Halcyon Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 (edited) I am having trouble fitting either subject in less than 5 days. My older reads so ewhat slowly, and there is quite a lot of reading in both subjects. Eta: i am scheduling an hour a day right now.....a lot of that is reading..... Edited July 22, 2012 by Halcyon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melissel Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 My plan, which is likely to be very different from my reality, is to do history 5 days a week, at a slow, considered pace, and science 2-3 days a week. History is a favorite subject around here, so I want to give it more time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embassy Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 History is once a week (2 hours) and Science (my son's favorite) is twice a week (4 hours). He will be doing some additional reading related to history outside of that time though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halcyon Posted July 22, 2012 Author Share Posted July 22, 2012 Hmmm. We are using human odyssey as our spine, and then oxford's ancient world and kingfisher as supplements. We are also doing a timeline and narrations and outlining.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodland Mist Academy Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 (edited) Hmmm. We are using human odyssey as our spine, and then oxford's ancient world and kingfisher as supplements. We are also doing a timeline and narrations and outlining.... We are technically starting 6th grade, but what you are planning sounds close to what we are doing. CPO (but we are doing Earth), K-12 HO, Oxford (but we are doing medieval as well as ancients), book of centuries etc. We are doing both history and science each day instead of alternating. We tried alternating last year and it didn't work well for us. ETA: We aren't outlining in science or history--at least not right now. She is doing plenty of that in WWS. I would rather spend the time in history on the book of centuries, extra reading and discussion. In science, I would rather spend the time on the skills sheets, extra reading and discussion. Edited July 22, 2012 by Hilltop Academy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxbridgeacademy Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 Sounds like what we did last year for 5th. What really helped with my slow reader is I read to him.... Except the stories from K12HO. We were able to talk and have a "discussin" while reading. It really helped him remember the info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~Anna~ Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 Hmmm. We are using human odyssey as our spine, and then oxford's ancient world and kingfisher as supplements. We are also doing a timeline and narrations and outlining.... We will be doing 7th, but still similar to what you are doing. I am planning on doing History 4 days per week, probably at least an hour a day (this includes mapwork, timelines, supplemental reading, outlining), and then we will be reading historical fiction in addition. Science will be more like 1.5 hours 2 days a week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embassy Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 For our history schedule (2 hours plus additional reading) my son is listening to lectures, watching DVDs, doing research, and lots of reading. We aren't doing narrations or outlining. I don't think I'll have him do a timeline either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodland Mist Academy Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 I forgot to mention that we spend 1-1.5 hours daily for each science and history--so roughly 2-3 hours total. This doesn't include the extra reading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
missmoe Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 Two days for each subject. A few hours a each of those days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom-ninja. Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 We do a week of history and then a week of science. I've found we get more done that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NittanyJen Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 I am having trouble fitting either subject in less than 5 days. My older reads so ewhat slowly, and there is quite a lot of reading in both subjects. Eta: i am scheduling an hour a day right now.....a lot of that is reading..... We switch weeks. I started out my 5th grader last year doing History MWF and Science on TR. He said that drove him nuts from the lack of continuity, and he suggested we alternate weeks. That is what we now do, with slightly longer time spent each day on those subjects. On A - week, we focus on history (and grammar/Latin/Writing more heavily) and on B- week we focus on Science (and math/German/other skills/logic) more heavily. We do still do a bit of math during A week, and some writing during B week, but not as much. That causes a little scheduling creativity on my end, as most things that I don't create myself are designed under an assumption that you run a 36-week school year and do the subject every week, neither of which is true in our case (we ran 42 weeks this past calendar year, and every other week gives us 21 weeks, give or take, *if* I care about finishing a level in a year or less). How easy that is to do depends upon the specific curriculum, your kid, and your goals. I do have to say that the continuity issue has been resolved, and we don't fight to fit in "the big two" in one day. In the balance, it is working pretty well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jengjohnson Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 Mine prefers 4 shorter days for each subject over fewer, longer days. The books are on their way, so we're not scheduled yet, but that is what I'll aim for. Friday is our "catch-up" or fun project day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homemama2 Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 We will do science 5 days per week and history 4 (Friday we will be doing BF Geography instead of history.) We tried alternating a couple of years back, but found we'd rather do each daily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 We do every subject daily b/c it is the only way we manage to create and stick to a rhythm. My 5th graders spend about 45 mins each on history and science. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godsaggie Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 We are going to start 5th grade here with my oldest. I plan to do History 4 days a week (we use Sonlight) and are using Apologia science 2 days a week. That is the plan anyway! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homeschooling Again Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 We're planning on two days a week for 1 1/2 hour for each. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holly Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 We're planning on 3 days for history and 2 days for science. I'm sure I'll end up tweaking this a bit, but those are the plans. They will be fairly short lessons...DD needs to work on her 3Rs more than history. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommyfaithe Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 Hmmm. We are using human odyssey as our spine, and then oxford's ancient world and kingfisher as supplements. We are also doing a timeline and narrations and outlining.... We will be doing history 2x per week and science 2x per week....each 1 1/2 hours. Our extra history reading will probably be 5 days with scheduled Hx time for writing, outlines, timelines, maps etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amy Jo Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 Doing LCC/MP so this year that will be 1 day each of classical history, Christian studies, science, and geography. We will do extra science on Fridays (BFSU), plus nature journals (my goal is to encourage spontaneous use of these, and have occasional "wild days"). There are a couple read alouds in our afternoon basket that are science / nature related. Can you cut back on the reading? Maybe get a few audio books instead or read to him? You seem to want to spend less time on it, but there is a lot of reading ... you are the teacher - I modify for my slow reader all the time. ;) ETA: I guess that is 2-3 days a week for science, and 2-3 days for history/geography. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 Daily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*Lulu* Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 Punk will be doing each 2x a week with me. I will also be giving him a few independent tasks/readings each week that he will schedule for himself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 I was also feeling angst about scheduling history and science - the day was getting longer - so I'm going to try a History Week/Science Week tradeoff as a couple of others have mentioned. We'll cover the same amount of material, just with more focus and depth, I think, and without feeling rushed to finish history on one day so we can get science in the next. My big mantra this year is to relax, and don't feel rushed - go at a pace that allows for discussion & making connnections, not that makes me pressure us to go on to the next thing just to get through it all. I'm hoping this schedule helps with that. So I'm thinking this will look approximately like this: History week, 4 afternoons for 1.5-2 hours each day, covering history readings 2 days a week, and one day focused on geography and the 4th focused on artists or composers of the time period. Science week will be readings on subjects of interest (currently entomology), BFSU lessons, and finding and developing a science fair project. We'll see how it goes! We start up Aug 20 after vacation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haiku Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 We do science and history in two-week rotations: two weeks of science, then two weeks of history. Each subjects gets 20 weeks of instruction, which I consider adequate for 5th grade, and my kids do a lot of science and history reading and activities outside of their formal study, anyway. Tara Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karen in CO Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 (edited) For 5th grade, my dd read either history or science daily for at least an hour. Once a week, she spent about 3 hours on science doing research, a lab and writing the lab report with her best friend and lab partner. She researched and wrote one short newspaper-style paper a week for history; plus we spent about an hour a week in history discussion. The lab, the research and the discussion were the best parts of the week. It is where the real learning took place. One exception to this policy is that we skipped history when we were working on a literature unit. We took breaks for a couple of weeks throughout the year as needed to refresh ourselves with a beautiful collection of literature. Edited July 23, 2012 by Karen in CO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathermomster Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 We rotated 2 chapters history to one chapter science/lab, using text books, supplemental reading, videos, and journal keeping. The subject was hit for 1 hour, daily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melissel Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 I love that idea. Hmmmm.... So do I. Karen, if you have some time, can you talk more about how this worked? This is how I envision our ideal homeschool, but in reality, I cannot seem to implement it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nancy Ann Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 (edited) It is hard because the day does seem to get long with doing them daily, but unfortunately I just get so frustrated with doing history 3 x a week and than science 2 times a week or something like that. It just gets confusing and I don't like all the days in between of not doing the subject, so it works better for us to do these daily. We just have short assignments. Also, my son is in 5th grade and is able to do some things more independently. When he was younger and could not do as much independently it worked well for us to spend 2-4 weeks doing science and than stopping science and spending a few weeks doing history. Now, it's harder because there is more material to cover. So, we just do shorter assignments so we can do it daily and I assign somethings independent. One option I am going to try this year is just set a time limit for science and history and we do as much as we can in that time and what we get done we get done and what we don't we will pick up the next day. I am going to start with just 30 minutes for each at the beginning of our year and gradually increase it to 45 as our year progresses. That is almost 4 hours for the week and seems good. Whenever we do school with the motto of "Slow and Steady Wins the Race" we seem to do better and get more done! Edited July 23, 2012 by Nancy Ann Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melissel Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 I just pm'd her in case she doesn't come back to this thread. I'm curious too. I love the idea, but I don't know how to do it. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karen in CO Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 If you're asking about science, here is mostly what I just sent to WendyK: I used Classiquest Biology as a framework. Instead of the assigned reading for the week, I gave my dd the list of topics for the week (from the textbook). She researched them on her own in our science books and on the internet always using more than one source and never relying on Wikipedia as anything more than a jumping off point. She was free to spend as much or as little time as she wanted on each topic as long as she could answer some basic questions I had about them - what is it, how does it relate to.., what is it for.. why does it.., that kind of thing. Then her friend would come over on Thursday or Friday to do the lab with her. All my friend and I would do is set out the material, chat and try to not interfere. The kids did the entire lab by themselves and wrote the required lab reports then demonstrated the lab and presented their findings and their reports to us. At the beginning, we helped more, but as they learned, they began to do it all on their own. We were there to answer questions if needed. They thought it was really cool to have the freedom, but over the course of the year, they learned to read the labs carefully, learned how to pick out the information they'd need to present, the difference between results and conclusions. It all seemed pretty obvious to my friend and I, but giving the two of them ownership changed science for them. I could have gone through a science textbook and picked topics and experiments myself, but it was nice to have it all laid out. A few were a little lame, but overall the process was terrific. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
................... Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 2 each Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fractalgal Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 My soon to be 5th-grade son will do four days total (two for history, one for history supplement) and one for science because he takes an outsourced science class which is 2.5 hours in one day with lab. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halcyon Posted July 24, 2012 Author Share Posted July 24, 2012 Thanks all. I do like the idea of alternating science and history...one (or two) weeks for one, then switch. That will allow us to immerse ourselves, and we both dislike "jmping around" too much. I also like Karen's idea. We will be using CPO Life Science and it has a fair nmber of labs, so it would be fairly easy to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ondreeuh Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 I have it roughly sketched out at this point ... probably history 5 days a week for 30 minutes/day, and science 3 days a week for 1 hr/day. We are doing my own American History w/ SOTW 3 & 4 woven in, with lots of supplemental videos and websites. We will be doing some light notebooking. For science, we are going to do Mr. Q Physical Science with some extra activities and experiments. Science will be last in the day, so we can take as long as we need to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Don't forget the Magic School Bus DVD series will be for sale on July 31st. I don't see anything wrong with taking a month off here and there, from reading science, and just watching a couple videos a week. And then watching some history DVDs, while reading science. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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