How long does your 5th grader do school daily?

[rafiki]

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[Snickerdoodle]

How much is he doing?

 

My 4th grader does around 6 hours a day but he works on the slow side. For example he is supposed to look up 3 words in the dictionary, but he will take forever to do it because he's perusing the dictionary for fun.

[Lindy]

Mon-Wed & Fri: My 5th grade dd begins promptly at 8:30 with math and ends somewhere around noon with basically non stop work.

 

Afternoons are reserved for free play, crafts and chores. She reads for pleasure and school in the evenings.

 

Thurs: we have a science and Spanish co-op in the morning. She has no other school assignments for the day.

[Brindee]

6 hours in 4th? Wow! But if he's enjoying himself, then more power to him! :)

 

I had a set amount that was assigned. Some days took 2-3 hours, some took 4 or 5 hours. If there was research or a paper or an experiment, maybe 6, but it was very rare to take that long. The assignments were meted out to finish the course load in about 10 months, more or less. If they finished that days work in 2 hours, but got everything done, and done well, then so be it. Same if it took 5 hours.

 

It also varied with each child. My oldest was a slower reader, and took longer because of that and his more precise way to write. My middle one read faster, but was wiggly and hated writing, so it took longer because of that. My youngest has actually been pretty much the "quickest" of the bunch. But they all were held to a certain level of work to maintain.

 

 

Maybe this doesn't even answer your question at all. Sorry! :D It's just that our priorities were on the quality of work done, not how long it took, so it's hardish to answer exactly.

 

However, I can almost guarantee to him that he is NOT being overburdened more than other 5th graders! :D

[HollyinNNV]

That is such a hard question because my ds does so many other things in between his school subjects. He usually begins by 7:45/8 and ends anywhere between 1:30 and 7. :001_smile: A typical day where there isn't too much dawdling ends around 2:00.

[rafiki]

.

[Old Dominion Heather]

Anywhere from 5-7 hours for sixth. Fifth grade was about the same. Maybe 5-6.

[rafiki]

.

[i.love.lucy]

Mine does about 5 hours a day, but that's 4 days a week. The 5th day we do CC. And in those 5 hours we don't get everything done.:glare: We can't seem to get to Latin every day, or Megawords. Reading is for pleasure and school and done at night before bed.

[Snickerdoodle]

I think part of it is, he's the oldest,

 

Yep. We have the same issue and I do have to remind him that when he was six, he also only worked for 1 hour.

[Guest mrsjamiesouth]

Please include homework and assigned reading.

 

Ds thinks I require too much and is asking the amount of work other 5th graders do per day.

 

5th Grade:

 

Saxon Math 6/5- 45 minutes

Preparing by HOD Usually 3 different CH's he reads from different books, I read 1 Ch from a book, dictation, R&S English, Poetry study, Bible study, and a Project. The projects vary between research, geography, art and sometimes even cooking. Takes about 2 hours

Added extra Geography with a Rand McNally book- 5minutes

DITHOR- Reads a book (averaging about 20 pages) and does some comprehension or Character Webs. - 30-40 minutes

CKEB- 3 lessons a week and review - 30 minutes a day

W- Handbook of Nature Study 30 minutes

W- Great Composers-10 minutes

Italics Handwriting- 10 minutes

MWF Latin- 15 minutes

T/TH-French- 25 minutes

T- Young Peacemakers - 15 minutes

 

Preparing is only 4 days so on Fridays we do Prepare/Pray as a Family, the reading and discussion part takes about 1 hour. The projects can take several days.

 

Total = about 5hours

[Guest mrsjamiesouth]

I think part of it is, he's the oldest, and he does seem to have to work harder at everything.

 

I have a 3rd grader doing 4th grade work that doesn't help. My 1st grader has more time to play as well.

 

 

I have had to deal with this a lot, as my next son is in 1st grade. I am continually saying, "You can't compare your work to a 1st grader, sorry!!"

[Homeschooling6]

Hmmm..........lets see. I would say anywhere between 4-5 hours a day.

[JudoMom]

5-6 hours/day.

