How long is your school day?

[Medieval Mom]

Our day seems to be stretching out further and further. This is partly due to ds's love of reading. At "silent reading time", he sits and reads for 60-120 min. (He'll also read another hour or so at bedtime...) I'm not requiring this-- He just loves to read!

 

I keep reading threads recommending "1 hour of work for each grade level", but ds's day (even omitting his reading) is MUCH longer than that! Before I determine whether I need to scale things back, could I have any thoughts from families who perhaps spend more than an hour or two "doing school" each day?

 

Am I alone? :confused:

[johnandtinagilbert]

Keep in mind, I am including PE, breakfast and lunch, a snack too, but my 1st and 2nd graders are in school from 7am--1:30ish. Their course of study is based on 4 complete days:

 

Language arts (reading, phonics, spelling, writing, literature study)

Science (Noeo Chem 1)

History (TOG, mostly read alouds, notebooking, weekly project)

Journaling (rotate drawing and writing 4days/wk)

Math

Computer drills for math, spelling, geography

Bible/Praise and worship

Free reading

PE

meals

Piano (every other day)

 

Day 5:

Spelling Test

Computer drills

Bible

Free reading

meals

math

 

T-F

My 4th grader begins at about 8:30 (she's allowed to sleep in as a reward for always finishing her work) and is finished in about 4-5 hours. She actually meets with me in the afternoon for a teaching block, but is already finished at that time with her independent work. She gets her stuff done early, then enjoys playing with the 2 little ones or reading a book (she's a bookworm!)

 

The 6th grader, Miss Diligent, gets herself up at 5:30 and is finished by 2...this includes plenty of time with the littles too...she loves babies.

 

The 7th grader is 7-4ish, and so is the 8th grader WHEN he's focused. Often he carries on 'til dinner time b/c he allows distraction to get the best of him!

 

My day starts at 5 and usually ends around 10 or 11pm, but that includes housework, lesson planning...you know all our stuff!

 

Mondays are our elective day, so we begin at 7 and end around 1, then The Elders complete any homework they have. If they remain current, they won't have any homework at all.

[rafiki]

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[patchfire]

The length of dd's school day depends a lot on HER. :) As she has said, if she doesn't dawdle, she can *usually* be finished between noon and 1:30, with extra time after that to read. That's starting at 7, and includes half an hour for piano practice, breakfast, lunch, and half an hour to play outside, weather permitting.

[Guest mrsjamiesouth]

My 4th grade son does school from 9-1pm most days.

Why don't you arrange school so that reading is last? Get all the other subjects done so you can be finished and your child can read as long as he wants.

[Melenie]

We spend about 1 hour in the early morning on phonics, bible, memory work and science reading.

 

Then afternoons another hour or more on reading aloud, Math and whatever other subject we need to cover that day.

 

Free reading I never count as school, it is something she enjoys doing and does without prompting.

 

I would say on average we do about 2.5 hours per day.

[aude sapere]

School takes us about 2 hours a day - we start at 0930 (no early risers here!) and finish up around 1130.

 

Carrie

[Aludlam]

"This is partly due to ds's love of reading. At "silent reading time", he sits and reads for 60-120 min. (He'll also read another hour or so at bedtime...) I'm not requiring this-- He just loves to read!"

 

You are truly blessed!

 

Angela

[thowell]

With dd9 and dd6 are days start at 9 and we are usually finished at around 12:30. They do their silent reading after lunch for at least 30 minutes and longer if they want. We also do a family read aloud at dinner time.

[2_girls_mommy]

We do 3 hrs of core subjects. This is MY time with the 2 girls. It would be less if there was only one. Then another hour later in the day for history/geography or science or whatever. That is not including lunch and breaks. Purely school time. Sometimes that 4 hrs will include dd7's silent reading. If she finishes some of her work while I am working with dd5, she has no choice but to read silently and wait for me. But she does most of her reading at other times throughout the day. I don't have to count the time, because she is a big reader like OP's. She will easily read upwards of 2 hrs throughout the day on her own, outside of school time.

[Medieval Mom]

Thank you for so many responses! Here's our schedule, so you can all see what we're doing. (Encouragement or helpful criticism is welcome ;) )

 

Keep in mind we have a toddler in the house. These time are approx., and include me cuddling with the baby and reading him board books, fetching this and that, etc. Ds6 squiggles around and races after his little brother from time to time :willy_nilly: and takes a break here and there.

 

7:15-8 am Music and Memory Work

This is about 15 min. each of piano practice, singing, and memory work. We also squeeze in some time on the couch to read poetry. Neither ds or I would be happy with changing this time of the morning. It's a wonderful start to the day!

 

8-9 Math

 

9-10:30 English (CLE. It takes us a while because ds really LOVES to spell words aloud for me, and keeps asking me to practice new words following the rules. What can I say? I humor him! He also does either handwriting at this time. Again, he loves practicing his cursive...)

