I think many of us have a mental shutdown time, 3pm, done. We do school straight through the evening, pausing for supper, except on the days when they have evening activities.

 

My oldest is a senior, 18, and my youngest is 13. Last night at 9pm they were happily (no kidding!) doing schoolwork. I need to be "on" for school until about 8, and then I turn into a pumpkin.

 

I wonder if other folks had to make that same mental adjustment, that doing school after 3 was acceptable.

[scrapbookbuzz]

Interesting. Well, dd will be having to do 'finishing homework' (worksheets or reading) while she waits for me while I take ballet after she's had her ballet class on Monday nights. :D Other than that, the kids have AWANA (their Bible study) on Tuesday nights, and I have a Womens Bible Study on Wed nights (much needed).

 

DH has offered to help but sometimes the subject matter that both still need to cover is too diverse to do at the same time. Hmmm...

[mammaruss]

My ds has a very loose schedule. He likes to take his time and he takes a lot of breaks. Today he worked on his math and then listened to the remaining 2 hours of a story. Then, he continued on with the remainder of his school work.

I would love to be done by a set time--but that is not how he rolls! ;) He gets done when he is done....and he is happy, even when his school day is not over until 5pm or so!

[mcconnellboys]

Since she has a teen and pre-teen, perhaps they sleep late and get started later in the day....? Or perhaps they take lots of breaks and just take their time finishing....?

[nd293]

We don't keep "school hours" because we're not at school ;-)

 

I set what work needs to be done, and it (usually) gets done. Today dd has the neighbouring kids over, as they are on school holiday. I guess work will be done this afternoon, although we also have a swim scheduled, so there might be some carry-over.

[gingersmom]

I think a lot depends on what time you get started in the morning and if you do outside activities.

 

I have a 4th grader and if we start around 9 we are usually done between 2-2:30.

 

I also have a 7/8th grader who does not work as efficiently and although we start at 9 it takes her till 9:30 to begin and then she is talking to the cat and generally wasting time. I have recently begun giving her homework 1-2 nights a week and on the weekend. I usually tell her to call it quits around 3:30 and the rest is homework.

[Melissa in FL]

My 13 yr old's schedule has him working till 5:45 every day (assuming he stays on track) He starts at 8am, has an hour off for breakfast, teeth care, and shower and then another hour off for lunch. Our dinner isn't until 7:30 so he's got time to play between school and dinner. Sometimes he'll go out and play ealier with the neighbor kids and then come in and finish his work.

HTH

Melissa

[AngieW in Texas]

Mine are 16yo, 14yo, and 11yo.

My 11yo starts at 9am and generally finishes between 1:30 and 2:00.

 

My 14yo also starts at 9am and can't go beyond 5:00 without melting down (Asperger's), but often ends up working until 4:00. She generally finishes by 1:30 on Fridays. If she still has work to do after that on Friday, I move it to the next week. She is a diligent worker, but can't leave for parkday and come back to more work. If she hasn't finished it by the time we need to leave, I move whatever is left to the next week.

 

My 16yo starts at 10am (except for her cc class that starts at 9:30am). She works until late because she takes lots of breaks. She is not a diligent worker. I don't push stuff to the next week when she's still working on school stuff late because she takes lots of breaks, and the breaks aren't short.

[ChristusG]

It really just depends on our day....it varies greatly. One day we may actually begin working in the morning and complete it right after lunch.

 

Or we may not begin working till sometime after lunch. Sometimes maybe not even till 2 or 3 PM. That will take us up to dinner time. Occasionally we will do some light work after dinner, but only if DD is asking to do school work. We usually do our read-alouds after dinner.

 

And we take lots of breaks. DD is only in kindergarten and her attention span is still kind of short. So we take lunch breaks, play breaks, mommy sanity breaks, etc. These breaks can be 15 minutes long, or 2 hours. Really, it just depends on the day LOL.

[christielee7278]

We are usually finished by 3pm, but there have been days when we didn't put the books away until 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11pm. It depends. Usually a late night school time means someone dilly-dallied all day and didn't get the work done earlier in the day.

[....]

I get up at 5am - to get an early start on my stuff so I can start their stuff... :001_huh:

 

Around 8am:

 

Independent Reading - during breakfast

Small break

Independent work for 2nd grader- math review, HWOT, etc

Simultaneously help 1st grader get through his lessons - math, telling time workbook, CLE reading, etc.

Break for 1st grader - work with 2nd grader on stuff she can't do on her own -singapore math, spelling, LA, WWE2, etc

Break for 2nd grader - have 1st grader do his HWOT, LA, WWE 1

Let them both play for awhile

Finish with stuff both kids work on together - history, science, map skills, etc...

 

I will throw in worksheets that I make from Mind Benders and this word puzzle book - and the two of them complete these together while I switch over laundry or start dishes.

 

I also do a lot of planning/multi-tasking. While 1st grader is doing Printing Power, the 2nd grader can read her spelling list to me, etc.