[Amy loves Bud]

Let's see:

 

Monday-Thursday:

 

9-11:30 - loop schedule which includes math, latin, grammar, spelling, reading (we work on fluency and reading aloud during this time) and memory work

 

11:30-12:00 - piano lesson with Dad or piano practice

 

12-1, T/Th - mythology or poetry discussion (M/W/F lunchtime is free for her, because I go to Zumba then)

 

1-2 History

 

She must do an additional 30 minutes to one hour of reading daily

 

 

Friday:

 

30 minutes on a real life math problem (she's currently working on a scale drawing of her bedroom and furniture so we can redo it)

 

3-4 hours - science

 

She also tries to always be in a play so typically she has rehearsal a couple of times per week. She'll be in Tom Sawyer tomorrow and Saturday. :001_smile:

[Closeacademy]

Either my oldest is fast or we aren't doing enough because it takes her 2-3 hours. This is what she does:

 

I work with her first:

 

She reads 1-3 chapters in a fun book

following directions or McCall-Crabbs Test Lesson in Reading test

writing a paragraph (we are woring on this concept)

I go over her grammar work from the previous day. Show her what she is to do and she does a page.

She does a worksheet on her spelling words

We go over a section of science from Oak Meadow.

We go over a section of history from Oak Meadow (she is working on her trip project--1 day she looks at brochures, the next day she writes about that place.)

We go over yesterday's math work and correct problems. I show her what to do for that day and she does a lesson in Rod and Staff. I have her do about 1/3-1/2 of the lesson.

She reads part of a short biography.

She works on a handwork project.

 

So are we just fast? Because 5-6 hours sounds like torture to me. Oh and we finish our curriculum each year. I mean we just finished all but the trip project for Oak Meadow history, we will finish the science, and Rod and Staff Math, etc. We don't do a lot of busy work though and she is not ready to write full reports. :001_smile:

[Mom0012]

Unfortunately, between 5 and 6 hours and he is a hard worker, though maybe a bit on the slow side. I had hoped so much that he would be able to do all his independent work between 8 and 12 and then I could do our SL reading from 12 - 1 and that would be that, but it's just not happening that way. He often still has an hour of work left after that. His Fridays are lighter, though.

 

Lisa

[patchfire]

Dd has 5 hours and 15 minutes on her schedule. By the time breaks, meals, and piano practice are included, she finishes around 2:30 (assuming nothing has interrupted; right now, for instance, homeschool soccer is on Thursdays from 1-3, so she'll be working from around 4-5 this afternoon). She has 30 minutes additional time for literature reading (she can choose when to do this), and she also practices trumpet for 30 minutes.

 

Almost everything has 45 minutes alloted. Math is five days a week; language arts, history, science, and Latin are four days a week; logic is three days a week; music appreciation & art appreciation are one day a week each. Sometimes language arts does not get finished in one 45 minute block, and we work on it later.

[Ali in OR]

It really varies day to day. We always get going at 9. We take about a 15 minute am break and a 45 min lunch break. Or sometimes even more. Piano practice is part of our school time. We end at different times on different days, depending on the afternoon schedule: 2:30 Monday, 12:00 Tues (co-op in aft), 4:00 Wed, 2:45 Thurs, can go as late as 4:00 Friday. Dd has not been getting independent work done (reading, math problem of the week), so we are just beginning to start a half hour of homework time after dinner. I would say a regular day runs 4.5-6 hours, plus another half hour of independent work to get everything I assign done.

[anneofalamo]

I have 2 5th graders and 1 6th that I merged and my 9th grader does some with us.

 

8am-pledge and bible study (all) I'm into it!! lol

8:15-9 Daily Grams (they self correct-take turns being teacher) and then Easy Gram We do 3-4 pages a day and correct as we go w/me

on accelerated catch up homeschool right now

 

9- 9:45-Math U See all in Epsilon 2-3 pages a day

we correct as we go w/me

again on the accelerated finding and filling holes from public school...our plan is 2 years each year.

 

Break time!!

 

10-11 -Mon& Tues History doing the ancients-in Egypt now

Thurs& Fri Science -Christian Kids do Biology with Mr. Q here and there

 

11-spelling for the 5th graders independant and my 6th is doing AAS with me (15 minutes)

11:15-11:45 Math again (Alek on computer) (mom gets to exercise!!)

Lunch til 12:30

12:30-Word wise independent

12:45-Spanish independent Easy Glide

1:15 - Writing NaNoWRiMO w/me

1:45 - Computer learning emails/ web building etc w/me

2:15 -2:45 read assigned book and book logs/ reports

2:45 -After school chores or catch up on things not completed (not usually anything)

3-4:30 FREE for computer or outside play (mom power naps)

5 dinner and after dinner chores

6 outside til 7:45 running as hard as possible with all the kids in the neighborhood!

 

rinse repeat!!

 

We also only have a 4 day school week, Mon thru Friday...they work hard for 4 days, and our brains on Friday are for parks, grocery shop, library and play!

[pooh bear]

We start lessons at 12:30pm. Mornings are just not ds thing.

 

We work until 5, have dinner, then at 6 we finish up any stuff that needs doing.

 

Ds works on the slow side. So some days he is finished, apart from his reading at 5pm. Some times, it's 7pm when he finishes.

 

So it works out to 5 to 6 hours every day.

[NanceXToo]

That is such a hard question because my ds does so many other things in between his school subjects.

 

I was thinking the same thing. We're at the end of Week 6 of our curriculum for this year and I've never tried to figure out exactly how much time it's taking because we never start or finish at the same time of day, and we often break for other things or activities in between and so on.

 

And of course the time we spend on school would vary from day to day at least somewhat anyway, because we do different subjects on different days, and what we do for, say, social studies on one day may take longer than what we do for social studies on another day...

 

But today I decided to pay careful attention and write down the starting and ending times for each subject we did TODAY.

 

Either my oldest is fast or we aren't doing enough because it takes her 2-3 hours.

 

And this was us!

 

Today Alexa did:

 

Vocabulary- She used each of this week's vocabulary words in a sentence. This week she only had 6 vocabulary words (sometimes she has up to 10 per week, it varies a little bit from week to week).

 

20 Minutes.

 

Math- She did a Teaching Textbooks 5 lesson. This involved reading the lesson in the book, watching the lecture on the CD, doing the five practice problems on the CD, then answering each of the 22 problems first on paper and then checking her work on the computer.

 

35 Minutes.

 

Spelling- She reviewed her ten spelling words by drawing a little picture or shape that related to the spelling word, and writing her spelling words inside those pictures.

 

10 Minutes.

 

Reading- (Together) She read a chapter of "The Witch Of Blackbird Pond" aloud to me. When she came across a word that was unfamiliar, we'd discuss what it meant (and look it up if I couldn't give her a quick, easy definition). She jotted down a note or two about that chapter for future use in an upcoming report.

 

23 Minutes.

 

Science- She read a few pages from her Environmental Science syllabus aloud to me, reading the section on Food Webs. She answered several questions pertaining to that reading (in writing) and answered a series of questions orally as well, pertaining to a picture of a food web depicted in the book. Then she listed 8 living things that she eats and drew a picture of a food web centered around those things.

 

50 Minutes.

 

Reading- (Independently) She had silent reading time, reading two chapters of "I Am Regina" to herself.

 

21 Minutes.

 

Grand Total: 159 minutes, or just about 2 hours and 40 minutes.

 

Aside from those things, she spent an hour and a half or so at Grandma's house while my husband and I went to our weekly weight loss support group (and they spent at least some time discussing the rescued miners in Chile).

 

She made lunch for her and her little brother.

 

She watched my youngest nephew for a few minutes when my brother (who lives 3 houses away) went to pick up my older nephews from the bus stop and didn't want to bring the little one out in the rain.

 

She had a doctor's appointment.

 

She accompanied me to pick up her older sister from Special Olympics volleyball.

 

She spent a little over an hour at Girl Scouts (they made beaded "candy corn" pins).

 

And she watched some TV.

 

ETA: Oh, and she also responded to a letter from her Pen Pal and got that off in the mail (although I did not pay attention to how much time she spent on that).

 

Like Christy, we use the Oak Meadow curriculum. I do think it's a good curriculum and it allows for plenty of creativity and hands on activities and discussion. But it's NOT big on worksheets and a lot of textbookish stuff and busywork.

 

I'll try to remember to keep careful track tomorrow, too, just out of curiosity, to see how our total time varies on another day. It'd be interesting to do that for at least a week to see if we're averaging about the same amount of time each day.

Edited October 15, 2010 by NanceXToo

[catz]

I have a 4th grader who is doing at least 5th grade work across the board. I think he's only doing 2-3 hours on a regular basis at home.

 

We do Spanish, science, music lessons, and usually 1-2 more educational outings per week. At home we focus our energies on Math (Singapore NEM), copywork, language arts (MCT), journal/writing, and history. We also always have 2 read alouds going (1 science, 1 lit and/or historical). He regularly reads an hour or 2 on his own without prompting, so I don't assign much reading for him. So with all the extra it kind of works itself out.

[Trish]

My fourth and sixth graders take 2.5-3 hours daily to finish their work.

[Snickerdoodle]

I just typed a long message, the computer blinked and it went away. :confused:

[Paisley Hedgehog]

..

[AmyinMD]

At least 3 hours probably closer to 4. Math is usually at least 45 minutes, more if we do LOF. Dd does TT and Calculadders 4 days a week (we take Wed off for co-op). She also does LOF 2 days a week and Mindbenders 2 days a week. About 10-15 for Geography (Trail Guide to US Geography- just using the questions and mapping exercises), 15 minutes for Sequential Spelling, and another 10 min for Cursive. MBTP Lit we spend at least 45 minutes on each day. History I'm not sure on we do that after the little guys go to bed, maybe 30 min depending on how much reading there is. I do the MFW reading and then she narrates back and I write it down and she copies it into her notebook the next day. IEW Writing I only do 2 days a week because it takes so long. Those days I never do Science which has been a hodge podge of stuff lately. We both hated the Sonlight 5 Science I had bought for this year. We also practice some Latin each day even if it's 15 minutes. Dd loves Art so she does that most days but that's more for fun. She's been using Mark Kistler online the last month so doesn't need my help with that.

 

Dd claims I'm a slave driver but I still think she has it okay. She is rarely up before 10 am. I work with my younger kids earlier so there is no reason to get her up. We do most our work in the afternoon and then some again after my younger kids are in bed when it's quiet in the house. Compared to my 7th grader that is gone over 8 hours a day for school and brings home an hour or so of homework each night I'd say dd has it pretty good.

[Mom22ns]

Last year my 5th grader worked about 6 hours a day 4 days/week. We have a very light day on Fridays with most of the day taken by band/orchestra/music theory classes. We usually only do math and what they can read in the 80 minutes of round trip drive time to music.

 

This year as a 6th grader she does about the same. My 8th grader worked more like 7 hrs/ day at that age and now 8 (still mostly 4 days/week). He is a slower worker with multiple LDs, so it takes longer.

 

I never realized how lucky I am that he never complains about working longer than his sister.

[EKS]

When my was in 5th, he did 4 hours of what I considered actual lessons each day as well as 3 hours 2x/week of outside classes. He also had some assigned reading that he would do in the evenings.

[AHASRADA]

My dd10 spends 3 hours 1 on 1 with me, plus another hour or so of homework, so about 4 hours total.

[Saille]

I clicked on this thread b/c I have a fourth grader this year, and wanted to see what fifth-grade WTM'ers were doing. We work 8-12 M-Th, and cover Latin or Greek, MCT, Geography, Logic, Math, Phonics, Art, Copywork and Mnemosyne during that time, with additional time allotted for independent fiction and non-fiction reading. We do History in the afternoons, and Science on Fridays.

[my2boysteacher]

We are at the school table a couple hours a day. My guys are 8 and 10 and we do everything combined except for math. They are both very focused and on task probably 98% of the time. All of their schooling is direct instruction, with only math requiring independant work. Here is what we do daily:

Miquon/Singapore/MEP= 20 minutes

WWE=15 minutes

Grammar Island=20 minutes

Prima Latina=20 minutes

Spelling=15 minutes

History=30 minutes

We also do an artist study once or twice a week

 

In addition they have 20 minutes of quiet reading and music practice each day. I read aloud 30-60 minutes a day. They spend the rest of their day outside in their climbing tree, riding bikes, playing legos or board games. (No screen time during the week)

My philosophy is; if they can't get the concept I'm trying to teach in 20 minutes, I'm doing something wrong and need to readjust my method.

[mama27]

Please include homework and assigned reading.

 

Ds thinks I require too much and is asking the amount of work other 5th graders do per day.

 

My current 5th grader reads her Bible, does MUS, Apologia 2 xs a week, REAL Science Chemistry 1 to 2 xs a week, BJU Heritage Studies 2 xs a week, reads either assigned chapter book or one of her choosing, Spelling Wisdom, spanish, LLATL.

Possibly 3 to 4 hours depending on the activities in the science and BJU.

[Snickerdoodle]

There, I edited my signature to reflect our schoolday. ;)

[kewb]

Now I feel like a slacker. My 5th grader averages about 3 hours per day. A typical day includes:

Math

Grammar

History/Science (rotates)

Spanish

Geography

Critical Thinking/Logic

Vocabulary

 

Independent reading and reading assignments are done throughout the day.

[mama27]

Now I feel like a slacker. My 5th grader averages about 3 hours per day. A typical day includes:

Math

Grammar

History/Science (rotates)

Spanish

Geography

Critical Thinking/Logic

Vocabulary

 

Independent reading and reading assignments are done throughout the day.

 

 

Why would you feel like a slacker?? looks fine to me!!

[NanceXToo]

Why would you feel like a slacker?? looks fine to me!!

 

:iagree:

 

What bothers me about the "how much work does your ___ grader do" threads is that inevitably someone makes a comment like that/starts to worry that they aren't "doing enough" when in actuality they are probably doing just fine. If you're covering the subjects and your child understands them and you're moving on without duplicating different subjects with more than one curriculum, without providing a lot of busywork etc, and without adding in subjects that you might not think are necessary (a foreign language or dictation or whatever the case may be), that doesn't make one a slacker.

 

Others might choose to do more in their school days, and that's okay if that works for them and their kids- but just because you don't, doesn't mean you aren't doing enough or that you're slacking or any such thing.

 

I spend less time on schoolwork than a lot of people on this board do in a given day, apparently.

 

But (fortunately) I have never yet felt that I'm not doing enough. I'm happy with the quality of the work we're doing and the subjects we're covering and my daughter's level of enjoyment and understanding of our curriculum and the feedback I get on her evaluations and portfolios at the end of each school year, and how many other educational things and activities we do throughout our school year that has nothing to do with curriculum, and that's good enough for me!

 

P.S. I'll be back to update again as I've been tracking the time Alexa's spending on school today, too, to see how it compares to yesterday :D

[katilac]

I don't think hours per day has much meaning, b/c different kids can take vastly different amounts of time to do the same work! My 5th grader does:

 

Matin Latin 2

SOTW 3

Singapore 5

Plato Science

Caesar's English (vocab)

Growing with Grammar

Memory work (poetry, subject facts)

 

and then of course various writing assignments, art, etc etc

 

She's usually done pretty quickly, 2-3 hours, but both my kids are fast workers.

[Snickerdoodle]

 

Others might choose to do more in their school days,

 

 

And others just have kids who can turn anything into a huge time sink.

[Paintedlady]

Probably averages 4.5-5 hours a day. Sometimes we only do a 4 day week b/c we do "school light" through the summer.

[rafiki]

.

[NanceXToo]

So, just out of curiosity's sake I timed everything again today as I had mentioned.

 

Today, we spent exactly 3 hours on schoolwork.

 

Cursive- two pages HWT Can-Do Cursive workbook

12 Minutes

 

Spelling Test- quiz on her ten words

2 Minutes

 

Silent Reading- two chapters of "I Am Regina" independently

34 Minutes

 

Math- A Teaching Textbooks 5 lesson (reading the page in the book, watching the lecture on CD, doing the practice problems on the CD, working the actual problems on paper and then checking answers on the computer)

27 Minutes

 

Geography Review- Going over all the states and their abbreviations and capitals (my daughter had previously learned them and we go over them once a week so as not to forget them)

5 Minutes

 

Music- Read about the French Horn under the "Meet The Orchestra" section of http://www.makingmusicfun.net (which included sections on its history, how it's made, how it's played, and a fun fact). Then we listened to an example of a French Horn being played on Youtube.

10 Minutes

 

Reading Aloud- we took turns reading aloud 2 chapters of "The Witch Of Blackbird Pond." (She read a chapter aloud and I read a chapter aloud). We discussed and/or looked up unfamiliar vocabulary. She took down a couple of notes for future use in an upcoming report

46 Minutes

 

Environmental Science- she dug up the items she had buried in our backyard three weeks and we examined each thing to see if and how it had changed. She wrote down what she noticed about each thing. Then she had to write a couple of paragraphs about whether it is better to use things like plastic and styrofoam for convenience or whether it is better not to use those things, and why, and what changes we can make, and stuff like that.

50 Minutes

 

Total - 180 Minutes (3 hours).

 

About 20 minutes more time spent today than yesterday- but some of the things we did today (like the cursive and the geography review) are not part of the OM curriculum and are just things I added on, so that added like 17 minutes right there. And while OM has a kid play recorder for music through their curriculum, we're doing our own thing instead (learning more about diff composers last year and learning more about diff orchestra instruments this year).

 

She was supposed to also go measure the length of her "shadow stick's" shadow and jot it down for the fifth week (out of six) but it is too cloudy here today so she'll do that tomorrow instead. She measures it at the same time of day once a week, and at the end of the six weeks (next week) she'll make a chart showing the results. It would have only taken an extra minute or two today.

 

That's about it. Right now she's up in her room doing her own thing. We'll probably read together from "On The Banks Of Plum Creek" at some point this evening (we're just reading it for fun). We were supposed to go on a field trip this evening but everyone from my hs group backed out, so I think I'm going to skip it for tonight but do it on Sunday instead when my husband's off so at least he can go with us.

 

I'll see if our early days next week (when we do other things for vocab and social studies etc) change our time much but I don't think so, I guess we probably never really spend more than about three hours a day on school, unless maybe we're doing some sort of hands on project that takes a bit longer.

[kewb]

Why would you feel like a slacker?? looks fine to me!!

 

I know I shouldn't feel like a slacker, but everyone else always seems to be doing so much more then me. I know in my head our workload if fine for us. Every once in awhile those natural insecurities creep in. Thank you for giving me a reality check.

[Brindee]

I think part of it is, he's the oldest, and he does seem to have to work harder at everything.

 

I have a 3rd grader doing 4th grade work that doesn't help. My 1st grader has more time to play as well.

Yes, I remember times like that. When my oldest was in 5th, his little brother was in 3rd, and little sister was in K. As I said earlier, he reads very slowly, so it took him forever, plus he did have more, since he was more advanced. The other 2 would go through their work and be out playing. It was hard on him for awhile. At that point there was no way I could have convinced him that I was not being hard on him! :tongue_smilie: We worked through it eventually. I DO understand where he's coming from.... :001_smile:

[siloam]

Please include homework and assigned reading.

 

Ds thinks I require too much and is asking the amount of work other 5th graders do per day.

 

Pumpkin does about 4 hour a day. If she stays focused she can get it done before lunch.

 

Then there is her older sister who did hs from 7:30 am to 9:30 pm and only clocked 2 hours of work. I will remind her she had better get to work if she wants to play video games on Friday and her typical answer is, "In a few minuets." She gets back to it 20 mins latter. To which my attitude is, "Fine your the one who will be hating life on Friday!" Honestly it drives me nuts!! But she is stubborn and needs to learn on her own.

 

Heather

[MerryAtHope]

I think part of it is, he's the oldest, and he does seem to have to work harder at everything.

 

 

Yep. We have the same issue and I do have to remind him that when he was six, he also only worked for 1 hour.

 

Same issues here! Oldest has to work harder at everything, and he wonders why his younger sister gets done faster.

 

Mine does about 5 hours a day

 

My kids in 5th did around 5 hours a day too. Now it's closer to 6 hours for 8th & 6th grades.

 

Another part that was hard was that when it was just 3 hours, or even 4, we could be "done by lunch." That transition to "not being done by lunch" was especially hard for my oldest. Now that he's in 8th grade, he's fully adjusted to the idea.

 

(DD on the other hand had no trouble with that, but going from books with pictures to books w/o pictures for reading...that she didn't like!).

 

Merry :-)