Counting Hours

[goldberry]

How carefully do you count hours for high school? We are using Clonlara, and they ask that you keep track of the hours.

 

Does anyone actually LOG hours every day? As in 2:00-2:45 English? Or do you just estimate? I'm leaning toward estimating but I don't want to be dishonest. I just wondered what the norm was.

 

How we work is that I typically give DD an assignment sheet for the week, not for each day. Then she divides it up how she wants. So I don't typically know, ok now she is working on English, now she is working on History.

 

Should I just note her start and end times maybe and then estimate proportionally? I just really don't want this to be onerous.

[regentrude]

I do log hours and find it very easy. (I do not always need them to keep track of credits, but it helps us keep an overview over how much work has been done in which subject and where more time should be spent.)

I use an excel spreadsheet. One line per day, columns per subject. I put the times in and a note about content, and it is programmed to do the adding.

 

It is my kids' responsibility to keep track of how much time they spend on which subject. They prefer to do that in a paper planner and jot down things like "60 minutes math" or "45 French HW". I put it into the computer and this way have a backup of our records.

We do not use a schedule, but each must spend a certain number of hours daily on school.

Edited July 24, 2012 by regentrude

[Nan in Mass]

We've always had a regular school schedule, so I haven't bothered. It gets a bit mushier when they hit about 11th grade, but by then, they are doing school so much of the day that it doesn't worry me that we aren't keeping track exactly. Most subjects still have regular times during the week when they are done. It just tends to spill over into all the rest of their time as well. For things like their independent projects, we haven't kept track. The hours would mount up alarmingly fast and they often are sort of working on them at the same time as they are doing other things, which makes it hard to count.

This probably wasn't very helpful. If I had to be accountable hour by hour, I would put a sheet up someplace convenient with a pencil attached and work out a system of abrieviations and make them do their own logging.

Nan

[Mom22ns]

I log hours. Missouri law states how many hours of instruction student must have per year. In order to document that I meet (and vastly exceed) the requirements, I have always logged hours.

 

I use planning software and with each planned subject I put a time estimate. For those done with me, I record the times. For those the kids do on their own, they get a weekly to do list and there is a line beside each item for them to record their time. Usually I ask a couple of times during the day, Ex. "What did you do while your ds and I were doing science?" and record the times as we go. This takes me less than 5 min/day for my 2 kids.

[elegantlion]

I'm also in the state that requires hours. Ds is not independent completely, so I log the hours. I'm pretty anal by nature (:D) so I log to the 15 minute interval.

 

I just write it in my planner.

[In The Great White North]

I am forever grateful that my state DOESN'T require hours. It would drive me nuts.

 

My condolences to all of you.

[goldberry]

Hmm..this is scarin' me!

 

We tried once having her log computer time, so I could limit her time. It was a mess. I spent the whole day asking, "did you log that time?" and being paranoid about it. I can't stand the thought of doing that every day for school.

 

DD takes a REALLY long time to learn a new habit or routine. Seriously. It would probably take her a good six months of me asking and reminding her EVERY DAY before she would start writing down the hours on her own in any reliable fashion.

 

We usually start at 9 and are done by 3:30 or 4. She always does math first and then takes a break after, so I would know the math time for sure. She takes an hour for lunch and few 15 minute breaks now and then. Is it really going to be that bad if I just look at what she did and divide up the rest of the time?

[mom2jjka]

My kids are incredible dawdlers, and so I do not count hours.

(But it would look REALLY impressive if I did) :glare:

[ilanao]

We started out with the timer and trying to log exact times last year for 9th grade, but it was just too tedious. I ended up just putting 60 minutes for almost all the days. I know it averaged out, because most of the time he spent at least an hour and sometimes it would be less. I would occasionally log 75 or 90 minutes when he spent a long time on a test or essay/research project.

[ereks mom]

We've always had a regular school schedule, so I haven't bothered. It gets a bit mushier when they hit about 11th grade, but by then, they are doing school so much of the day that it doesn't worry me that we aren't keeping track exactly. Most subjects still have regular times during the week when they are done. It just tends to spill over into all the rest of their time as well. For things like their independent projects, we haven't kept track. The hours would mount up alarmingly fast and they often are sort of working on them at the same time as they are doing other things, which makes it hard to count.

This probably wasn't very helpful. If I had to be accountable hour by hour, I would put a sheet up someplace convenient with a pencil attached and work out a system of abrieviations and make them do their own logging.

Nan

 

:iagree: