If you have a child in grade 4 this year or in recent past

[plain jane]

Could you answer 2 questions for me. :)

 

1. How many hours per day did your child spend doing actual school work?

2. What did you use for writing and how much writing did your child do (amount on an avg day/week)?

 

This would help me a lot as I'm having doubts if we're on the right track this year.

 

Thanks.

[Snickerdoodle]

Well, mine is in 4th now and we've been timing it.

 

He's doing about 5-6 hours of work a day not including assigned reading. He is writing one page, double spaced of "writing" work 3-4 times a week which takes him the longest of all. Today he just had to write a final draft (so basically copywork) and it took over an hour.

 

Right now we are doing "writing across the curriculum" ala WTM alternating with CW Aesop B. When we finish with that (soon) I will look better at the writing portion of MCT Town.

[momto2Cs]

1. How many hours per day did your child spend doing actual school work?

Not much really, about 2 hours maybe...

 

2. What did you use for writing and how much writing did your child do (amount on an avg day/week)?

We're not using a writing curriculum. He journals, does Mad Libs, writes stories, labels diagrams, etc. As the year progresses, I'll give him more "assignments" like writing brief biographies, etc.

 

ETA: Above time does NOT include reading to himself, extra activities, projects, etc., just the basics.

Edited September 9, 2010 by momto2Cs

[Jenny in GA]

Could you answer 2 questions for me. :)

 

1. How many hours per day did your child spend doing actual school work?

2. What did you use for writing and how much writing did your child do (amount on an avg day/week)?

 

This would help me a lot as I'm having doubts if we're on the right track this year.

 

Thanks.

 

 

My oldest is in fourth grade right now. I would consider her a little "behind" or "slow" in the writing department.

 

She does Writing With Ease 2 4x a week. So one day she narrates to me, one day copywork, one day narration, and one day narration and dictation combined. The assignments are about two sentences each.

 

2x week we do SOTW, with a narration each day. For these, she narrates to me, then copies it. They are about 3 sentences long each.

 

She writes in a journal a couple times a week, just because she really likes it. That's sort of "her own thing," although she likes to show it to me, and I check for spelling a little. (Her spelling is awful.)

 

She spends about three and a half hours a day doing schoolwork, and that includes silent reading and practicing the piano.

 

Jenny

[Jenny in GA]

Oh, and I wanted to add that we were both really looking forward to Writing Strands this year, but both of us almost instantly hated it.

 

Jenny

[MamaMamaMama!!]

Could you answer 2 questions for me. :)

 

1. How many hours per day did your child spend doing actual school work?

2. What did you use for writing and how much writing did your child do (amount on an avg day/week)?

 

This would help me a lot as I'm having doubts if we're on the right track this year.

 

Thanks.

 

1. We spend from 2-3 (occasionally 4) doing schoolwork. But I combine 3 students in that time.

 

2. For writing we are using WRiting With EAse 3 and also Intermediate Language Lessons. She does a WWE lesson two days a week and 4 days a week she does a ILL lesson. (it also has outlining as well as language, thats why I consider it writing.) Handwriting is still practiced daily.

[GraciebytheBay]

Last year she did school for about 4 hours sometimes a bit more, sometimes less.

 

We used Classical Writing (Aesop B). She is able to analyze the stories and re-tell them in her own creative style using the skills taught in this program. She also writes a journal entry each day, writes a narration of her history lesson 2-3 times per week, and does dictation once a week. This takes her about one hour per day (give or take), 4 days a week.

[siloam]

Could you answer 2 questions for me. :)

 

1. How many hours per day did your child spend doing actual school work?

2. What did you use for writing and how much writing did your child do (amount on an avg day/week)?

 

This would help me a lot as I'm having doubts if we're on the right track this year.

 

Thanks.

 

Jane,

 

Hmmm, I would say about 3-4 hours each morning and I do HWT cursive 4th grade book. I just have them do one page a day.

 

Heather

[cjbeach]

My guy does about 4ish hours a day. I have not ordered writing yet, we're using up what we have left to do in WWE + writing prompts journal. I'm actually undecided what I'm going to order for him right now for writing.

 

Meanwhile ds's bff came over the other day he was given a month to write an 11 page autobiography (he's also in fourth grade in our local ps). :001_huh:

[siloam]

Meanwhile ds's bff came over the other day he was given a month to write an 11 page autobiography (he's also in fourth grade in our local ps). :001_huh:

 

Poor kid, I feel sorry for him.

 

I looked up the test scores of our local schools and the writing scores start out great and progressively get worse till in High School they are dismal. No wonder if they are pulling stuff like this. They not only don't have the skills but the quickly learn to absolutely hate writing.