[Lizzie in Ma]

There is no way we are done by 3.

My 3rd grade is done around 1:30-2:00 but my 8th grader is not.

In fact, due to having to go out for a piano lessons and a snit she decided to throw, she was still doing science right up to 8pm last night.

Even on a good day, starting around 9am, she will not be done until 4 or so.

[MamaT]

We start at 8:30 every morning. My 4th and 5th graders are diligent and work hard. They are usually done by 1:00. My 7th grader dawdles and whines and needs lots of reminders to stay on task. She is usually done by 2:30 only because I stay on top of her moving her along. My 10th grader is usually done around 4:30.

 

I am done at 2:30. Anything after that they need to be able to do without my help. I have to leave every day at 2:30 to get my 10yo to gymnastics. My 12yo has dance three days a week, so she has to be done at that time as well, other than reading she can do in the car.

[Rhonda in TX]

Are the kids working hard, but just not getting done? Maybe she needs to take a look at the curriculum she's using. Or, are they just dawdling, taking too many breaks, etc? If they are, and she wants things to change, she may need to enact a stricter schedule. Or maybe they start late and are just sort of loose and free with their day. As long as everyone is happy with that, there's nothing wrong with it.

 

I have a son who is serious dawdler. If I don't keep an eye on him, he will just disappear up to his room. Very, very frustrating. He is often not finished until 5:00 or 6:00. He could be done by 2:00 with no problem if he did not waste so much time.

 

I find that he really needs time restrictions for subjects. 30 minutes on math, then move on. If he's not finished, he will work on it once his other subjects are done (that would be "homework"). He really does thrive in that kind of structure.

 

My ideal schedule:

 

7:00 up and dressed, breakfast, chores, free time until...

8:30 start school

10:30 short break (15-20 minutes)

12:00 lunch (with longer break)

1:00 back to school

3:00 done with school

[The Girls' Mom]

We don't even really have a schedule anymore. I try to have everyone working on something by 9:30 most mornings. But we take breaks during the day for walks, chores, etc. Yesterday we were doing science experiments at 4:30. We also walked to the park and had a picnic for lunch. The day before that we were done with everything by 2 because the girls wanted to spend the afternoon playing outside.

[mom31257]

We don't have a daily schedule. I let the kids pick what order they want to do their subjects in, except whatever is together that day. It goes first. We start at 9:00 and are usually done no later than 2:00. They want to get done, though so they can do their own thing, play with the kids next door after school, etc. Both learn easily and are willing to get it done.

[mommyto3]

We don't have a daily schedule. I'm not a morning person so we start when we're ready and are pretty loose with our time. I like to sit down and finish pretty much everything once we've gotten started, which only takes us about 2-3 hrs, but it doesn't always work that way. I have a dawdler with attention issues so he takes 10x as long to do things as he should. My goal is to finish what I had planned for that day - whether it be at 1pm or 8pm. Last night he was reading a book to dh at about 8pm because that's how the schedule worked for that day.

[jujsky]

I have 2 and they're both in 1st. I only do phonics with them separately. Here is what we cover each day. We don't have a set order:

 

Monday: LA, math, phonics (individually), science, history, 1-2 extra classes

 

Tuesday: LA, math, phonics (individually), history, art, 1-2 extra classes

 

Wednesday: LA, math, phonics (individually), science, 1-2 extra classes

 

Thursday: LA, math, phonics (individually), 1-2 extra subjects, + co-op

 

Friday: Free day unless we have school to finish up. We just moved to this schedule which accounts for the 1-2 extra classes/day. During the week we need to make up Friday's work, so we have to fit in 1 LA, 1 math, 2 phonics (1 for each child), 1 history, and 1 art.

 

We usually start around 10:00, and finish up by 1:00 (2:00 if we break for lunch). We start later and try to keep a lighter schedule on Thursday, as we have co-op from 10:00-12:00.

[Laura Corin]

We work from nine to five, but Hobbes is often mostly finished by Thursday. Calvin needs all those hours. This includes music lessons and practice, as well as PE, but not their assigned reading book for the week.

 

Laura

[OneRoomSchoolHouse]

Since we only have one school-aged dc, she does chores and plays with the littles all morning. Then after lunch ds goes down for a nap and we do school until she is done for the day (only takes 3 hours). We have tried a typical school schedule, but this really works for all of us right now. When the littles are school-aged, we will definately implement a more typical schedule.

[PollyOR]

No schedule here. I feel like we should have one, but something always comes along and blows it out of the water.

 

We do have a couple of set items. My 14yo attends a class at 6:30am M-F on public school days. And, we wrap up with the younger two around 3:30pm when the neighbors come home from school. I've tried continuing in the afternoon but a mutiny usually occurs. Arrrh ;)

[2cents]

We start at 7-7:30 AM and these days are done around 2:30 - 3:00 with a break for brunch.