Streamlining for 5th grade...

[Halcyon]

In looking ahead, i am beginning to realize just how much more intense each subject will be next year. I think i need to eliminate certain subjects, so here's what i am thinking.

 

Keeping:

Latin-5 hours a week

Math-5 hours a week

Writing-5 hours a week (specifically for WWS)

Literature- as needed, reading 1-2 hours daily including discussion

Spanish- 2 hours a week

Science-2-3 hours a week

History-2-3 hours a week

Geography- 1-2 hours a week

Art-weekly lessons with Dad

Composer studies-when we get to it :tongue_smilie:

 

This will give us about 5 hours a day of work.

 

Eliminating

Grammar (he's currently finishng KISS level 1 Grade 6, and i really want to use Level 2 but....)

Spelling, except in the context of missed words in writing essays and narrations.

Logic

 

Thoughts?

Edited April 28, 2012 by Halcyon

[happypamama]

:bigear:

 

I am interested in this as well, for my 5th grader. I had not intended to do any formal grammar or spelling with her but have been wondering if I need to. She's naturally a pretty good speller, and we do use workbooks like BrainQuest and Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills to hit grammar/spelling/etc. topics that might get missed otherwise. So I'm trying to decide if we need a more specific program for grammar or not.

[MrsH]

I only actually read the WTM a few months ago so have zero experience actually implementing, but I also was struck by how many hours of work it looked to be. I cut down significantly, and here's what I think we'll end up doing, which is definitely more htan we're currently doing:

 

 

• singapore math - 45mins/day
  
• reading - 1hr/day, incl. ancient history literature, poetry, memorization work, and a weekly narration page
  
• music practice - 15mins/day
  
• history - 3hrs/week, incl. geography
  
• science - 2hrs/week
  
• foreign language - 1hr/week (2 30 min sessions, doing it for our first year) + homework
  
• spelling/grammar - 1.5hrs/week (spelling is 2-3 20min sessions, grammar is tacked on to that. It's our first year actually doing any grammar).
  
• logic - we keep a lot of logic puzzles and books around, esp. in a kit in the car.
  
• art - we'll work through a "how to draw" book, doing about 2hours one week per month
  
• music - young person's guide for about 2hrs, one week per month
  
• writing - working through a more detailed writing project for about 2 hrs, one week per month
  

 

I'm hoping it'll be about 3.5hrs of schoolwork plus about an hour of "homework," independent work to be completed on her own time.

[Meriwether]

I was just telling Dh last night that scheduling 5th and 6th will be difficult because Dd will be doing all of her elementary subjects and plus some new ones. FWIW, these are the subjects or bits of subjects we want to hit next year:

 

Grammar

Spelling

Handwriting

Vocabulary

Writing

Poetry

Latin

Spanish

Math (both elementary and some prealgebra)

Geography

History

Bible

Science

Art

Composer Study

 

Even if we did some subjects only once or twice per week and some are done in the summer, it is a crazy list.

Edited April 28, 2012 by Meriwether

[Annabel Lee]

Even if we did some subjects only once or twice per week and some are done in the summer, it is a crazy list.

 

:iagree: You ladies are wise to recognize this beforehand and do something about it. I mistakenly kept everything on my plate for years, but multiple big life issues came up that got in the way of getting school done. It compounded and now means we are just that much further behind than if I hadn't taken on such a full schedule. Prioritize your goals, simplify, and remember you didn't set out to homeschool so you and your kids could be stress-wrecks. That's not directed at anyone in particular, I'm just sharing from personal experience in hopes that someone else can avoid the same mistake.

[Haiku]

Were it me, I would trim Latin from five hours a week to 2 1/2 hours a week; I think 30 minutes of Latin study a day is sufficient. In the 2 1/2 hours that freed up, I would add grammar. To me, regular study of grammar is important, and although I believe and agree that foreign language study helps with grammar, I think that in 5th grade grammar still entails so much usage and mechanics that it is still very important.

 

I tried and tried to fit a regular logic time into our 5th grade schedule. I couldn't make it work, so I decided to just buy the Building Thinking Skills workbook and assign dd so many pages per week, to be completed on her how time.

 

Tara

[Create Your Ritual]

I agree... I would reduce the Latin a bit and keep the KISS Grammar going .. even if you only get a page done a day of KISS it would be nice to understand the grammar component.

 

For dd10 this year I have noticed that we take A LOT more time with grammar, writing & math these days. Also I have upped science to 5 days a week now and relegated history to reading time. I just don't seem to be able to do each indiv. subject at the level I want, so this is how our schedule has progressed for our 5th grader this year.

 

8:00-8:30 - Sadlier Oxford Vocab, Typing, Spelling (2 x per week)

8:00-8:30 - Latin (3 x per week)

8:30-9:15 - Grammar & more vocab (MCT CE, PT, Sentence Composing, KISS, (we finished ALL)

9:15-9:30 - break

9:30-10:45 - writing (WWS right now is taking the full amount on most days). On the days that we get done by 10:30 I read aloud to them for 15 min, or we work on history during this time.

10:45-11:45 - Science 5x per week. We are doing a mixture of BFSU II, CPO Life, Elemental Logic Biology, and loads of documentaries. The docs go in at the end while I put lunch together.

11:45-12:15 - Lunch

12:15 − 1:30 or later - Math

after that I have them either do reading in History or they read & work on study guide from The Good Books Program (Angelicum Academy).

 

They are usually done with school by 2:30 every day. Then we have chores .. about 15-20 worth M-F, and piano practice for 15 min each day or so. Then the rest of the day is theirs after that. ;-)

[Create Your Ritual]

I wanted to say that for the better part of the year I was doing science 3 x per week and history 2 x per week, but with spring here we wanted to use the time to really dig into Biology. I will continue with science through the summer. I also plan to school them 4 x per week for 2 hours in the AM during the summer. (We will see how that goes!) Obviously we have horse riding, swim lessons, beach, etc. to work around.

 

My main focus this summer is going to be science, math, and continue practicing the writing skills we have learned with WWS. We are on week 31 of it now, and I would like to solidify the writing styles that we have learned by having them pick topics and go through the steps.

[Homemama2]

I'm in the same boat right now trying to figure out 5th grade.

 

Right now, I'm thinking of keeping logic very light for 5th and tackling that more in middle school. We'll use Mindbenders in 5th b/c I have it (and when I did MB in elementary school...I loved it). I'm only planning on one or two puzzles per week, probably added into his math time so it won't actually be much time wise. I'm def. not doing 3 hrs per week, lol!

 

Grammar is an area where he struggles, in fact it has actually caused us to take a break from Latin b/c he couldn't figure out endings b/c of not knowing the part of speech (kept thinking the direct object was the subject). So until I see some progress in grammar, we will be putting latin on hold. I guess we're doing the opposite of you-dropping latin, keeping grammar. I'm hoping we can add latin back by 6th or even later in 5th.

 

I'm also thinking of only doing 1 hr of science or history or geography each day. (So 2 days of history, 1 of geography, 2 of science.) We're doing more than that this year (we actually do all 3 daily)...so I'm not sure how this will work or IF it will work....

[all4ramseys@msn.com]

Were it me, I would trim Latin from five hours a week to 2 1/2 hours a week; I think 30 minutes of Latin study a day is sufficient. In the 2 1/2 hours that freed up, I would add grammar. To me, regular study of grammar is important, and although I believe and agree that foreign language study helps with grammar, I think that in 5th grade grammar still entails so much usage and mechanics that it is still very important.

 

I tried and tried to fit a regular logic time into our 5th grade schedule. I couldn't make it work, so I decided to just buy the Building Thinking Skills workbook and assign dd so many pages per week, to be completed on her how time.

 

Tara

:iagree:

[Halcyon]

Hmmm. My issue with cutting down Latin is that we're using the MODG guides, which even now take us just about an hour a day....Maybe I will just have him do a sheet of KISS every other day--should only take 15 minutes or so. Thanks for all the input, everyone. I tend to want to try to do everything, and that just will not work. My son really seems to do better when I schedule fewer subjects--it allows him to really focus on the subjects he IS doing, and he does them at a higher level.

[wapiti]

I think you should keep it as is for now. You are using rigorous materials and 5 hours per day for 5th grade sounds reasonable for what you will be accomplishing. If anything, I'd limit geography, perhaps doing more next year. I'd also probably plan to add grammar back in next year, or perhaps plan a once per week assignment. In a bind, cut Latin to 45 minutes, though naturally if you do that, some other subject will suddenly start taking up that extra 15 min (which is what happened to us with math - more math and less Latin, and suddenly Latin began falling by the wayside).

 

Note that WWS is written for 4 days, and while some assignments may take more than one day, other assigments may take less than an hour. You're already using this, right? How far in are you? Since you'll be starting 5th grade already well into it, you could probably cut back to 4 days per week, take it easy (multiple days for certain writing assignments), and still finish all of WWS next year, probably even with time to start WW2.

[Halcyon]

I think you should keep it as is for now. You are using rigorous materials and 5 hours per day for 5th grade sounds reasonable for what you will be accomplishing. If anything, I'd limit geography, perhaps doing more next year. I'd also probably plan to add grammar back in next year, or perhaps plan a once per week assignment. In a bind, cut Latin to 45 minutes, though naturally if you do that, some other subject will suddenly start taking up that extra 15 min (which is what happened to us with math - more math and less Latin, and suddenly Latin began falling by the wayside).

 

Note that WWS is written for 4 days, and while some assignments may take more than one day, other assigments may take less than an hour. You're already using this, right? How far in are you? Since you'll be starting 5th grade already well into it, you could probably cut back to 4 days per week, take it easy (multiple days for certain writing assignments), and still finish all of WWS next year, probably even with time to start WW2.

 

 

That's a good point. We're on Week 10 (12?) but plan on using it most of the summer, so we'll be well into it by fall. We could do it just 4 days, but he likes to do freewriting on Fridays....I think I will play it by ear. He's great with grammar, which is why i was thinking of dropping it for a year, but really, it's not a time consuming subject.

[Diviya]

I've been going through the same exercise!

I ended up with mostly the same list, but my breakdown is a bit different.

Latin will be a focus, but I think 30 mins a day. There is no way my daughter can spend 1 hour a day on it!

Math, on the other hand, is more like 90 minutes a day, and often more.

Spelling is once a week for 30 mins.

Grammar is about 3 to 4 times a week for 20-30 mins. We recently started Analytical Grammar, and this is what we will continue with next year.

History, we will be starting Human Odyssey, with a goal of 1 chapter per week. I'm hoping this can get done in about 3 hours, but I have no idea.

Writing will probably end up at a minimum of 45 minutes per day. We are still slogging through WWE4 and won't finish until next year some time. After that we will move to WWS.

Science, we will continue with BFSU book 1 and start on 2 when we finish it. I'm thinking 2-3 hours per week.

Reading for now will continue as is. She reads what she chooses, in her own time, and we discuss occasionally. This has been working well and I don't want to mess with a good thing! She has read a lot of great stuff this year.

She has piano twice a week and gets plenty of music theory that way. I have music history and art history tentatively scheduled for alternating Fridays.

And that just leaves geography, which gets shoehorned in somewhere. :)

So, I think all that ends up at about 5 hours per day, which doesn't include things like 30-45 mins of piano practice and daily Kumon worksheets.

 

I'm ditching the modern language for now.

 

I'm excited and nervous at the same time!

[Oakblossoms]

Have you considered cutting out science or history. My kids do better with science and history in larger amounts of times, fewer times per week. So, study science for a 6 week period and schedule every Thursday. Do it 2-3 hours on that day. Then take a week with no Science or History. Then start another 6 week period of History. You would be amazed at the amount of work you can get in, plus more projects if your kids like them. Since, having more kids I have had to get more creative with my time. I notice this doesn't work as well with other subjects like math or grammar, but this "immersion" kind of style works well for Science and History.

[Halcyon]

Have you considered cutting out science or history. My kids do better with science and history in larger amounts of times, fewer times per week. So, study science for a 6 week period and schedule every Thursday. Do it 2-3 hours on that day. Then take a week with no Science or History. Then start another 6 week period of History. You would be amazed at the amount of work you can get in, plus more projects if your kids like them. Since, having more kids I have had to get more creative with my time. I notice this doesn't work as well with other subjects like math or grammar, but this "immersion" kind of style works well for Science and History.

 

This might really work for us. We really do prefer immersion for these subjects, and it might be better to follow your suggestion.thanks!

[Chrysalis Academy]

I'm having the same conversations with myself about 5th grade, too. We're not trying to do a modern language, but pretty much everything else Halcyon mentioned . . . I've been playing with the idea of a double-loop schedule (how's that for overcomplicating life??:D)

 

So it would something like this:

Math - 60 min per day

Latin - 30 min per day

MCT Language Arts - 30 min

(looping through CE, ParT, PracT, Poetry. CE may take 2 days to get through a lesson . . . .)

Lit RA/Discuss - 60 min

Lunch

Writing: 30 min

Afternoon Loop: 90 min

Science - History - Science - Geography/Artist or Musician Study-and *maybe* logic/philosophy

 

That is a solid 5 hours. I'm a little worried that writing will soon start taking much longer than 30 min, and that will eat into the afternoon subjects, but not sure what to do about that . . .

 

(Oh, there are two sciences because we're doing BFSU one day a week, and the other day is Entomology - this is Miss P's current career choice, and she has a lot of juice for it, so we're devoting some focused time to it for now).

 

Oh, yeah, and homework consists of typing practice (just 15 min) and reading . . .

 

And 2 or 3 times a year she participates in a play, which means lengthy evening practices. Afternoon schedule will have to give.

 

And when the heck are we supposed to get any exercise???:glare:

[Create Your Ritual]

Rose,

 

I hear you about the exercise thing! ;-) It did feel like as WWS progressed for us it took the solid hour. At the beginning of the year I could do 30 min of WW and 30 min of CC Fable and now the writing is taking all 5 days and sometimes 1 week of work takes a lot longer than 1 week. Then again, I have a 10 yr old and 9 yr old doing it, so I understand it probably will. We are still learning a ton with it though, so I am fine with using that time to do it .. but things like exercise end up being put by the wayside. Mon - Fri it feels like we FINALLY get out of the house about 4pm ish.. thank goodness it's light for longer!

[2_girls_mommy]

I am so excited and stressed about starting 5th grade logic stage next year. Like someone else said, we will be keeping every subject that we already do plus adding several more. I plan to add logic in gently, plus Spanish on top of our Latin, and we will be adding a more formal lit program where so far she has mostly had free reading from SOTW and WTM listed books and formal Bible. It is a big jump up. The only thing for us that I could come up with was for her to start earlier in the morning, but that sounds impossible if you know my dd. We are supposed to start by 9:00 am and that is hard enough. I don't know how I could her up and ready by 8:00 or 8:30 am. I may drop spelling. But that is really only about 10 min each day. But it is 10 min. that she could do logic instead, or I could rotate her.... I don't want to cut time spent on art because I still will have a 3rd grader and spending time doing SOTW1 projects will be so fun for her, but I know something will have to give.

 

I will plan a daily timed schedule soon. I need to get all of my new books in first to look over the programs.

 

No suggestions to Halcyon. I am just in the same boat.

[Mom in High Heels]

Ugh, I'm so stressing about 5th grade!!! How are we going to fit it all in?

I have decided to drop formal spelling as it stresses him out more than anything and just keep a book where he will have to write down words he misspells a few times and write a sentence with them. Other than that though, I don't know what else I can do!

[Snickerdoodle]

To the OP:

 

Work logic into math time and work grammar into writing time.

 

We are almost done with 5th grade. Phew! You can do it!

 

Time to start stressing over 6th. :D

[Halcyon]

To the OP:

 

Work logic into math time and work grammar into writing time.

 

We are almost done with 5th grade. Phew! You can do it!

 

Time to start stressing over 6th. :D

 

Thanks-this is what I am thinking too. And logic in Latin and games and puzzles that he does in his free time, too. Good luck to you!

[brownie]

Our schedule looks a lot like yours (and we're wrapping up 5th grade), except we do Rod & Staff Grammar. Also, would have liked to do Spanish, Logic and more spelling/vocab, but ds ALWAYS takes longer than he should to do everything. Spanish and Logic quickly fell from the list. We used Vocab from Classical Roots for vocab and spelling but didn't get nearly as far as we should have. Math can take 2 hours some days (we do Saxon). History and science both take at least 4 hours a week.

 

When planning your ideal schedule, take into account the pace of your child too! Brownie

[The Governess]

I'm glad you posted. I am looking ahead to when I start Latin with dd7. My plan is to do a grammar-intensive Latin with her starting in grade four. But I've been wondering if doing a full English grammar with her at that point is necessary (she will have finished FLL 4 by then, we are a year ahead in language). I know there is some overlap, but there is probably also some redundancy. I wish someone would write a lighter grammar curriculum for students of Latin that covers everything that they'll need on top of the Latin, and leaves out the rest.

 

:bigear:

[Melissa H. in GA]

I don't know how to quote posts, but this is for the post above.

 

Memoria Press does have a new 3rd grade English out this year that is a "lite English" for those going through Latin. I believe they are the publishing arm for Highlands Latin School, and since Rod and Staff English was taking up so much school time on top of the Latin, Memoria wrote their own English instead.

 

Melissa

[Halcyon]

Our schedule looks a lot like yours (and we're wrapping up 5th grade), except we do Rod & Staff Grammar. Also, would have liked to do Spanish, Logic and more spelling/vocab, but ds ALWAYS takes longer than he should to do everything. Spanish and Logic quickly fell from the list. We used Vocab from Classical Roots for vocab and spelling but didn't get nearly as far as we should have. Math can take 2 hours some days (we do Saxon). History and science both take at least 4 hours a week.

 

When planning your ideal schedule, take into account the pace of your child too! Brownie

 

That's a good point! The problem is, some days he's lightning fast, other days slow as molasses LOL. Luckily, we school year-round so we generally make up for slow days.

 

Right now, I am going to take up a pp's suggestion to rotate history and science in 6 week chunks. I think that will work for us, and allow us to focus more on each subject while doing it. Especially since each topic is going to get more intense in 5th: for History, we'll be doing a timeline, narrations, outlining and more secondary reading, and for Science, we'll be doing CPO Life Science along with BFSU...and I know CPO is more time-consuming than what we've been doing so far. I will expect more in terms of labs (writeups, etc) than I have in Grammar stage.

 

Writing takes a while, simply because WWS is a step up from WWE, and my guess is it will only get more challenging. Thankfully, I am only shooting to be done with WWS1 by Christmas, so we'll be fine. With math, we'll be doing MM6 and AoPS Pre-A and I think an hour a day will be more than enough. He tends to do better with shorter spurts in Math. Latin will remain about an hour a day. He enjoys it, and is progressing nicely. We've switched to the MODG schedule recently and it is much more intense, but still, I think we'll shoot for an hour a day.

 

I think he's going to have to accept that he will have a bit of homework most days. He abhors homework. :glare:

[EKS]

I would reduce Latin to 30 minutes per day. WWS can easily take less than 1 hour per day if you do it with your student. We spend less than 30 minutes on it each day and, while my son isn't getting the practice with being independent right now, I figure he can get that practice some other way. I'd keep literature to under an hour, including reading, unless your son wants to read more each day. As for Spanish, personally, I would concentrate on Latin and forget about Spanish for now. And I'd reduce geography to 1 hour or less per week.

 

I would reconsider eliminating grammar and possibly spelling (especially if your son still needs it).

[The Governess]

I don't know how to quote posts, but this is for the post above.

 

Memoria Press does have a new 3rd grade English out this year that is a "lite English" for those going through Latin. I believe they are the publishing arm for Highlands Latin School, and since Rod and Staff English was taking up so much school time on top of the Latin, Memoria wrote their own English instead.

 

Melissa

 

Thanks! That's pretty close to what I was thinking about! But I need it for fifth grade and without all of the writing assignments, haha. Something to keep on the radar, for sure. :001_smile: