How much time does your high schooler spend per day...

[CAMom]

studying?

 

I tried searching for an answer to this and couldn't find it.

 

On average how much time per day does your high schooler spend doing school?

 

Thanks!:)

[Jill- OK]

On average how much time per day does your high schooler spend doing school?

 

Thanks!:)

 

We have a rough 'schedule' in place of working on lessons, mostly independently, from 9 am to 1 or 1:30 pm. (Four or four and a half hours. We have discussion time after that for about an hour, and the lesson time includes reading for an hour).

 

Sometimes they're finished with what they've scheduled for a particular day, early, sometimes they're late, and sometimes the start time is delayed, but for the most part, those are our hours for their independent work.

[Blue Hen]

studying?

 

I tried searching for an answer to this and couldn't find it.

 

On average how much time per day does your high schooler spend doing school?

 

Thanks!:)

 

All his waking time is spent on 'school' since his 'fun free time' is spent on building his kayak which is his Industrial Arts class, or it might be spent working on his skating which is PE, or reading books.......

 

But back to your question....on pure study subjects I would guess around 8 hrs per day. Last year each day he spent:

 

Math 90 - 120 min per day

Science 2 - 3 hrs (taking AP Biology last year and this year w/ AP Chem I expect him to do a similar quantity)

History/Great Books 2-3 hrs per day

Spanish 45 min

CIS 45 min

Rhetoric 1 hr

PSAT/SAT Prep ~~~ about 15min per day

 

PE --- he works out allot and uses PE to drain off his physical energy. I bet he spends 2-3 hrs /day on this particularly activity.

Industrial Arts----this is mostly done on the weekends, and he'll take a few 5-min breaks here and there to do a little something on his boat.

 

This year he added in AP Stat and has been spending about 1hr/day on this. Rhetoric is being replaced with AP Eng Lang & Comp and I'm expecting him to spend 1-2 hrs/day. I don't think he'll be doing CIS this year but he might surprise me and pick up a CIS book again and start doing more programming. (This kid is always searching for ways to expand his education & knowledge)

[Moira in MA]

My eldest (rising 11th grader) works about 8 hours a day M-F including piano practice plus a half day on Saturday. She occasionally does some additional school related reading outside regular hours.

 

My youngest (rising 9th grader) works maybe 5 and needs to increase it!

[Gwen in VA]

My older two probably did about 8 - 10 hours per weekday and another 8-10 hours over the weekend by junior year. They were pretty academic kids, they chose challenging classes, and they chose to spend their time that way.

 

My younger son is less "academic." He is entering 9th grade, and I expect him to do more like 6 hours per day.

 

My older two had no "free time" in high school per se -- they used their non-academic time to pursue their hobbies and interests -- Civil Air Patrol, fifing, volunteering at museums, etc.

[momof2boys]

My boys are going to be 9th and 11th graders this year. I figure they/we will be doing school on average 8 hours a day. On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons they will be have swimming so those days will be longer. My oldest is has ordered the materials to make his own Primitive bow. He will be working on that in the evenings and I will count this as an elective. My youngest wants to be a biologists/zoologist so he has ordered some books from amazon to study on his own in the evenings and I wll count this as an elective. So as far as academics goes it will take about 8 hours a day to do the work. Then there electives they will be working on in the evenings. Man I guess when I look at this they will be very busy this year.

[Jill- OK]

My youngest wants to be a biologists/zoologist so he has ordered some books from amazon to study on his own in the evenings and I wll count this as an elective.

 

My second oldest (a ninth grader) is designing his own herpetology elective this year! (Which reminds me...I have to order a--very expensive, ::sigh:: book).

 

Too cool.

[FloridaLisa]

My oldest spent about 8 - 9 hours each weekday on bookwork. We started at 7:30 (I have to get as much in as I can before my little one wakes up!) and he usually went to 3 or 4. Then possibly more reading in the evening. For the first time, he had to put in time on the weekend.

 

Blue Hen, I was glad to see that your ds spent 2 - 3 hours on AP bio. Mine did as well and I often wondered whether that was typical for that class!

 

Lisa

[danielle]

Dd is way too busy. Beginning September, she is booked 8-6 including school, music lessons, instrument practice and orchestra. If she gets in, she'll also take 2 more hours in a Friday nite composing class. Saturday she generally spends about 3-4 hours finishing up reading or math problems she didn't complete. After dinner we generally watch some studies-oriented video--Teaching Company, cds of plays or history--but I don't make her do anything but absorb those (no notes or papers).

 

When I see these terrific resumes from kids, I'm just mystified at where the hours in the day come from. We grid out a time schedule every semester and it's the only way I can convince her there's not enough hours in the day to do everything she wants to do all at once. Very interested in this thread!!

Danielle

[TravelingChris]

I would say that in school time, she spends at least 8 hours a day. SHe also spends more time on weekends. Other than shoolwork, she volunteres 2 hours a week at the library, sings in choir for 3 hours a week, has Explorers for 1.5 hours a week, has shooting for 3 hours every two weeks, and projectionist duty for at least one hour a week.Her free time is usually spent reading or watching movies. She also likes to do lots of exercising.

