How many hours a day do you homeschool?

[Guest mom23boyz]

I am working out my 8 year old's schedule for the coming school year and added up the time that I guessed it would take for him to get through with all of his lessons. The longest day came to 6 hours and 45 minutes. I'm thinking that that might be a little too much and he will start to hate school. About how many hours a day do your children spend on school?

[Jennifer in MI]

My 12 yo will spend about 6 hours.

 

10 yo will spend about 5 hours.

 

8 yo will spend about 2 hours.

 

That includes our read alouds too.

 

Can you post your schedule? Perhaps we can help you pare it down a bit. 6 hours 45 minutes is a lot for an 8 yo.

[TwinMominTX]

One a long day we are at 4 hours. At a minimum day (math, grammar, spelling and writing) we are at 2 1/2 hours. This generally doesn't include read-alouds or silent reading on their own - I usualy budget an hour total for these two. I would say longest day total would be 5 hours, but a normal day is around 3 hours.

[Love2Smile]

for a 5th and 8th grader 3 to 4 hours

[LaxMom]

My third grader has about 3 1/2 hours blocked out. In reality, she could spend about 2 1/2 hours and sometimes spends 4 1/2 because she's feeling particularly slow that day. Her schedule includes piano practice, but not independent reading.

 

The almost 4-year-olds spend about 30 minutes (in circle time with me) and then demand to "do school" for probably another 30-60 minutes of time at the table and white board.

[unsinkable]

24

 

:lol:

[Mommy22alyns]

24

 

:lol:

 

 

 

I love it!

[Parrothead]

Actual sit down formal school time is about 4.5 hours for a 4th grader.

[hsmamainva]

My 17 year old -- around 6 hours a day - 5 days a week (that includes community college classes 2 days a week and homeschooling 3 days a week and homework for said college classes)

 

My 14 year old -- around 5 hours a day - 5 days a week

 

My 8 year old -- around 4 hours a day - 5 days a week

 

My 6 year old -- around 2 hours a day - 5 days a week

[Alenee]

Our day is long...beginning at 9am and a break for lunch. A few 5 minute breaks in there as well. Usually my 9 yo is finished in about 6 hours. This includes all work with me and independtly. My 6.5 yo does about 3-4 hours.

[Sparkle]

For my 8 yo (3rd grader) - about 3 hours a day.

 

For the older kids (11 & 12) about 5 to 6 hours.

 

For the 5 yo - about 30-45 min, sometimes she listens in on some of the other kids' reading.

[Laura K (NC)]

My 11 and 13yos take about 7 hours, the 15yo takes about 7 1/2. The 11 and 13yos horse around more than the 15yo. Those two could get done in 6- 6 1/2 if they wanted. This is just work hours, and doesn't include a long lunch break.

[Mosaicmind]

All of my kids have a maximum of 4hrs to do their school work. I am a Loop Scheduler and what doesn't get done in that time is done during their free time.

[E_Edgerton]

6 hours...this includes math, LA, history, spelling/writing, science (some days), latin, spanish (at least flashcards), lunch, breaks or a recess, independent reading, and instruments. :)

[Susan in TX]

We spend about 2 hours on school. My 8th grader might take a bit longer depending on what she's working on that day, but never more than three hours. If the younger kids take longer than 2 hours, it's because they are dawdling.

 

Susan in TX

[cin]

We spend about 2 hours on school. My 8th grader might take a bit longer depending on what she's working on that day, but never more than three hours. If the younger kids take longer than 2 hours, it's because they are dawdling.

 

Susan in TX

 

 

My 7 yr old, doing 2nd grade, spends about 2 hours, if I sit next to her and keep her focused. usually it runs to about 3 hours.

[Angel]

almost 14yo will be doing about 4.5 to 5 (at least that is what I'm thinking, school starts tomorrow)

 

almost 8yo does 3.5 but that's because she does a lot of listening in to older sisters read alouds, which she loves. This number would probably be less if they were totally separate.

[TN Mama]

We've been going for 2 weeks and our long day is around 3 hours. This is with my 7 year old 2nd grader.

[kokotg]

It always takes less time than I expect....My seven year old usually spends about an hour in the morning, then we do another hour or so (depending on whether we have projects planned) in the afternoon on history or science, and then anywhere between an hour and two hours on reading (to himself and read alouds) throughout the day.

[Jill- OK]

The longest day came to 6 hours and 45 minutes. I'm thinking that that might be a little too much and he will start to hate school. About how many hours a day do your children spend on school?

 

...probably spends, at most, 2 hours on sit-down stuff, including reading to me, and listening to whatever I read to the Littles (science and history are basically read-aloud subjects).

 

Spanish and piano are simple and low-key, and done here and there.

 

That's about it. Same for her 6yo sister.

 

My two 9th graders don't spend more than five hours a day doing 'formal' school, unless it's a special situation, with some kind of catch-up going on.

