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Older kids, time and depth


Parrothead
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I'm finding that we are running out of time every day. I'm not sure how to fix it. We've not managed to do Latin or poetry at all this week. Both are a pretty quick fix over the weekend but I really don't want to be doing school every single day of the week. And to top it all off extra curriculars haven't even started yet.

 

We start at 8 and are supposed to end at 3 with an hour for lunch.

 

M-Th dd is supposed to do algebra 1 (MUS), literature (ability appropriate), vocabulary, grammar (AG), writing/poetry(CW), logic(TL2) and Latin (TLREG). And 30 minutes to practice guitar

 

Fridays are for music, art, science and history

 

We can't get down to the nitty gritty of anything because of the time it takes to do the most basic of work. Yesterday I had the idea that if she knows the concepts she doesn't need to do all the practice pages of grammar. So I'm able to cut out a bit of time there.

 

Algebra is taking the biggest chunk of time. Then literature. Reading and then talking take another big chunk of time.

 

Of course things like today don't help. We woke up late and won't get started until nearly 10 this morning.

 

How does one achieve depth when the technical aspect takes so much time?

Edited by Parrothead
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I'm not to your stage yet, but one thing I've done this year is to push a lot of the reading to homework-so DD will do reading in between dance classes or whatever. I think she likes having homework when most of the other kids are doing the same, and it keeps the amount of sit-down school at one time a little more reasonable.

 

I have noticed that as we move into doing mostly middle school content, the amount of time has jumped, and math has been a big part of that. I think it may just be the nature of the beast-Algebra isn't fast.

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Maybe you can do some LA components 3x a week instead of 4 to give yourself some more time. I'm having my son do most of his reading at night. He likes to read in bed and doesn't require a lot of sleep so he is spending time reading literature and history at night this year.

 

A block schedule has also helped up get everything covered without adding stress.

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I suggest that you begin having her keep a record of how much time she spends on which subject. I have my children do this; it helps us recognize whether they spend enough time on task at all and for which subjects they spend more time than for others.

I deal with math by assigning my son not a set portion of the book, but a set time. At age 12, his concentration was such that I required 45 minutes of algebra daily; working longer than that resulted in careless mistakes. So, you might want to see how much time it takes for math, and maybe adjust the time if you notice that your student's concentration begins to wane.

I think your suggested school day of 6 hours work time should be plenty to accomplish everything. Up to 8th grade, I require 5 hours of daily work (not including music and PE).

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Have to use my oldest...he's the only one who struggles with time issues (most of which are his).

 

I have his subjects scheduled out by time of day. We start at 7am (usually). My oldest does Grammar & Comp, followed by Math (I set a timer for math, because I want him to accomplish working efficiently and accurately, and because sometimes lessons are a bit more difficult and it is worth the extra time to spread it out). However, we're doing math 6-7 times a week.

 

By creating an hourly schedule and *sticking to it* he is getting better at managing his time, and not falling behind. I also have a check-list that I use to check off his assignments as I deem them complete (sometimes, we have to go back through things...ahem GRAMMAR...because he rushes through it and makes really stooopid mistakes). This comes out of his time, not my time (his time, is his free time to check his facebook account, work on his badge work, Wii, or free reading).

 

It may take awhile to adjust to a schedule, but I'm not homework averse (especially since my oldest has a habit of self-distracting to avoid working on school). And, like I mentioned, we do some school during the weekend as well. As my children get older, this becomes more unavoidable if they are going to be able to manage extracurriculars, chores and school.

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We've been running out of time sometimes too. DS knows that if he doesn't finish everything on his weekly schedule, he'll have to finish the work in the evening or on the weekend.

 

For us, it seems like when ds doesn't finish, it's because he's having trouble focusing. Or sometimes it's because he's avoiding subjects that he doesn't want to do. Last week he didn't finish his writing assignment, but I found out later that he read three extra chapters in history for fun.

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I've learned to treat our day more like a school as the children get older. I allot a reasonable amount of time to teach each subject and then set a timer. So if I've set aside 20 minutes for grammar, that usually gives me enough time to teach the lesson and for them to begin their exercises. If they finish, great. If not, it goes on the "homework" agenda. Regardless of whether we are done or not, we move on at thw end of the period. At the end of my teaching day they finish all of their independent work. I have more time to things other than teach at that point, but I'm available to help as needed. Even if we don't finish everything, I feel better if we can say we got to everything. I notice that we work more efficiently if we have an ending time to keep in mind. Less time wasted, less time on rabbit trails. Rabbit trails are fun, but as the kids get older we feel the need to stay focused.

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I'm finding that we are running out of time every day. I'm not sure how to fix it. We've not managed to do Latin or poetry at all this week. Both are a pretty quick fix over the weekend but I really don't want to be doing school every single day of the week. And to top it all off extra curriculars haven't even started yet.

 

We start at 8 and are supposed to end at 3 with an hour for lunch.

 

M-Th dd is supposed to do algebra 1 (MUS), literature (ability appropriate), vocabulary, grammar (AG), writing/poetry(CW), logic(TL2) and Latin (TLREG). And 30 minutes to practice guitar

 

Fridays are for music, art, science and history

 

We can't get down to the nitty gritty of anything because of the time it takes to do the most basic of work. Yesterday I had the idea that if she knows the concepts she doesn't need to do all the practice pages of grammar. So I'm able to cut out a bit of time there.

 

Algebra is taking the biggest chunk of time. Then literature. Reading and then talking take another big chunk of time.

 

Of course things like today don't help. We woke up late and won't get started until nearly 10 this morning.

 

How does one achieve depth when the technical aspect takes so much time?

 

Beyond what others have suggested, the red flag I see is the alg. MUS alg should not be taking huge amts of time. A long day for even my avg math students was 45-60 mins (those would be days w/videos). I wonder if perhaps closing the alg book and reviewing ratios, percentages, fractions, and exponents for a few weeks might not lead to longer term rewards in terms of confidence and time.

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