 

Oh and our locals schools are considered quite good.

 

Heather

[dm379]

My dd does hers in about 2 hours a day. But she's the type that enjoys her work, doesn't need breaks and doesn't want my help for much. So she goes through it quickly.

 

I haven't started her on official writing yet. She writes stories on her own all the time. I'd say she averages about a page a day.

[NanceXToo]

My daughter was in 4th grade last year. We use the Oak Meadow curriculum, which was all inclusive. It did start getting a little heavy on writing assignments as of 4th grade but overall is still a great, creative, hands on curriculum.

 

We spent on average about 3 hours a day doing schoolwork last year. Sometimes we finished sooner and could be done in like 2 1/2 hours. Other times we were doing some particular hands on project that brought it up to more like 4 hours a day. But 3 was about average.

[kamom]

We did 4th grade with both last yr. They spent app. four hours doing seatwork, that does not include personal reading time, Bible, piano, art and many other things I consider "school".

 

For writing we did book reports, letter writing (often), short stories, Pentime, writing poems and so forth. I would guess about 1 1/2 hr. a week.

 

We try to keep writing fun and inspirational. Like they write what they want to write. They both get excited about writing. When it gets stressful we quit for the time until the inspiration comes again.

 

Except for book reports, those I required about every other week- sometimes only once a month.

I read them ideas about what they could write about and off they go!

[mmasmommy]

My guy does about 4ish hours a day. I have not ordered writing yet, we're using up what we have left to do in WWE + writing prompts journal. I'm actually undecided what I'm going to order for him right now for writing.

 

Meanwhile ds's bff came over the other day he was given a month to write an 11 page autobiography (he's also in fourth grade in our local ps). :001_huh:

 

OMG, and 11 page autobiography?! What in the world could a 9 year old have to write about themselves that would take up 11 pages???

 

My DD is 4th grade this year. We do about 4-5 hours of school depending on her speed that day. She is doing cursive handwriting practice, as well as parts of WWE4 (which is insanely hard btw). She will be writing 1 book report per month and I hope to start having her journal once we get into the swing of things.

[Karen in CO]

My 4th grader does 3-4 hours a day 4 days a week not counting projects and reading and 8 hours at a ps enrichment school one day a week .

 

For writing we are using WWE4 four days a week which is taking us about an hour most days right now. I'm exploring options to speed up her handwriting. Once it is faster, I have plans for more writing.

[MyLittleWonders]

Could you answer 2 questions for me. :)

 

1. How many hours per day did your child spend doing actual school work?

Ds#1 does about 3 hours, give or take, of actual school work a day. Maybe 3 1/2 hours (I don't tend to go by time, but based on the clock, that is pretty accurate). You can get a feel for what he does every day in my signature (note, though, that we do history odyssey *or* science *or* US history/art, not all three in one day).

2. What did you use for writing and how much writing did your child do (amount on an avg day/week)?

 

This would help me a lot as I'm having doubts if we're on the right track this year.

 

Thanks.

We are using WWE 4 this year, as well as MCT Island (though so far, there have been no "writing" assignments from that, though I believe there are small ones interspersed). I also just ordered IEW's "All Things Fun & Fascinating" to do every couple weeks (basically we'd skip a week of WWE and do a chapter/lesson from IEW instead, and then use the next couple weeks to practice whatever "skill" in history and/or science). HTH :)

[kokotg]

It varies depending on the day, but generally 4-5 hours (including independent school reading)

 

Writing we're still tinkering with this year, but this week, for example, he wrote 2 one paragraph summaries of readings in various subjects (and will probably do one more tomorrow), dictation one day, and copywork one day. We're doing the MCT Town level this year, and once we get into Paragraph town later this month, I expect he'll be doing writing assignments from there 1-2 days a week in addition to continuing the summaries and dictations. He's a fairly reluctant writer (of assigned writing anyway); I'm hoping to work him up to writing 2-3 paragraph summaries independently by the end of the year.

[Closeacademy]

Last year she spent 2-3 hours on school work plus read aloud time at bedtime.

 

We used word banks and I had her write using them. She usually wrote 2-3 sentences a day. Then I did a book with her on writing paragraphs. Now she is at the point where she can write a paragraph but she still asks about spelling.

 

Btw, she was pencil phobic when younger, didn't read until she was 8 and last year was the first year we did spelling. She wasn't ready for spelling in 3rd.:001_smile:

[Mom0012]

Well, mine was in 4th last year. I'd say he did schoolwork about 5 hours a day and I really felt that was too much. This year he is in 5th and 5 hours seems just about right. I am very careful not to go over that. He took an IEW writing class which met twice a month and had to spend about 20 - 30 minutes working on his paper each day. It seemed like a lot, but it was good for him. He will be doing the same again this year.