[Guest mom23boyz]

Here is everything I try to cover, not every day for every subject. This is a preliminary schedule, and as I said before, I think it would be overwhelming to him right now, so I am going to have to do something...

The times are what I think it 'should' take.

Bible 30 minutes

 

 

Memory Work 15 min

 

 

Handwriting 20 minutes

 

 

Latin 30 minutes

Vocabulary 10 minutes

 

 

 

Independent Reading 30 Minutes

FUN STUFF! 30 minutes (Analogies & Map Skills Logic Links SWIMMING!

 

R&S Reading 45 minutes

 

 

Apologia Science 1 hour - Usually consists of reading a few paragraphs and then looking, catching, or disecting insects FUN FUN!

 

 

Math-U-See 30 minutes

The Middle Ages 1 hour (MWF)

Literature 1 hour Fairy Tales (Tu/Th) involves crafts usually

R&S English 45 minutes

Spelling Power 15 minutes

Piano Practice 30 minutes

 

 

[LisaKinVA]

How much time *should* it take my 8yo is often a very different question from how much time it *actually* takes.

 

Time-wise, my 9yo (in 3 days) *should* take about 4-5 hours (which includes music or art, Latin, read aloud time, and daily PE).

 

Including dawdling, drawing, staring into space, can I frustrate my mom long enough so she *might* just call it a day? Nearly twice that amount of time.:tongue_smilie: Last week, was a very bad week. And this week, due to construction and the house being a complete wreck is probably toast -- so I'm bumping up my testing schedule. We're doing Iowa Complete Battery this week, PLUS two writing tests.

 

My 5yo is done with all of his work in less than an hour (excluding read-alouds and stuff he isn't really responsible for, but participates in (Latin, music...)

 

My 6.5 yo has about 2 hrs. of school work a day (excluding Latin & music).

[sunshine]

Well it's official, I am raising blithering idiots that will never amount to anything!!

I feel so incompetent next to yall.

 

 

IF we school, and that is a big fat IF, it is usally 2 hours tops and that is only 2 to 3 days a week.

I can't imagine how my son became a senior. I better bust him back to 6th and start over!!

 

Classical Unschooling: It's what we do!!:lol:

[8filltheheart]

A general rule of thumb is about 1 hr per grade level. My late middle schoolers and high school kids vary between 5-8 hrs per day depending on the day/week.

[Melanie]

Four to five hours, unless someone is looking forward to playing a new video game or is in a funk.

[yvonne]

I have two 8 yo (next week) boys starting 3rd. We're at 4 hours, including piano. I'm trying to find a way to add MP Christian Studies and SOTW, but our focus this year is French, Math, Writing, Grammar. If we make progress in those, I'll be happy.

 

 

Here's what we do:

 

Horizons Math 3 - 30 mins.

Singapore Math 3 - 30 mins.

math facts drill - 5-10 mins.

 

spelling, reading, cursive - 1 hour

WWE 2 - 30 mins?? (Starting next week.)

R&S 3 - 30 mins

 

MPH 3 science - 15 mins.

 

Piano practice - 20 mins.

 

French - 20 mins.

 

yvonne

[ncmomo3]

For my 6th,7th and 8th graders, it averages 5 hours per day. On days where we have music lessons, art or choir they have around 4 hours and more like 6 on non-event days.

[Murphy101]

well, the kids are about 1 - 5 hours pending age.

but that translates to a full 8 or 10 hour day teaching for ME.

help little with learning reading

help middlers with composition skills

help olders with higher end academics in math and science, logic, plus longer more complicated writing and reading assignments

help toddlers stay sane without driving everyone else insane

[Jenny in Atl]

24

 

:lol:

 

Sure feels that way some days. Mac ~6-7, Fi ~5 because she like to dawdle. :D

[Mama Lynx]

I am working out my 8 year old's schedule for the coming school year and added up the time that I guessed it would take for him to get through with all of his lessons. The longest day came to 6 hours and 45 minutes. I'm thinking that that might be a little too much and he will start to hate school. About how many hours a day do your children spend on school?

 

My nearly 8 year old does:

 

Three pages of Explode the Code - that takes him about 20 minutes.

 

One math lesson with me - that may take us 20 minutes.

 

FLL/WWE - maybe 15 minutes.

 

Handwriting takes 5 or 10 minutes.

 

I read to him - history, or our classical studies, Little House books ... 30 minutes to an hour a day, depending.

 

We do geography once a week ... science and art occasionally. He practices piano every day.

 

And that. is. it.

 

Next year, when he turns 9, I may add Latin. However, that depends on how his reading skills are then.

 

In comparison, my 12.5 year old does the following:

 

Math: 30-60 min./day

Latin: 20-40 min./day

Greek: @15 min./day

Writing: Currently 20-30 min./day

History Reading and answering questions - 30-60 min./day

Classical Studies: 60 min. once a week.