 

10:30-11 Snack and break. This is our "elevenses." Tea, bread, jam, classical music.

 

11-12 or later. I nurse ds1 and put him down for a nap, while ds6 reads. I usually suggest one book for him to read a chapter in (from AO Yr 1, currently), then he dives into his own free reading.

 

12-2 Lunch break and quiet/play time

 

**This used to be the end of our day, at noon. We'd read until noon or thereabouts, then call it a day.**

 

Now, here's what's new.

 

2-3 CLE reading & Read Alouds (Next year scheduled to be our weekly subjects-- History, Geography, Science, etc.) . Ds insists that he loves it. I like it, too. Read alouds while ds colors, art projects, etc. have found there way here, too.

 

(More read alouds/quiet reading at bedtime, but I don't count that at school. We're bookworms, and it's just our way of life. On the other hand, I do use this time to read books I haven't gotten around to during the week, like Peter Pan or Lang's Fairy books.)

 

So, is this reasonable? :confused:

[TracyP]

I think it sound wonderful.:001_smile: It sounds like everyone is enjoying it so I don't think there is any reason to scale back. I am, in fact, going to steal a couple of your ideas. Classical music during snack is a great idea. I have tried to fit this into the day - I don't know why I miss the obvious sometimes.:D

[Friederike in Persia]

Sounds great to me, too. I used to have phases when I got concerned, cause other people do such different hours to us. I'm trying to stop comparing (or at least to try and compare with people from this board here, rather than any random home schooler, so many have such different ideas about what they want their kids to do and esp. how much!).

[bbmom]

I think that as long as your ds is enjoying it and you are OK with the amount of time, you are doing fine. One of the benefits of homeschooling is that you can do what works for your family, right? So if this works for your family, don't worry about what anyone else does. I know that for K next year, we are setting up more like a "school day" so I am sure we will do more (time wise) than most do for K and I am OK with that. If for some reason it doesn't work for the kids, then we will have to think about changing it, but for now I am excited about the schedule we have planned.

[2_girls_mommy]

Yours is my dream schedule. I wish we were morning people and could be done in the afternoon/evening.

 

What works best for us is to begin schoolwork around 11. We knock out some of the quicker things, then have a quick lunch, then school hardcore for around 2 hrs. Then we break for a couple of hours for outside time for them, chores and break for me, then we get back to it in the late afternoon. Oftentimes we work until dinner. (We have even been known to do history work after dinner, prebath.) It works for us. But I wonder what it would be like to have non comatose children at 7:00 am. Oh well. I get my computer time then. :)

[EKS]

8yo--roughly 3 hours

13yo--6-7 hours

 

This does not include outside classes, violin practice, etc.--just the schoolwork that I assign.

[monalisa]

I think your schedule is great. If your ds loves what he's doing, let him do it! I too have heard the 1 hour per grade; that is a pretty slim amount of time unless you are really into very limited academics in the early grades. For my dd7 we're spending probably 3 hours a day on average, sometimes 4 because she loves history.

[abbeyej]

It's really only about 3 hours or so of *work*, plus an hour (or so) each of you reading aloud and your son reading to himself. It sounds like you *could* be done in less time even, if that were a priority. That doesn't sound unreasonable to me. Yes, if you say, "We begin at 7:15 and end at 3", it sounds like a lot. But you've got a break, snack, lunch, free-reading, snuggling-and-reading time...

 

If you were saying, "We're working from 7:15-3 and it's killing us", I would suggest some changes. But you certainly don't *seem* to be saying that.

 

My third grader, btw, is usually done with all of her "school" work by lunchtime. But I have no baby to care for, so we don't take many breaks, and she does pretty much all of her reading in the afternoon, while my older one is working. If you added in all of her reading time, it would equal a bit more time than your son is spending -- I just count it differently, and our morning isn't interrupted by breaks and babies. :) Perhaps others are thinking as I am, and counting the time differently. If a longer, but relaxed day is working, why question it?!

 

As long as your schedule is working well (most of the time!) for you and your son, I see no reason to worry about it. If it's causing problems for work to continue so late in the day, there are changes you can make. But if you don't need to? Just be happy you have a schedule that's working well and a child who seems to be enjoying his school work. :)

[Medieval Mom]

Thank you, everyone! Your comments are much appreciated! :)

 

I had met a group of hsers this week who sounded like they did almost no formal academics. :huh: Although I guess I *know* better than to compare ourselves, I suddenly felt that maybe we were doing just way too much. :001_unsure: After talking to dh about it, I realized that our goals for our children are different from the people we met, as well. We are educating for academic excellence ;)

 

Still, I don't want to cause burnout. Frankly, I think I'm the one in danger of that in this house right now! It's March, I have a cold; sleep deprivation & household cares take their toll. :svengo: I'm sure in a few weeks I'll get my energy back, right? :blush:

 

At any rate, thank you all for your positive encouragement and sharing your personal schedules. It truly helps to know that we're not alone.

