does anyone else spend ALL day doing school?

[willtheycallmeblessed]

seriously. my 12 y/o daughter is rarely finished before 5pm. granted, she doesn't always start at 8am. but always before 10am. she requires a lot of my assistance for remedial work and for read aloud stuff...and i'm not readily available due to the 5 y/o twin tornadoes and the lovable 16 month old sweetie. she takes off an hour or so in the afternoon to watch the 16 month old sugarpie while i try to tame the twins with some kindergarten work. i don't know if she's got too much to do, or WHAT? she does all her independent work without prompting, so i know she's not dawdling. she does occasionally "forget" to do something...like make more latin flashcards, or make a notebook page for what she's read in science, or correct her math work. i need one of those timer thingies that she can punch every time she's doing work so that i can know just how much time she's actually "doing school." i feel bad that the poor girl is still doing schoolwork when dad gets home from work in the evening!!

[LG Gone Wild]

Yes, school is an all day affair. Eldest requires more supervision than the toddler. Maddening really but I figure that's just how it has to be for this family.

[Starr]

The only answer I've found is to start earlier. However it doesn't work well here. :) Students are in school here from about 8 - 2:30 and then have after school activities, music practice, and homework. Once my dc hit middle school I realized it just took more hours.

[willtheycallmeblessed]

whew! i feel better. i was feeling awful after having brunch with some ladies from our homeschool group. almost all of them said they were done by lunch time! after i nearly choked on my blueberry muffin, i decided i needed to get some more input on this matter!

 

thanks for your input! :)

[Jenn in Mo]

My 12 year old is in the same boat. We start at 9:00 and take an hour for lunch. When I'm using our workboxes (folders, really) he is much faster, but it takes me quite a bit of time and it doesn't take much for me to get out of the habit. I need to give them another shot.

 

He works until 4 or 5:00 most days. However, if he knows that friends will be coming over, he is able to crank his work out around 2 -3 hours faster. Since workboxes and incentives help him work more efficiently, I know it's not my workload so much as his lack of focus or drive.

[mollies73]

I really notice that we are in session all day when I don't fill their workboxes. For some reason, if their boxes are filled, they just get to it, know exactly what is required, and have fewer questions. It's more work for me (as was stated by someone else before), but well worth the effort when we are done at 1:00. When I'm not organized, so much of their time is spent standing by my side waiting for direction while a sibling is being worked with.

[Peela]

Well, no, my 14 and 15yos don't spend all day doing school. We do start at 8.30 am. and there are pretty much no distractions, even breaks, save going to the kitchen for a snack. Lunch is generally short. My son's whole aim in life is to finish his schoolwork as soon as possible :) He rushes though and the quality is not always brilliant, but I make him go back and redo things that arent up to scratch.

Sometimes dd15 has to work till mid afternoon, but never all day. She has a paid job some afternoons , and does classes on others, so she cant just keep going. Ds14 has just picked up some work too so it will affect his ability to work afternoons.

I cut things out if their day gets too long. However, one child rushes and the other works at a steady pace, so neither are dawdling. The only dawdling that happens is getting started in the mornings- dd15 will sleep in if she can, so I am quite strict about her getting up in time to do her chores, her music practice, a walk and breakfast, and start school at 8.30- so she is getting up at 6.30.

I guess every family finds its own way. My dd would love to sleep in till 9 and start school at 10, but then she wouldnt get her work done before her paid job starts, or her afternoon classes.

 

ETA We are also using workboxes and I am finding it much more efficient as well, for getting through the day. It forces me to get organised so that everything they need for each subject, is right there ready to go, down to coloured pens, highlighters, printouts, novels with sticky notes saying how much to read etc etc. Both my teens are happy with workboxes as a system.

Edited February 10, 2010 by Peela

[Chris in VA]

Well, what is she expected to do, curriculum wise? Is there any redundancy you can fix?

My son (now in college) started by 8:30 with devotions, then worked pretty steadily until lunch, then did everything except math, which he did in the evenings with his father. He was easily done by 4. This was high school. He read a lot of GB's but didn't do a lot of writing, and had about 6 classes every day.

[katilac]

Having a checklist would help with forgetting tasks.

 

If a student is consistently taking all day with schoolwork, I would require a 9 AM start (or whatever time, but without a consistent start, it's impossible to figure out how long she is taking to finish).

 

I wouldn't have her take an hour's break in the middle of her work, unless she truly NEEDS a break at that time. Otherwise, I would let her work through and finish, and work with the twins when she is done. An hour's worth of kinder at 4 pm is much more manageable than an hour's worth of middle school work.

 

If waiting for help is constantly delaying her, I would definitely consider doing those tasks in the evening, when dad can keep the littles distracted. I would also consider Saturdays. She might be very open to that if it means not spending all day everyday on school during the week.

 

I wouldn't consider read alouds essential for a 12-yr-old unless they are part of her remedial work. If she needs to read aloud for practice, again, I'd move that to another time. If she needs someone to read to her, I'd consider audio books so she isn't waiting.

 

To know if she's doing too much or taking too long, we'd need to know what all she's doing.

[katilac]

E 12 awana, SL core 3/4, MUS, a Beka Lang, wordly wise, remedial reading workbooks, Noeo sci, piano, rosetta stone span, latina christiana

 

Okay, I just realized it's all in your siggy!

 

If she is doing remedial reading workbooks, I'd reconsider my choices for language arts. A Beka in general is known for having lots of work and moving at a fast pace; are you open to trying something else? The same for Wordly Wise; and I don't know that I would spend a lot of time on a formal vocab when she is working on her reading skills - - especially when you consider that she is studying Latin and another language!

 

I know nothing about Noeo science.

 

Does she enjoy the languages, do well with them? If not, again I would consider if that's where I want to spend my time. Would cutting to one language help while she's working on those reading skills? We do Latin and a modern language ourselves, do I do see the value, I'd just be cautious of overwhelming her.

 

If I had a student whose day was lengthened significantly by waiting for me to do read alouds with her, I would not use Sonlight. Would SOTW be a possibility? She can listen to the chapters on audio, and tons of the accompanying books can be found on audio as well.

 

I'm not sure the curriculum choices here are playing to your dd's strengths; I would definitely consider some changes.

[Laura Corin]

We work from 9-5. Calvin does five days a week; Hobbes does four.

 

Laura

[rwjx2khsmj]

seriously. my 12 y/o daughter is rarely finished before 5pm. granted, she doesn't always start at 8am. but always before 10am. ... she takes off an hour or so in the afternoon to watch the 16 month old sugarpie while i try to tame the twins with some kindergarten work. ... i need one of those timer thingies that she can punch every time she's doing work so that i can know just how much time she's actually "doing school." i feel bad that the poor girl is still doing schoolwork when dad gets home from work in the evening!!

 

If she's starting by 10am and not getting done until 5pm that's roughly a public school day. Plus she's taking an hour or so to help with her siblings. Is she eating lunch? Taking other breaks? It doesn't sound as if she's doing school all day. It sounds as if she's doing school off and on all day.

 

For my dc it took me awhile to stop watching the clock and start focusing on what was being accomplished. We are HOMEschooling. We don't have to run by ANYONE else's schedule and to try to pack our varied activities into the public school work day makes no sense. It also makes no sense to evaluate our progress in hours of the day.

 

It's not my goal to help my children learn more in less time. It's my goal to give them the tools to be lifelong learners. Why would I teach them that learning stops at 5pm?

[willtheycallmeblessed]

wow!! thanks so much for all the advice.

 

esp katilac...you really gave a lot of helpful hints. i actually have been considering dumping wordly wise since she's doing well in latin and spanish and the remedial reading comprehension work is a must. just seems like the word study is a bit of an overkill right now. we really enjoy sonlight and the read alouds are a great time for us both. for enjoyment and for academia. we take turns reading aloud.

 

i don't know what workboxes are, so i'll need to look into that. we do a detailed weekly schedule that she checks off...so she KNOWS what needs to be done each day. in her defense, but not to make excuses, she's got some brain damage so she tends to forget things easily. (also why we are doing so much remedial reading work now...she has difficultly processing information...ie reading comprehension.)

 

also, i'm not too familiar with SOTW. i know it's included with sonlight 6 (which we will be using next year). i know, also, it has an an activity guide. we love reading historical fiction so sonlight works great to satisfy that. when i started out after reading WTM, she read a few GB's (on her level of course) and LOVED them. she still says gulliver's travels is her favorite book of all time. however, it was just too much work for me to organize. hence, we decided on sonlight.

 

thanks again for all the great support and ideas!!! y'all are awesome!!!!

[TravelingChris]

Both of my kids do school most of the day. My youngest starts by ten and is usually done by 4 or 5. My older starts earlier and ends later but she is a high schooler. One thing I am explaining to the younger that her day will be longer once she is in ninth grade.

[LibraryLover]

That would be a grand N- O.

 

Of course, that doesn't mean we aren't learning all of the time. Thank you, thank you very much. I shall be here all week. Please tip your waitress.

[laurad1125]

We go from 10 am to 6 pm with assorted breaks (including a 1 hour active time after lunch) Ds11 spends 5 hours on work and ds6 spends 2.75

[Mommyof4ks]

Another vote for workboxes. I started them this year, and we are finally done before lunch most days. Before this year we were going all day long too, and I only had one to work with at the time.

[Samiam]

DS11 usually starts around 930a-10a, has about an hour break for lunch, and has routinely been finishing up around 3-4p this year. This is the first year he hasn't been done by lunch as the norm. I guess it just comes along with the workload for middle school.

[Melissa in Australia]

takes all day here!

[MIch elle]

Yup, ALL day with my dawling 12yob; sometimes into the after dinner hours too.

[Jackie in NE]

But I will admit that a lot of it is due to my being gone for my own college classes for almost 2 hours each day. During that time my 3 youngest are supposed to be doing seat work. If they finish that while I'm gone, then they can watch a science video or some other school-related video. It seems to be going all right. I will admit that I feel very guilty about it, but it is what we're doing right now. The other reason that we seem to have to go all day is due to my own disorganization. Even after all this time, I have not figured out how to teach my "group of three" efficiently. With my oldest, it was such a joy, and we lingered on topics of interest, and discussed things to our hearts content. But with these younger 3 all so close in age, it seems that we just "do the next thing", and just "get things done". I think I'm just trying to do too much.

[MamaT]

All day is not an option here. We have activities every afternoon and have to leave at 2:30. We stay hard at school from 8:30 until time to leave. My 12yo doesn't have to go anywhere on Wednesday, so she does work longer that day, but it has to be things she can do independently. My kids know if they don't get their schoolwork done, activities are going to get cancelled. It motivates them to work hard and finish on time.

[michelle l]

With SL I have learned to have my kids read for a given amount of time, rather than trying to have them keep up with the reading schedule. Sometimes they are behind, and sometimes they are ahead! I was trying to have them read as scheduled in the beginning, and it was just killing them. Now, since we've been reading for longer and longer periods of time, they're actually becomming faster readers so it's not as much of an issue.

 

I would quite honestly come apart at the seams if we were doing hs until 5:00. I DO want them to be lifelong learners, and I want learning to be a joy and something that we're always doing, rather than something that's scheduled. However, I just really need to have our formal schoolwork finished by mid-afternoon for my personal sanity. Of course, we are also still very much in the infancy stage of hsing, and I'm sure we'll make many changes as we continue.

[Kim in SouthGa]

Unfortunately, yes. My son can get everything he doesn't need help with done rather quickly, but he is often waiting on me. Three to school plus a very lively toddler, ya' know. We are usually not done until after 4:00, and start around 9am

[Frontier Mom]

I really notice that we are in session all day when I don't fill their workboxes. For some reason, if their boxes are filled, they just get to it, know exactly what is required, and have fewer questions. It's more work for me (as was stated by someone else before), but well worth the effort when we are done at 1:00. When I'm not organized, so much of their time is spent standing by my side waiting for direction while a sibling is being worked with.

 

Same here. I never realized how unfocused we were until we instigated workboxes. We are finishing about 2 hours earlier. Also, if we have a short day, I give them the drawer #'s to complete that day to be finished. I will just write on a post-it, #1,2,4 & 5 for instance and they know those are the ones they must complete.

[katilac]

And when someone decides to lamb, all bookwork goes out the window!

 

You have no idea how long it took me to figure out that sentence :tongue_smilie:

[Halcyon]

Not us! But my kids are only 7 and 5! We work from 9 am until 12 noon. Sometimes he has his reading or a worksheet to finish up in the afternoon for a few minutes, but we really try to be finished. If we're doing a big art or science projcect though, it can take a bit longer.

[Tree House Academy]

Not everyday...but it happens. LOL Usually, this is our day at the beginning of a school year or after a long break until my kids can get into the groove again. Once they are "groovin'," my older usually starts by 10 and finishes before 2. He is 10, though...not 12.

[Red]

About half the week is spent all day on work. There are some afternoon activities/outside classes on other days. The older the kids get the longer it takes.

[6packofun]

No, I won't allow it. One of the benefits that we should be reaping from homeschooling, IMO, is a more focused and efficient school day. We don't mess around with busy work, lots of worksheets and unnecessary stuff. You need to decide what stuff IS necessary. We don't compare ourselves at all to the public school system ("Well, ps students spend 7 hours a day..." NOPE.)

 

We do not spend more than 45-60 minutes on one subject because we simply cannot finish our day in a timely manner if we do that. I've got 5 grade levels going and we combine as much as possible. We organize our day around who needs more help and when they need it. It is relaxed but MUST be orderly or we don't make a good dent in our work every day! lol

 

Utilize quiet reading/room times with the younger ones to focus on your oldest. Their work *can* wait and should not take all day anyhow. For years we did the main part of our school while little ones napped and later, I worked with the younger ones after dh came home. For years I've read aloud at breakfast and/or lunch while the kids' mouths were occupied and then grabbed something to eat myself after while they are back to their own work. By age 10-12 our kids were given checklists and they worked on what they could independently and saved anything they couldn't do on their own or that needed to be taught/facilitated by me until the time in late morning and early afternoon when I could spend focused amounts of time helping them.

 

Every year we sit down after about 6 weeks of school to really take stock of what the priorities for THIS year are. It's different every year, most definitely! And yes, sometimes one child needs more time from mom/dad and there's no guilt about what's "fair"...it's about what is necessary for the individualized education of each child within each unique family.

[Impish]

Depends on the day.

 

Some days, Diva can drag math out all. day. long. That seems to be somewhat fixed with the use of a timer.

 

Some days, we focus on housework once math and LA are done (like today, when a mountain of clean laundry needed folding and put away...I can't carry the baskets upstairs, so it tends to build up! Plus, I can't fold everything...socks are a nightmare...and if I fold too much, I end up in screaming pain).

 

Once laundry is finished, she'll be reading some history, doing some more vocab and science.

 

We work til its done, basically.

 

I really need to explore this 'work boxes' idea. Its been posted about I don't know HOW many times, and I think it would really help. Disorganization, on both our parts plays a big role in how long things take. HUGE role, to be honest...and me more than her...'cept when it comes to finding supplies :tongue_smilie: