How much time do you think 6 and 7 y/o girls can sit at one time for teaching?

[momsuz123]

Hi,

Scheduling question. I am new at this, officially staring on Monday with FIAR. I have been doing some HS all summer, but am "ramping" it up this week. So today, when my 2 y/o boy went down for his nap, I quick grabbed up my girls and said it's time for school. They did work for an hour, with a small snack break and another wiggle break (both breaks about 2 minutes). They ate popcorn while working too. My 7 y/o could have gone on longer, but my easily distracted 6 y/o was done earlier. What do you think? I know I have to build up the time. I just am nervous about my 2 y/o, so I feel like when he is sleeping, I am going to have to get as much done as possible.

Thanks,

Suzanne

[Chelli]

I do 45 minutes, then a 30 minute break with my dd7 for 1st grade. We do this cycle 2-3 times to finish our work for the day. When we started 1st grade we did 30 minutes work, then 30 minute break, but around semester I bumped up our time to 45 minutes.

 

I have a 16 month old, and we start school right before lunch, he eats, then goes down for a nap. Usually we get in one 45 minute work session while he is eating in his booster. Then we have time to finish our other cycles while he is asleep.

 

This fall, I will be teaching both my dd's so I've set up a schedule where I rotate them between school with me and playing/entertaining brother. Our together stuff will be done during naptime. We'll see how it goes :001_smile:

[zenjenn]

I find my 1st grader (6 yrs old) has the stamina to stick to the same schedule as my older child as long as she's not working on the *same thing* for more than 30-45 minutes or so.

 

Generally assignments at that grade level are designed to be that short anyways. I have a list of acceptable "free choice" activities she can do when she's done with an assignment but I'm still occupied with the older one who has a longer assignment. Options include free reading, practicing with her kids' typing program, doing an assignment in her "Draw & Write" book, piano practice - and we have a couple supplemental books she can work from (language arts worksheets and math fun sheets and such.)

 

She gets a 10 minute snack break and a 45 minute lunch and we school until 3 pm, and start between 8-9 am. The 2pm hour for both children is free reading or drawing.

 

This is a change from last year, where I allowed the younger one a LOT more truly free time.

[Susie in MS]

I am no expert, but there is no why my 6 yo could do school for 6 hours.

 

She can school from 1 1/2 to 2 hours and it is good. if I have her sitting and listening to me for too many minutes she will start to drift, so i shake things up a bit. We do fiaR too and love it. Alternating between reading Bible stories, doing a bit of math (either hands on or a wrksheet) reading our FIAR book, letting her do her reading aloud, work on copy work, then hands on project. Flip flopping from her sitting and listening to her doing keeps her concentrating.

[Satori]

I have no clue how long my dd6 could sit at one time, but I never make a session go over two hours. So we usually have a good run for between 1-2 hours. I don't think I'd want to sit longer than that. :) After a mental break we swing back in and finish the rest of the day.

[5LittleMonkeys]

Well, if they were in ps they would be expected to sit for quite a while.;)

 

I think the key is to switch things up frequently. Dd8, last year when she was 7, was able to do school for 4 to 5 hours but I constantly switched things up for her. We would do 30 minutes of intense math work and then she would listen to an audio book while she did penmanship followed by 15 or 20 minutes of grammer, a short 10 minute break or singing some songs and then on to another block of math seatwork followed by a hands on science or history project. I scheduled lunch right in the middle of all the work so it was only about 2.5 hours then a long hour break followed by another 2.5 or so.

 

I know that is a long school time for most 7yos but I wouldn't have done it if she didn't enjoy it. It may take a bit of time getting your little ones used to working for longer periods of time but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a 6 year old to work on school work for 2 hours each day, or a 7 year old to work 2 or 3 hours as long as you are keeping it interesting, fun, engaging and switching up the hard stuff with fun stuff.

[Meriwether]

As a 7 year old last year Dd would do 4-5 of school, but it would be spread out over 6 hours or so.

[Stellalarella]

WEll, It seems like my ds6 and dd8 can work on things independently for about 10 minutes at a time. Unless the hummingbirds come to the feeder, or the squirrels run by. :001_smile: Once we hit about 60 min. of school (mom and child interacting) they find it much harder to concentrate.

A Charlottle Mason Education gave me ideas on how many minutes to do a particular subject for that age group--15 min. for math, for example. At first I thought, "That's hardly any time!" but in practice, I'm finding out that keeping it short is better, unless they are begging for more.

[Susie in MS]

I find the same thing with my dd, Andrea. If the lessons are longer than short I may as well be talking to a wall cuz my dd will absorb about as much info as that wall will. However in that few mins she really can learn quite a bit.

 

For anyone wanting to read the CM books linked ...if you can't afford them they are posted at amblesideonline free for the reading.

[Joyofsixreboot]

We in general have a wiggly family. I've gone with the CM idea of 15 minutes of really focused work then switch to something else and get more quality that way.

[1GirlTwinBoys]

My boy's were in 1st last year and we kind of did things like this:

 

Math 45 mins. After this they would take at least a 30 min break since math requires a lot of concentration & writing.

 

AAS 10 mins.

 

Copywork 10 mins.

 

Read alouds 10 mins.

 

History & science (me reading to them) 15 mins.

 

Bible 10 mins.

 

Storytime 15 mins.

 

This isn't the order we did things but just an idea of how long we did each subject. I wouldn't do 2 writing subjects back to back.

[RahRah]

We started back July 1 and have been ramping up time so that we'll have our schedule set for the year starting next week, when DS turns 7....we'll do up to two hours of seat work over two time blocks each day, about an hour per block of time, with a break between. How long the seat work takes is really up to DS - if he's finished before the hour allotted, he's done, we move on....everything else happens through active-play, projects, story time, watch videos, etc. - so all totaled in a day, about 4 hours....plus any outside activities (piano, cub scouts, etc.)