 

Lisa

Edited September 9, 2010 by LisaTheresa

[TN Mama]

We are doing 4th this year and dd does about 4 hours worth of work daily, not counting independent reading. We have used WWE 1-3 in the past and this year we started Meaningful Composition 4+. So far, so good.

[creekmom]

My 4th grader spends an average of 5 hours doing school. She started IEW this year. Each week she works on one paper and turns it in on Friday.

[Annie Laurie]

3-4 hours a day and he does HWT cursive, WWE, and CLE for writing. I don't know if you mean writing instruction, penmanship, or the actual mechanical act of writing. He has a Megawords workbook, Latin workbook, and some math writing too each day. Occasionally I require him to write a letter to someone, usually a thank you note.

[Joyofsixreboot]

Fourth grader this year. He probably spend about 3 hours on school not counting fun projects. He does not like the physical act of writing. I mean he really doesn't like it so other than cursive practice I scribe his narrations and stories. I do have him write lists, friendly letters & notes, and we do an occasional KWO ala IEW. I'm hoping that maturity and keyboarding will speed things up in the next couple years.

[cjbeach]

Poor kid, I feel sorry for him.

 

I looked up the test scores of our local schools and the writing scores start out great and progressively get worse till in High School they are dismal. No wonder if they are pulling stuff like this. They not only don't have the skills but the quickly learn to absolutely hate writing.

 

Oh and our locals schools are considered quite good.

 

Heather

I was stunned, then had that gnawing in the pit of my stomach like "OMG I'm not doing enough!!!!!!" I casually mentioned it to his mom who then implied she was pretty much feeding him the information to write. It all seemed kind of foreign to me, lol.

[Caitilin]

My 4th grader does about 3-4 hours of work daily; he hasn't had any serious writing assignments yet, but has been outlining his history book 2-3 times per week, which takes him approximately 30 minutes.

[littlebug42]

My 4th grader does about 3-5 hours per day. For handwriting, she is doing HWOT cursive. For writing, we are using Write Source and a few other materials I have cobbled together. I am using them in my own order because we are focusing more on mechanics and how to construct a proper sentence. That is my main focus. When that is strong, we will move on to putting them together in paragraphs. The accelerated writing push was a main reason we ditched the K12 curriculum this year because with using it through the public school virtual academy, I thought their writing expectations were insane.

[Mom2Tess&Gus]

We are doing 4th grade this year and we spend 4-5 hours per day schooling my DD (4th) and DS (1st) and I should mention, this is our first year of hs.

 

My DD LOVES to write and will journal until a timer goes off (or she'd continue writing to avoid math!)...I have her journal for about 15 minutes and this is just free flow writing. She usually writes creative stories involving personification and dragons. She does do cursive handwriting daily, just one page per day. We also are working on IEW level A and we do this 2-3 times per week for about 20-30 min. each time. She ISN'T loving the structure of IEW, but I'm going to give it a good shot until the end of the year and then reevaluate. She seems to be more on the creative bent and doesn't want to be forced into one type of writing or another...I think she needs it though. She is also liking Draw Write Now that I'm using for my younger one.

 

Wow...writing all of this down seems like she may be doing too much?!?

 

HTH,

Val

[AppleGreen]

We have a 4th grader here. I'd say school takes between 3-4 hours total. That counts him listening to younger sisters' stories, some type of physical activity in the AM (sometimes a walk/scooter, circle activities-just depends), snack break (although I often read aloud to them history or from our current novel) and he is easily distracted. He could probably be finished earlier, but he hears everything and has to comment on everything, so that adds to his time. :)

 

For writing, we are halfway through WWE 2, so he does that. He often writes 2-3 sentences that I dictate from AAS (today he did 3, plus a sentence that I dictated from Megawords). He writes at least 2 sentences in his reading response notebook and often has some copywork for history/science. Oh and he does a couple of words from HWT (we usually split a page between 2 days). That looks like a lot, but it doesn't feel like a lot (or sometimes enough!). So, the total number of sentences written today was probably 8.

 

HTH!

[FriedClams]

Could you answer 2 questions for me. :)

 

1. How many hours per day did your child spend doing actual school work?

2. What did you use for writing and how much writing did your child do (amount on an avg day/week)?

 

This would help me a lot as I'm having doubts if we're on the right track this year.

 

Thanks.

 

 

I have one in 4th this year....

 

1. Maybe 3 hours of bookwork. Some days 2, some 3 1/2. That does not include reading time, read alouds, family bible, etc. We do:

* CLE Bible 4 alternating 1 lesson per day with CLE Reading 4 - 20 minutes

* Mystery of History 2 - read lesson 3x a week, write 1 page summary (skip lines, but gradually building to 2 pages by end of the year) - 30-45 minutes for reading and writing

* Horizons Math 4 / Key to Fractions - 20-45 minutes

* CLE LA 4 - 20-30 minutes - all assignments in book

* Meaningful Composition - 10-15 minutes, but will ramp up as they write more

* Apologia Exploring Creation Anatomy - read 3x a week, then notebook activities - summaries and stuff - not too much

* AWANA

* Piano

* Getting Started with Latin - orally

* Book Club

 

We also read, a lot. Lots of fun stuff (which I screen and pick productive, useful stuff for the most part) and assigned reading.

Edited September 10, 2010 by Kayaking Mom

[JudoMom]

Could you answer 2 questions for me. :)

 

1. How many hours per day did your child spend doing actual school work?

2. What did you use for writing and how much writing did your child do (amount on an avg day/week)?

 

This would help me a lot as I'm having doubts if we're on the right track this year.

 

Thanks.

 

1. 4-5 hours/day

2. He did some of the Imitations in Writing Aesop's Fables, he did a creative writing class through a co-op (8 weeks), he wrote 2 sentences from his history reading everyday (the last 4 months of school), and he wrote a couple speeches for the Public Speaking organization we joined in the Spring. The year was really discombobulated in the writing department, so we're focusing on writing this year.

 

This year my 5th & 6th graders are doing Writing Strands 3 & 4, Exploring Poetry by Blackbird Company, and we're also doing writing the WTM way (outlining, etc.).

 

Next year my 4th grader will be doing WWE 4 & Writing Strands.

[Nestof3]

Ben is in the fourth grade right now. He is a little slower with his verbal and writing ability (Nathan has been more advanced with this, so the difference has been apparent).

 

I haven't timed everything exactly, but I would say it amounts to four hours of work.

 

Here is our schedule:

http://ournestof3.blogspot.com/2010/08/our-weekly-schedule-for-2010-2011.html

 

Here is a more specific breakdown. It specifically tells what we do for writing too:

http://ournestof3.blogspot.com/2010/08/more-about-our-weekly-schedule.html

 

And, here's an update after day two:

http://ournestof3.blogspot.com/2010/08/day-2-down-i-am-tired.html

Edited September 10, 2010 by nestof3

[TrixieB]

My 4th grader does about 2-3 hours of school per day. She'll start a co-op Spanish class next week, and she hasn't started this year's science yet, so that might bump the time up a little. She's quite motivated to get schoolwork finished so she can read and play.

 

For writing, she is using WWE and the writing lessons from R&S. She doesn't enjoy writing, but she is not balking as much this year. As part of her history, she's using Time Travelers and she has been happily writing in the information on the lapbook booklets. I am surprised, but very pleased.

[Beach Mom]

One of my boys is in fourth. We average about 5 hours including all of his reading. He completes one lesson of WWE 4 days of week, whatever writing is needed to complete his R&S English 4 lesson 5x a week, and 1-2 narrations each week in some combination of science, history and literature.

[brownie]

Ds will probably take 6 hrs once we're really rolling. But this includes probably an hour and a half of read aloud, silent reading, lunch and piano practice. Plus we often only school 4 days a week.

 

We have started IEW this year. It varies depending where we are in the process but we do maybe 2hrs a week. I really like it and what he's producing. Brownie

[mommyoftwo]

My fourth grader spends between 3-4 hours (depends on any extra projects) each day.

 

This year we are using IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing) Student Writing Intensive Level A. She loves saying Andrew Pudewa's last name; thinks it's a very funny name. He's the creator of the program and the instructor on the DVD's that we use about every two weeks.

 

Melissa

[Homeschooling6]

My 4th grader spend about 2hrs. That consist of math and LA. Science and History are more relaxed.

Writing, well, not much, yet anyway. We are using Phonics Road 2 (just started actually).

[Guest janainaz]

My son was in 4th last year and spent about 4 hours per day. For writing we used WWE and it took about 30 minutes a day. He was also writing a narration for history two days a week. His narrations were about a page to a page and a half long. English, Latin and spelling just had workbooks. We did not really do any creative writing. I used to have him journal every day, but I just started to let him skip that.