[Kanga]

My dc spend 6 - 8 hours per day on school work.

[CAMom]

Thank you all!:) I was recently questioned on the amount of time my high schooler will be working per day this year. Once his Potter's School classes start, it will be 8-9 hrs. Since it was implied that this was excessive, I had to come check with the experts.

 

I'm glad to know that I'm on track!

[Tokyomarie]

Another mom whose high school students spent about 8 hours daily on academic coursework during their high school years, often more during 11th and 12th grades. My second daughter is a college music student now and she often spent an additional 2-5 hours per day on music practice and rehearsals.

[Kareni]

Purely in terms of class time, my daughter will be taking community college classes from 8:30 to 3:00 two days a week (no lunch break). On a third day, she'll be taking classes at a homeschooling resource center from 10:00 to 5:00 (with a 30 minute lunch break). The remaining two weekdays and two weekend days will be spent doing assignments for those classes plus work for an on-line AP course. (Then there's that pesky thing called "work" which will fill Saturdays through October plus time spent volunteering. Oh, and let's not forget college applications!)

 

Regards,

Kareni

[sweetbaby]

8 hr days here too. :)

[Peela]

Dd14 works from 8.30 (8 if you could music practice) till sometime in the early afternoon. Altogether she works about 23 hours a week, I worked out. Some days it kind of drags into the mid afternoon, but today we finished by 12 and were all amazed.

[AuntieM]

Methinks my 9th grader will be reading this thread. I've been hinting that high school is going to be more demanding:)

[anissarobert]

I already made my 9th grader read it!:)

[6packofun]

Do you mean how long is their school day? If so, my 9th grader takes about 5-6 hours per day. It was barely 4 hours last year and so he's feeling it! LOL

[Nan in Mass]

Plus at least half a day weekends, and a few hours of reading every day in the summer. We "do school" from 7 to 2, then gym from about 4:30 to 8:30. In between and before bed and in the car, they do piano, "homework", and reading. They don't have much down time, and I worry about that, the older one, especially; the younger one has more because he works faster and isn't in high school yet, and doesn't travel for weeks or months of the year. I always wonder if all that school time is worth it, especially since they aren't particularly academic and remember hardly anything. On the other hand, a good bit of the reason they do so much school is my refusal to give up art and music and foreign languages, so I guess I can't complain.

-Nan

[Big Buckin' Longhorn]

. . . but last year we could count on a good 5 to 6 hours each day. That does include about an hour for lunch though. If we have to go to any of his enrichment classes during the day, add another 2 hours onto that, but that includes time in the car as well.

 

This year I'm anticipating about the same. I try to squish subjects together as much as I can, but at this age, it just takes time.

[HollyinNNV]

studying?

 

I tried searching for an answer to this and couldn't find it.

 

On average how much time per day does your high schooler spend doing school?

 

Thanks!:)

 

Around 8 hours. This does not count harp & piano daily practice. And reading is often after school hours or on weekends.

Holly

[chelsea in TN]

Man you guys are making me feel better. one of my friends was trying to tell me that public school kids spend no more than 5-6 hrs on school work so I was mean to expect mine to spend 8.

 

Personally I have a hard time believeing that a child who is taking a rigorous load in a public high school AND serious about it would only spend 5-6 hours a day on school work.

 

My son starts work around 8:30-9am stops around 5or 6 pm. In there is about 1-2 hrs of lunch and fooling around - going out side etc.... I think that is important as well so it does not bug me ..... for now.

 

With the olympics on we are staying up waaaaay to late. But when they are over we will be getting up and hitting the books earlier. on MWF we will have Swim practice from 1-3 pm + travel time. That eats up a huge amount of study time. I would like a large amount of studies done prior to practice.

 

I guess I have the attitute that the rest of the "regular" school kids get up at 0600 hrs and are in class by 0730 why shouldn't he be?? Especially if HE wants to swim? Kids in Reg. School. Go to school From 0730AM - 0300PM , Have their after school stuff and then do a couple hours of home work (the ones that are serious). Why should my kid be different?

 

I guess Bottom line we will work:

M/W/F

7:30-12:00

Math -(2 Hrs) - He is doing Alg II, and Geometry- We will see how this goes- we are using LOF and Jacobs Geometry),

English- (1.5Hr)- Sequential Spelling (With Brother), Rod Staff Grammar, Lightning Lit Mid. Brit. Lit Vocabulary

Spanish- (1 Hr)- Rosetta Stone Breaking the Spanish Barrier.

12:00 - Lunch

12:30 - 3:30 Swim (Tuesday / Thursday - Science Labs and History Projects/tests)

4:00-5:30 Library (One day a wk), History reading

After Dinner - Read aloud, Art of Arguement, Family Unit Study, Family Bible Study.( kind of a mish mash depending on the day)

Evening - Free unless he has something to finish.

 

Hopefully after the olympics are over we can get into this routine :) So far we have not been able to - but swim practice has not started yet......Thankfully

[danielle]

I've been reading some stuff on success in music and the factor that really stands out is that successful music kids put in about 10,000 hours of practice by the time they're 20!! How much time you put in on anything really makes a difference.

 

The other interesting thing I heard on another list this week was from an alumna of Harvard that does admissions interviewing. She said she gets many applicants that have super high grades, super high test scores, a dozen or more APs with 4s &5s. Yet, she is not allowed to give them the highest points value for academics unless they've published original research or something similar!! Not something you can accomplish working only a few hours a day. Sure, maybe not every kid is interested in the super competitive schools, but we as parents must at least consider how high the bar is raised at some places. There are hundreds (thousands!) of kids who are doing extraordinary things, and probably not in 6 hours a day (even if that is the time they actually spend in school).

 

It's either intimidating or inspiring, depending on how you look at it!

Danielle

[Moira in MA]

The other interesting thing I heard on another list this week was from an alumna of Harvard that does admissions interviewing. She said she gets many applicants that have super high grades, super high test scores, a dozen or more APs with 4s &5s. Yet, she is not allowed to give them the highest points value for academics unless they've published original research or something similar!!

A dozen or more APs by the end of junior year, is hard to imagine. I think we have hyperbole here. I sure hope so.

[Brindee]

Methinks my 9th grader will be reading this thread. I've been hinting that high school is going to be more demanding:)

:lol: That's funny you said that, cuz as I was reading these, I was thinking, "I need to call my rising 9th grader here to read these answers!" He has no concept! I think it'll be a bit (okay, probably a lot) of work to get in moving, but I'm hoping we get into the routine in not too long! :001_smile:

[Nan in Mass]

I have ordinary (or even sub-ordinary) students, so doing lots of APs and then on top of that doing original research is out of the question. However, if I cut their schoolwork down, then they CAN do that original research (or whatever other cool-sounding, person-defining project they wish). So my sons and I have a choice between EITHER going after those AP courses OR going for the project. ????? This is the part I always waffle over. And I hope this thread isn't so old that nobody reads this, because I would really like to have a discussion about this.

 

I have made this decision twice already. For my oldest, we opted for the academics and put him back in our very good, AP oriented, public school after homeschooling for middle school. That didn't work; he didn't do the academics. You can lead a teenager to water, but you definately can't make him drink if he isn't thirsty or, as in this case, he gets some in his nose because this particular patch of water is a bit rough and decides that he doesn't like water. For the middle one, for whom academics doesn't come easily, we opted to skimp on the academics and go for the project. Definately the right idea, but that makes it a bit scary to apply to college, which we're doing this winter. I just hope he gets into a college where the people are intellectually oriented enough that he will be stretched the way he ought to be. I know, because of his CC classes, that somebody will want him, but... And now my youngest is 14, more academically capable than either of his two older brothers, but still not the type to go for lots of APs plus that project, so I have the decision to make all over again. I'd love to hear from the people who haven't been able to do it all and have had to choose. I feel like we are different because we have to choose, but I there must be more of you out there choosing as well.

 

Or maybe I'm just stressed out over the oldest leaving. I keep telling myself that it is nice to have choices, that we're lucky to have choices.

 

I've probably put this post in the wrong place.

 

-Nan

[Natalija]

I see your are a fellow music mom!! It is always a challenge trying to make sure we have a good balance between academics and music...and free/family time.

 

I was wondering how her time spent between 8-6 breaks down:

 

How many hours of academics?

How many hours of practicing?

How often are her lessons?

 

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Natalija

[danielle]

Natalija:

Well, here's what's planned for next year: she starts with 1/2 hour of science observation (8am), then one hour of music practice. Studies math & latin, one hour each. Leaves for orchestra practice at 11:30, returns at 1:30. French for an hour, then Hist/Lit. until 4:30. Another hour to hour & half of harp practice. Maybe half hour to goof off on internet. 6pm--feed dog & watch Euronews. After dinner--read or watch Teaching Company videos or something relevant to studies. Friday, different--more science, rhetoric, volunteer. No idea when she is going to do AP Gov/Comp Gov, but she says she'll devote Saturday mornings/evening reading time to it.

 

Possibly she will do a music composition class on Friday evenings. Her harp lesson is 1 hour/l day a week (what would otherwise be practice time), altho they often go over 20 minutes. If she doesn't take the composition class, she's planning to try out for a Celtic band. Weekends she strives to practice 3 hours per day, but it usually ends up still being two hours, what with excavating the room (aka cleaning), church activities, museums, nature excursions, and leftover schoolwork not completed during the week. I think she puts in a lot of time on music, but unless she gives up a lot of academics, I don't see how she can put in much more.

 

I do hear of kids that practice six hours a day. I don't see how they can complete a regular school program, and I'm not willing to let go of that (she doesn't want to). Hope this answers your question.

Danielle