Literature: 1-2 hours a week.

Geography: 30 min. a week

Science - informally

Art - once a week

Piano - daily

Spelling - 15 min./day

Handwriting - 10 min./day

 

Right now we are not doing grammar or Spanish, but I'll add them in soon. He does a great deal of his work independently.

 

I probably don't actively teach more than four hours a day, but it's drawn out over the day on most days - some here, some there.

[Jodie]

My 8 yr old ds 2nd grader= 3-6 hrs depending on the day and how fast he works. 5 days a week.

[Crissy]

Jeffrey (14) around 7 hours.

Hunter (9) about 5 hours.

[Gamom3]

This year we have had one long day which was about 7hrs, that was when my 12yr old had a hard day.

 

The rest has been 5hrs at the most.

 

Dc's are 10 and 12.

 

Dc's are really enjoying their work this year..just hope it stays this way!

[EKS]

When my son was 8 we did about 4 hours but that included a lot of me reading aloud.

[elegantlion]

We have school from 10am to around 2-3pm. We take two 30 minute breaks in that time frame.

 

So 3-4 hours max. The 4 hour days usually include a spontaneous song and dance that breaks the tension, but adds to the day. :D

[Guest]

My son's only in PreK and we spend 1.5 hours.

 

However, my sil has a 1st and 3rd grader and they start about 9am and end at 3pm. They're using Sonlight Core and Horizons Math, among other things.

 

I'm sure within a few weeks you guys will find your groove. :)

[JenParrish]

I have a 7 year old, 2nd grader and our day is anywhere from 2.5 - 4 hours, not including PE, Art, Music or field trips (most of these are in the afternoon after school work is completed for the day). The amount actually spent each day is somewhat student led. When he starts loosing focus, we break or call it a day.

 

My almost 5 year old Kindergarten daughter does school for 2 to 3 hours not including the same items as above.

[Sahamamama]

Mom to Three Boys –

 

According to your second post, you want to cover these subjects with your 8 year old son:

 

 

· Bible

· Arithmetic

· Latin

· Memory Work

· Reading

· Literature

· English (Writing, Grammar)

· Handwriting

· Spelling

· Vocabulary

· Analogies

· Logic

· History

· Geography (Map Skills)

· Science

· Independent Reading

· Piano

· Swimming

 

 

When I look at your outline of subjects, this is what comes to mind:

 

1. You could eliminate Bible as a separate subject. The R & S Reading program (3rd grade) contains 150 lessons covering most of the Old Testament and much of the New Testament. To complete the program in one school year (approx. 36 weeks), you need to cover about 4-5 lessons each week. You could consider this sufficient exposure for a third grader to Bible stories, and eliminate a separate Bible component. If you want an additional reading source for Bible stories, we are enjoying The Children's Illustrated Bible (DK Publishers) for this age range. If you read 3 stories/background pages each week of the year (x 52), you will complete the book in a year.

 

2. You could eliminate Vocabulary as a separate subject. If your son studies Latin AND Literature AND Reading AND Analogies AND Spelling Power AND Rod & Staff English (which covers a LOT of grammar and vocabulary), this will be sufficient exposure for a third grader to words! IMO, you truly don't need a separate Vocabulary program at this point (if ever). Just be sure to study Latin first thing each morning. :D

 

3. There are subjects that usually demand more "out" of the student (such as Latin, arithmetic, spelling, handwriting, grammar [English], composition, memory work, reading instruction, and music performance), and subjects that usually pour content "into" the student (such as read alouds [the parent/teacher reading] for history and literature, science [to some extent], and activities pursued during free time). If you schedule the most demanding, skill-based subjects at the beginning of the day, your son might be able to complete the morning "seat work" subjects more efficiently. Then he could have lunch and a quiet time, and return in the afternoon for one more study session, followed by piano practice, chores, and free time.

 

4. You have a LOT of writing scheduled in here for a third grade boy. I don't know your son, so only you can gauge his tolerance for writing, writing, writing all day, but you might want to have him do some subjects orally.

 

5. You could have a daily memory period (15 minutes), but alternate your Bible memory work with other memory work (poems, states, presidents, etc.). In this way, your son would be in the habit of a daily memory period, but would work on two types of memory material.

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

[SABE]

My 5 year old spends about 45-60 minutes a day doing table work. That doesn't count me reading aloud to him and his brothers.

[kristavws]

My 2nd grader schools 4-hours a day. If we have a particularly involved craft or project, or are doing some kind of outdoor nature observation, it may get longer, but he does not consider crafts/projects or anything that takes place outdoors, as part of school ;)

 

Krista

[Carrie12345]

I'd like to aim for 3.5 hours for my 5 and 6 year olds. That would include reading.

 

My 10 year old is required to work for 25 hours/week, but he and I need to have a chat about what qualifies as work. We have too much going on to glue him to a chair for 5 hours/day.

[OnTheBrink]

Ok, bear in mind we have a 4 day school week, and that on T-TH, we have PE/sewing/music class, all starting around 1:30 or 2:00. Monday, we have no classes to leave home for, so Monday is the longest day. SO, today it's about 5.5 hours.

[Rosy]

Our schedule says:

DD8 (almost)--4 hours

DS6 and DD5--2 hours

But my schedule tends to exaggerate. ;)

 

This is 4 days a week. We have co-op on Fridays. And we do family devotions in the evening that aren't included here, as well as "experiential learning". :)

[iquilt]

We tend to look at school as "table-time" and "sofa-time". The table time is scheduled and includes the core of our school, math and language. DD7 (2nd grade) spends about 15 hours/week (sometimes over 5 days but most likely in 4 days) doing all of her table work. DD4 (K) spends about 5 hours/week, and DS3 (pre) spends about 2-3 hours/week on table work. We spend a lot of time at the sofa with our books, reading out loud and letting DD7 and DD4 practice their reading. Sofa time is not nearly as scheduled but we easily spend 20 hours/week on the couch reading books (spread over 7 days). DS3 is now much more interested in joining us on the couch and brings his own choices of books to "read" and for us to read out loud; whenever I sit down on the couch I can expect to spend at least 45 minutes reading or listening to stories. HTH

[sassenach]

Bible 30 minutes You recieved some good advice above, I would eliminate this or make it a less formal thing, considering that you are doing R and S, which is heavy in bible

Memory Work 15 min

Handwriting 20 minutes

Latin 30 minutes

Vocabulary 10 minutesEliminate this

Independent Reading 30 Minutes

FUN STUFF! 30 minutes (Analogies & Map Skills Logic Links SWIMMING!

 

R&S Reading 45 minutes I've never used R and S reading, but in combonation with SL and MFW, I wonder if you have some overkill going on here

Apologia Science 1 hour - Usually consists of reading a few paragraphs and then looking, catching, or disecting insects FUN FUN!

 

Math-U-See 30 minutes

The Middle Ages 1 hour (MWF)

Literature 1 hour Fairy Tales (Tu/Th) involves crafts usually

R&S English 45 minutes

Spelling Power 15 minutes

Piano Practice 30 minutes

Overall, I feel like you have a lot of subjects going on here. Are you scheduling your days based on time frames, or based on a certain amount of work that he needs to get done? For example, my 6th grader has to finish 2 sheets a day of MUS. If those take her 20 min or 40 min, they still need to get done. I guess I would just make sure that you're expecting a reasonable amount of work each day. The other thing I do is put a cap on our day. We use loop scheduling and if we hit 3pm before finishing our loop, we stop and pick up where we left off the next day. If our day drags out longer than 5 or 6 hours, dd is toast. What I would suggest is breaking down your schedule into 2 parts- fun stuff and not so fun stuff. See what kind of balance you can find between those 2 parts. hth,

[gardenschooler]

A rough guess of how much time mine spent on school at age 8 is about 2-3 hours, spread throughout the day.

 

Now that my youngest is in 4th grade, we stepped things up quite a bit. I'd estimate her total at around 3.5-4 hours now, but only about 1.5-2 hours of that is seatwork. The rest is either reading or something that can be done orally (or even a project once in awhile).

 

Dd14 has about 6-7 hours a day total.

[Guest Wells family]

starting a new year for 10 more months. Everybody's school year starts and ends very different from others. I have one child in home school and one child in public school. Trying to keep up with two different schools is hard enough besides different grade levels.

 

Allowing the child to have 16weeks off of school is like asking for a bomb to explode. I tried three weeks on and one week off and that seem to be pulling teeth when they had to study. Now I found a method that seems to be working for all of us. All year round school 10 months on grade level, then 2 months are divided into pre-testing months( review all subjects before the end of grade testing) and the other month is pre-testing for the upcoming grade level to see where we need to focus on.

 

The hourly days vary from time to time. Depends on the subject and the child. I notice with my child math is easy and doesn't take an hour to do one chapter. Spelling and reading go hand and hand. I learned if a child can read a word and know how to pronounce it they have a better chance to spell it. I write spelling words down when they can't read it. We go up to 5 words missed by the time they can't read 10 words in a book I get them to stop and study the words they missed. The end of the week they have to know how to say them and spell them. They say the word, spell the word and then write the word 10 times.

[gingersmom]

Why is a post from 2008 being resurrected???????

[Bang!Zoom!]

It's a theme lately.

[elegantlion]

Why is a post from 2008 being resurrected???????

 

Just to freak some of us out. :confused: Some of those then 14 year olds are now applying to college. My now 14 year old was much younger, practically a baby. :(