Edited March 13, 2010 by Medieval Mom

[rootsnwings]

You don't have to worry about burnout if he's enjoying it. :001_smile: You sound in tune to him enough to realize if/when he's feeling stressed out. Its a LOT diffferent homeschooling from the beginning, when the child's natural curiosity hasn't been stunted by public school, etc--so use it to your advantage & challenge him! Nothing in your schedule feels like "work" to him, yet. That's FANTASTIC! That's what learning is all about!!

 

For my ds9, we school about 5-6 hours a day. A lot of that (2-3hrs) is writing & math, as he tends to take his time. He *enjoys* math, so I give him LOTS everyday. The writing is not so much fun for him, but I've always expected it from him, so he doesn't know any different, yk? Other than math, he has 8 core subjects to cover, and probably spends 30-45 minutes on each of them. If he gets in the groove and does his schoolwork, he can get it done in 3-4 hours. If he dawdles, he may be finishing up spelling words at bedtime.

[robsiew]

Yours is my dream schedule. I wish we were morning people and could be done in the afternoon/evening.

 

What works best for us is to begin schoolwork around 11. We knock out some of the quicker things, then have a quick lunch, then school hardcore for around 2 hrs. Then we break for a couple of hours for outside time for them, chores and break for me, then we get back to it in the late afternoon. Oftentimes we work until dinner. (We have even been known to do history work after dinner, prebath.) It works for us. But I wonder what it would be like to have non comatose children at 7:00 am. Oh well. I get my computer time then. :)

 

:iagree: Most of my house is comatose until 9am at least (with the exception of one child)! The bummer is I teach music lessons in the evening so I have to force them into earlier school than they would like... so much their father! I'd start school at 8am if I had children who could function then!

 

We pretty much school 9:00-1:30/2:00 depending on how slow the slowest one is. I'm usually done by 1pm. We do a "working lunch" where I read science to them all while they are eating... then they do their science written work or experiment right after lunch. If we happen to be ahead we listen to an audio book during lunch.

[Punks in Ontario]

We start "school" at about 9 a.m. after morning chores. Including time for lunch and lunch chores, we're often finished at about 3 p.m. Ds6 only does about an hour or an hour and a half, ds7 does 2-3 hours, and the older boys do about 5-6 hours. I'm going the whole time between them.

[Colleen in NS]

Ds12 spends about 3 - 3.5 hours on academic work, plus 2-3 hours of reading; dd9 spends about 1.5 - 2 hours on academic work plus 2-3 hours of reading. I tutor ds through his stuff first, then send him off to do independent work while I tutor dd through hers.

 

I'm with the others in the thought that if what you are doing is going well for both of you, then you are fine. If he starts to balk in another year or two at the amount of time, it may be time to revamp how you do things.

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

We started this year out AWESOME... getting done in 3-4 hours (that for us is astounding!) Since the year has progressed... its been taking longer :confused: and longer :glare: and longer :willy_nilly:and looonger :eek: and longer :mad: and longer :banghead: to the point I wonder if I just imagined 3-4 hours :grouphug:

[JenC3]

I have a 1st grader right now as well and we do about 2-3 hrs and then lots of free reading, art, and playing outside. Now next year we are adding several subjects so we will be doing MWF-3-4 hours and T & TR 2-3 hours.

This also excludes piano lesson & practice and 2 hours of ballet per week.

[mcconnellboys]

We generally do school from 8 a.m. until about 3:30 p.m. daily. We generally take about an hour or ninety minutes for lunch. This does include outside classes and activities, too, for the most part.

 

I have always done 10-20 minute lessons for elementary age children (ala Charlotte Mason). I am just moving up to 30 minute lessons for logic stage and will move up to hour long blocks for seventh grade, next year. I would think that hour long lessons for younger children are generally much too long (for most children).

 

The only things that we've ever done longer are reading alone or reading aloud. We love to read! Even then, we don't read from one thing, generally, for hours at a time. We mix it up and read a chapter or three from one thing, then read from something else, etc.

[rwjx2khsmj]

Our school day is as long as it takes. Sometimes it's a few hours. Sometimes it stretches on and on. Most of the time the dc determine how long they want to be doing school and how many breaks they take. I determine what has to be completed. If they worked like troopers from the beginning of school until everything was completed it would probably take dd13 5-6 hours, dd10 4-5 hours, ds8 3-4 hours and dd5 1-2 hours.

[2cents]

Now that my youngest are in middle school our days have gotten longer. We start school at around 7:30 and break for brunch around 10. Then we start again about 11 and go to around 2 or 3 with a few breaks. We school year round. We have science classes at the science museum one day a week so that day is usually lighter and shorter.