 

Math - 1 hr daily

Spelling - 20 minutes daily

English - 30 minutes daily

History - 45 minutes (4 days/week)

Science - 30 minutes (4 days/week)

Latin - 30-45 minutes daily

Writing - 30 minutes daily

[learninearnin]

For grade 4 we spent about 4 hours a day on school work. Writing I did using narrations of books we read and Writing Strands. Now I do writing projects (that seem to be much more fun) that I find on readwritethink.org. I have to modify most of them to fit our homeschool, but it's pretty simple to do so.

[Paintedlady]

We're doing about 4-5 hours a day, and frankly, it feels like too much. This does include a lunch break and independent reading, so maybe it's a good amount of time. :confused: I'm a little unsure and it's our first week of the year so it may change a little as we go along.

 

We're using WWE4, 5 days a week, for about 20-30 minutes, plus a small amount of other writing in other subjects, and a page of handwriting about 3 days a week.

[eclipse]

DS was in 4th grade last year. How long he spent was really variable - rarely more than three hours, unless he got really interested in doing something (like if he read something interesting in history and decided to do a bunch of research on it), which happened frequently. He also did a lot of computer programming, but that was mostly self directed - I would call it school if I had to keep records and report it to someone, but it's nothing I ever "assigned."

 

As for writing - he's dysgraphic. Writing by hand is very hard for him, and he hardly does any. Most of that writing comes in things like crossword puzzles or fill in the blank worksheets. He did/does a lot of typing. I don't really know how much - but usually something for history everyday, and for language arts/writing a few times a week.

[Rosy]

My oldest is in 4th. It takes her about 4-5 hours to get all of her schoolwork done.

 

In its entirety, our language arts program consists of Spelling Workout, FLL3 (we'll start FLL4 soon), Classical Writing Homer, journal entries, letters, lots of fun reading, daily (that's our goal, anyway) read-alouds and some assigned reading (which usually ties in with SOTW).

 

We did CW Aesop (which is recommended for 4-5th graders, I think) and felt that it was a non-threatening way to get her writing--it gave some direction but still allowed flexibility. We hated Writing Strands passionately. I keep thinking someday we'll end up with IEW but I've been putting it off as long as possible (mostly because of the cost).

 

My son will be in 4th next year...he's still struggles with penmanship. We'll probably be in WWE2 next year, which is still mostly narration and dictation with some copywork (if I remember correctly). He would be completely overwhelmed with an 11-page paper. Egads. :confused:

 

I don't push writing. I'm of the mind that having decent penmanship (good enough to be able to physically write without struggling), a solid foundation in grammar and spelling, a love of reading, and a familiarity with good stories is more important at this age than putting pen to paper. Copywork, narration, dictation, writing from a model, etc. are good strategies for teaching writing without requiring them to think too hard at the same time. Kids at this age have a hard time processing their thoughts and applying writing skills at the same time. And actually, my kids (even the younger ones) will write voluntarily...not a lot, but they do it.

 

If you're able to get a copy of The Complete Writer by Susan Wise Bauer (or even read the section in WTM about writing), it may help you feel confident in delaying formal writing instruction, if that's what you feel is best.

[mereminerals]

My dd is in 4th grade this year. A normal day for her is about 4-5 hours, not including breaks.

 

This year is our first year to do a writing program with her and we are using WriteShop. She is loving it. Definitely a great way to ease her into writing while making it fun.

[tennismomkelly]

4-5 hours per day. This is our 1st year using IEW for writing and it is proving to be a very good choice for us. DS no longer complains about writing! I'm still having him do the 4th grade HWOT cursive book for penmanship. He's made huge improvements so we'll be dropping that as soon as he has completed the book.

[robsiew]

I have a 4th grader this year. He works slow... he spends probably 4 hours or so on school. Hard to say since I have 4 kids I work with and it all gets jumbled up.

 

For writing we are finishing up WWE3 and he'll go onto WWE4. He writes one history narration a week which ends up being about 3/4 of a page long. He also writes a science narration 3 days a week. This is shorter... 2-3 sentences. He does 2 sentences of cursive copywork a day to work on his cursive (both reading it and writing it). Oh, and he does R&S4 for grammar, which right now I make minimal writing.

 

In the 2nd half of the year I'm going to try and move him to daily history outlines using a children's encyclopedia. This is to move him toward logic stage expectations.

 

I've found with writing, less is better up front. I'm hoping over the long haul to instill if not a love of writing, at least a tolerance for! We started on a very rocky path in the beginning of hs with me expecting far too much in the way of writing. I've backed off and it has really paid off in big dividends! Just over a year ago my son would sit, crying, looking at a blank piece of paper, not knowing what to do. Now, he is writing about what he learned in history and science with no trouble. He never complains (doesn't love it either, but doesn't hate it) and is able to get to writing much faster. No tears either! :001_smile: