Can you give me a breakdown of your 4th graders day?

[Gentlemommy]

I'm interested to see how you use your time. How long you spend on each subject, what subjects you do, ect. In you could also list what curriculum you are using, and how the time per subject is spent, that would be helpful.

So, for example-

Math-ABC time per day, XYZ curriculum, that includes X number of worksheets, Y activities, Z whatever else.

Language Arts-spelling, writing, grammar, ect. ABC time per day, XYZ curriculum, X worksheet/assignment, Y activity, Z books to read, ect.

 

I am feeling like my schedule isn't....quite there yet, or perhaps I'm not doing enough, or maybe the time I have set for everything isn't realistic? I don't know. This coming year will be FULL with extracurricular activities, classes, lessons, and practice, so I've got to manage our time very carefully. I don't want to have any busy work or fluff, however, I don't want to have a subpar or bare bones homeschool either. I'm having trouble getting a good balance. Thanks in advance!!!

[Upennmama]

Let's see. My fourth grader will be doing:

 

Bible- 3 times per week in Who is God (Apologia), probably 30 mins each time? Includes a lesson and an activity in the notebooking journal.

History/SS- we use TOG, so that probably breaks down to 30 minutes, 5x week for reading and another 15-20 3x week minutes for maps, projects, etc. 

Math- Saxon 6/5, 5x week, probably 30-45 minutes each. 1 lesson each time. Also adding in some facts practice, math games, etc. 

Science- Apologia zoology 3x week, 30-45 minutes each, plus one Magic School Bus experiment a week

Language Arts- FLL 3x week (15 mins), Wordly Wise 5x week (15 mins)

Writing- WWE 4x week (20 mins)

Literature- reading with TOG, plus I am adding some extra because I find TOG a little light on lit for this age. I expect her to read and/or respond for at least 30-45 mins a day, but she does way more on her own. 

French- 20 mins of Rosetta stone, 2x a week

Music- piano lessons 1x week, 20 mins practice 5x week.

[sbgrace]

We're still using the same thing we did in 4th. I can't give you times for everything, though, because one of mine takes a lot longer for every single subject compared to his brother. His math is regularly at least 4 times as long. I point that out because even those using the exact same curriculum could vary widely in times.

 

Days go best when we start our day early/right after breakfast.

 

1. Special needs curriculum materials with one child. This carries throughout our day, so I try to do it first. Sometimes I can do this while he eats breakfast.

 

2. Math--main text lesson (Math in Focus), facts practice (quick), word problems from Singapore Process Skills or Challenging Word Problems (generally 2 a day with one child, the other works through at his faster pace) This could vary a lot in time frame.  I really go with the child. With one child I generally get a whole Math in Focus lesson done daily. When a child is checking out, I wind things down.  This happens more often with my other child, maybe because everything just takes him so long due to attention issues. My boys are in different places in the same math texts.

 

3. Composition. The time spent really varies based on the lesson or activity. It could be 10 minutes or it could be closer to an hour. I use Barbara Mariconda materials, CAP Writing and Rhetoric, or occasionally Writing With Ease.

 

These, along with a computer program for my special needs son, are my "must do" time consuming things, so they have priority placement.

 

If the above took a long time, it will be lunch time. Sometimes, though, I get the other language arts portion of the next set in with one kid before lunch.

 

4. At some point the special needs child does a computer program for attention stuff daily. It's about 30 minutes I think, and intentionally dull. I try to fit that in before lunch for him, but I'm not always successful.

 

5. We try to fit in keyboarding for both kids at some point too (Typing Instructor). This usually happens in the afternoon. 30 minutes maybe? It varies a lot. One child intentionally spends a lot more time on it, while the other tires easily.

 

Quick Language arts stuff: 6. spelling (15 minutes, give or take--longer for one than the other), 7. EM Daily Language review (5 min), 8. Scholastic Phonics and Word Study (5 minutes), 9. MCT grammar (5-10 minutes), 10. Killgallon (10 minutes or so). I forgot HWOT cursive. This floats in wherever it fits. These are all a set deal for us, and we do them in whatever order the child wants.

 

11. Read aloud (to and with me, both kids together)

 

12. PE (planned structured activity sequence) 45 minutes or so

 

13. Science or history. These take a while...30 minutes to 1.5 hours...I don't get to them anything close every day, and this bothers me. 

 

Our day feels like it takes too long to me. It definitely feels like too much for my special needs son.

 

I'm trying to figure out a better approach!

 

I'm thinking of cutting the "quick" LA stuff when composition that day took a long time. But all of that is pretty painless, and some of it enjoyable for them. So I hesitate. Our math is taking a long time too. I probably need to shift the word problems to their own dedicated day or something like that. The two problems a day, though, really seems to work well for my kid with attention problems. I feel stuck a bit.

 

 

 

[zarabellesmom]

This is the plan and it kind of worked today:

 

Math:                    Beast Academy 4 and later Upper Elementary Challenge Math  45 to 60 min

Science:               Nancy Larson Science 3, One lesson 4 days a week (however long that takes, 30 min?)

History:                 Story of the World 3, she reads the chapter and does a lapbook page and puts timeline figures in the timeline book (however long this takes over the course of the week, 1 hr total?)

Spelling:               Sequential Spelling, 4 times a week, 20 min max

Handwriting:         By her choice we continue with cursive practice, 1 pg a day, 4x week, 5 min

Writing:                CAP W&R, 4X a week, 20 min a day

Grammar:            Right now, one sentence from MCT Practice Island 4X a week = 5 min and 1 pg of Critical Thinking Co. Language Mechanic = 5 min, 4X week

 

We also do a few random things with poetry, poetry teas, vocabulary, documentaries, but that's less timed. Once a week we go to coop and do robotics. We also do dance all week long and are trying to add music lessons.

 

[Berta]

We are very flexible and our schedule changes day to day. My daughter is in competition training so we work our school work schedule around it. It usually takes us about 3-3.5 hrs to get all our work done each day. That is not including Art, which my daughter LOVES and will literally spend hours on it at a time. It's not unusual for her to work on her art projects after dinner until bedtime.

 

5x a week:

Lifepac Bible   10-20 mins

CLE Math   20-45 mins

BJU English    20-30

SpellWell Spelling  10 mins

BJU Handwriting   15 mins

BJU Reading 30 mins

 

2x a week:

Apologia Science 30-60 mins depending on experiment or just reading/recording data

BJU Heritage Studies 30-45 mins. Science and History are two more of her favorite subjects so there are times when we pull other resources and it takes longer.

Lifepac Health 15-20 mins

Art

 

 

 

[Farrar]

We just wrapped up fourth grade.  Our schedule was different from day to day, especially because we have a number of outside commitments - a full day of co-op, piano lessons, acting stuff for one boy and dance for the other, Destination Imagination team, science co-op, soccer...  Plus, we tend to take advantage of living in an area with a lot going on and take a lot of field trips.  So our academic home stuff isn't our whole picture and can be just a couple of hours of a whole day depending.

 

But generally...

 

Math - about 45 minutes a day, just doing whatever got done - one boy was doing mostly Beast Academy and some other supplements, the other did mostly Math in Focus and Process Skills in Problem Solving

 

Reading - one full hour at bedtime, one meaty nonfiction picture book a week

 

Spelling - 15 mins a day, AAS

 

Writing - different activities every day - we use Brave Writer and do a routine for writing - dictation once a week, narration once a week, freewriting once a week, various other things, including a writing project once a month

 

Books on the sofa - we read a lot aloud for history and science, usually at least an hour a day - we also do math read alouds and grammar read alouds and so forth this way, then will stay on the sofa to work problems or analyze sentences or do other things along those lines...

 

Piano practice - about 20 mins a day

 

Logic - usually about 30 mins a week, just using various books, most recently Logic Liftoff

 

Other stuff...  It is just impossible to estimate this...  we do math games and projects, science experiments...  None of this is all that regular though.  Sometimes it's hours, sometimes we are busy and don't do much for a week or two.

[weintz8]

7:30 up/breakfast

8:00 run (outside 2 miles, helps with his ADHD)

8:30 chores

9:00 family meeting (bible, Latin, art appreciation)

9:30 FLL/WWE

10:00 TT

10:30 PACE LA

11:00 independent reading

11:30 Russian (Rosetta Stone)

12:00 lunch

12:30 free time

1:00 SOTW (M,W) Apologia (T,Th)

2:30 Maps Workbook, Bible Copywork

3:00 done for day, free time

[Guest]

We're finishing 4 weeks tomorrow and here's what we've been doing:

 

Morning Time (8-10am) - we cover Bible, geography, memorization, Latin, history, and reading stories aloud daily. We are looping things like science, myths, Shakespeare, art/composer studies, logic, etc.. He does a written narration at the end of Morning Time. (No formal curric. here, we are reading through CHOW for history. Living library books for Science.)

 

Math (10-11am) - we spend about an hour on MEP. Well, I set a timer for an hour. It's really hard not to do more than that, but I think he's pretty done in about an hour's time.

 

Language Arts (11:30ish) - Copywork/Dictation via Brave Writer, focusing on grammar and spelling at this time, also. Once a week we are working on a writing project.

 

12-1pm - Lunch

 

Quiet Family Reading Time (1:00-2:00), and then we end our day with a chapter book Read Aloud

 

It is working really well for us. :)

 

[Heidi]

Morning time takes about an hour. We cover religion and all memory work from all subjects.

 

First Form Latin 30-45 min.

Math mammoth 4, 1 1/2 pages/day, 45 mins-1 hr

Life of Fred, 3 chapters

English Lessons through Literature, 30-45 min

Memoria Press Geography 1, 10-15 min.

Famous Men of Rome w/ MP's workbook 1 1/2 hours spread over two days.

Apologia Astronomy with notebooking journal 30 min, not counting projects

Xtramath.com 10 min

Duolingo German 10 min.

Typing Instructor 10 min.

Scheduled reading (literature, history) 1 hour

 

Monday: Morning time, Latin, MM, English, reading, xtramath, Duolingo

 

Tues: Morning Time, Latin, MM, science, geography, reading, xtramath, typing

 

Wednesday: morning time, LoF, English, FMR, reading, xtramath, Duolingo

 

Thurs: morning time, Latin, science, FMR, reading, xtramath, typing

 

Friday: morning time, Latin, MM, English, reading, xtramath, Duolingo

 

 

We try to begin at 7am, we do part of morning time, then break for breakfast, finish up morning time and go straight into Latin. The rest of the subjects are finished in any order she chooses. Quick break around 10am. Lunch and park break is from 1230-4pm. Finishes school after break until bedtime, however long it takes. She's my dawdler, so she often takes all day unless motivated by some event she doesn't want to miss.

[JoyfullyNoisy]

8:00-8:45 - morning time. Poetry review, author study (lives of the writers http://books.google.com/books/about/Lives_of_the_Writers.html?id=KckEAAAACAAJ), geography (according to author), classical composer memory palace (amazon ebook http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s_?ie=UTF8&k=Classical+composers+memory) and a composer study (Venezia's books http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/bookwizard/books-by/mike-venezia#cart/cleanup)

9:00-9:45 - music theory (Theory Time), piano practice

10:00-10:45 -math (c-Rods, TT and BA)

11:00-11:45 - MCT town (home made manipulatives to use with it), Cesar's English, practice town sentence

12:00-1:00 lunch

1:00-1:45 quiet reading for literature

2:00-2:30 - spelling (AAS)

2:45-3:30 - writing (IEW SWI B and Kilgallon sentence writing)

4:00-? - history (SOTW) and project

 

7:00-7:20- piano

 

Bedtime - 1.5 hours of read alouds with Dad, then silent reading until she's "done".

[SemiSweet]

Math - we aim for an hour, a lesson with Mom using Singapore textbook, workbook problems, then possibly a page from the appendix or CWP or Intensive Practice. A couple times a week we read a chapter or two from Life of Fred.

 

Language Arts - we are using MBtP, we probably spend 45min to an hour, depending on the reading assignment. We do spelling workout twice a week for about 20-30 minutes. She reads on her own for a half hour in the afternoon or evening.

 

Social studies/science - about an hour a day with MBtP, we go for that when we aren't using MBtP too.

 

History - we read aloud from SOTW a few times a week, maybe 20-30 minutes

 

Spanish - 20 minutes a day on Duolingo

 

Cursive - 10 minutes a day

[....]

Disclaimer: I think we are probably more relaxed than most and dd is a young 4th grader.  Here's my 4th grader's day:

 

Math (20 minutes - maybe?): One page of Miquon for warm-up, Singapore Math for the remainder.  Once a week, she will work on Beast Academy or Life of Fred.

LA (5-10 mins): Copywork or dictation, cursive copywork.  We may start MCT's LA later this year, though.  So, the time will go up a lot.

Chemistry (20 mins):  Ellen McHenry's The Elements + The Elements, A Visual Guide...

Story of the World (10 mins ?)

Songbirds (10 mins): she has a songbird book, we read about a new songbird each day, watch a short YouTube video of the bird and she sketches/colors the bird while I read

Read-alouds: remainder of the time...maybe 30-40 minutes?  We're reading Along Came a Dog, Paddle to the Sea, Seabird, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Apologia's Land Animals...

 

I think we're usually finished in about 1.5 hrs.  I'm not very good with time, but that's a good guess.

 

After school, she builds with Nanoblocks or does MIT's Scratch or plays with the 6 yro.

 

 

 

[Soror]

Well, ds is what I consider a 4/5th grader this year. His b-day is on the cut-off.

 

We are just starting back so it is hard to say what it will be as we usually ramp up as we go. As I see it now we need to add more time to our content and add in Latin.

 

As of now (likely to change :0 )

Math- BA- Life of Fred- Living Math- Facts Practice etc- 1hr

Literature- Reading books on own- at least 1 hr daily 

Writing- WR- 30 min

Grammar- MCT/Language Mechanic- 15 min

Spelling- Apples and Pears- 15 min

Reading Practice- McGuffey/Webster- 15 min (just added this in to see if I can correct some problems he was having- would not be doing this otherwise)

Content- Science/Geo/History- 30min-1hr day (as of late I've been reading to him but he also reads on his own as well and I have certain books planned as assigned reading and some as RA throughout the year); educational movies and games a few hrs a week

 

[musicianmom]

LA block: 1 1/2 hrs, some combination of Carsar's English, R&S 4, IEW Fables, Myths, and Fairy Tales, study of a novel (currently working through later Little House books), Latin Alive 1.

 

Cursive: one page, 5-10 min.

 

Math: one lesson in Saxon 7/6, takes about 30 min.

 

Greek: 2 pages in Hey Andrew 3, 10 min.

 

Right now that's all. When her tutorial starts she will have daily history and science homework which will probably take 30-60 minutes depending on the assignment.

[SilverMoon]

.

Edited September 8, 2023 by SilverMoon

[Ms.Ivy]

My fourth grader: 
1 hour, circle time with siblings -- poetry, Bible, hymns, catechism, Getting Started with Spanish, etc.

1 hour, Language Arts -- Climbing to Good English, Sentence Composing for Elementary School, Building Spelling Skills, 5 minutes cursive (Spencerian workbook)

1 hour, Math -- Timez Attack, Primary Mathematics (Singapore)

1 hour once a week: Story of the World history lesson

1 hour once a week: R.E.A.L. Science Od. or BFSU 2

30 minutes - Duo Lingo Spanish or watching Spanish TV

30 minutes - Elementary Greek 

30 minutes - Livey Latin

30 minutes - exercising

15 minutes - piano practice

2 hours once a week -- arts and crafts

1 hour once a week -- health, nutrition, cooking

1 hour once a week -- astronomy

 

It comes out to about 6 hours a day.  We do most of the daily subjects four days a week and then the content stuff on Fridays (generally)

[Χά�ων]

Science 1x/week 1-2 hour block on Sunday afternoons to allow more time to explore

Math daily I did pattern: Review:learn:practice

Reading daily however long was needed

History daily (heavy on audio books and discussion and activities as needed)

[JFJ in IL]

We haven't begun the school year yet but this is my plan for my 4th & 2nd grader.

 

I teach all subjects together except for Math & Wordly Wise Vocab w/ Spanish. Those two time periods are flip-flopped so I am only teaching Math to one child at a time.

 

We will be attending a co-op for the first time this year for one full school day per week so this is our schedule for the remaining 4 days.

 

We will also go on field trips at least monthly :)

 

8:30-9:00 Bible with cursive

 

9:00-9:45 Math

 

10:00-10:45 Wordly Wise Vocab & Spanish (both online, independent work)

 

11:00-11:45 LA using Logic of English

 

12:00-1:00 Lunch & Free time

 

1:00-1:30 CAP Writing program

 

1:30-2:30 Unit Studies (science, health, geography, etc...) 

 

2:30 until finished...Piano practice or lesson, Minecraft lesson, Independent Reading.

 

Both have sports activities in the afternoon once a week.

 

Reading aloud before bedtime.

 

I have no set weekly expectations for any subject---that has never served me well in the past, only created lots of unnecessary stress :)

 

Have a great school year!

[LindaOz]

We're finishing 4 weeks tomorrow and here's what we've been doing:

 

Morning Time (8-10am) - we cover Bible, geography, memorization, Latin, history, and reading stories aloud daily. We are looping things like science, myths, Shakespeare, art/composer studies, logic, etc.. He does a written narration at the end of Morning Time. (No formal curric. here, we are reading through CHOW for history. Living library books for Science.)

 

Math (10-11am) - we spend about an hour on MEP. Well, I set a timer for an hour. It's really hard not to do more than that, but I think he's pretty done in about an hour's time.

 

Language Arts (11:30ish) - Copywork/Dictation via Brave Writer, focusing on grammar and spelling at this time, also. Once a week we are working on a writing project.

 

12-1pm - Lunch

 

Quiet Family Reading Time (1:00-2:00), and then we end our day with a chapter book Read Aloud

 

It is working really well for us. :)

This sounds like a lovely schedule. :)

[LindaOz]

This is my 4th graders schedule (we are about 2/3 through our school year).

 

We have family time around breakfast where we do some Bible study, pray, read-aloud, singing.

 

9am-11am:

Math: Mathsonline (30mins) then a page or two from Easy-learn Maths.

Cursive: 1 page or so of handwriting.

Spelling: Successful Spelling - practice words and do a few activities from workbook.

English: 2 pages from Successful English workbook. Includes writing, grammar and reading comprehension. 3x a week we do English from Allinonehomeschool.com which includes reading and a variety of other activities (he loves this!). 2x a week just read from another book together where we team read.

Reading: Read a chapter from current assigned literature book then come and narrate to me.

 

11am is break time. Have a snack. Play outside etc until lunch time.

 

Lunch: We eat and watch something - currently the Little House series. Then we do another read aloud.

 

After Lunch: 30 minute free reading time.

Then history/science/geography/art/music with siblings (not all on same day :) ) while my preschoolers sleep. This includes reading, journals, activities etc. We are using SOTW3 with SL books and The Wide Brown Land for history, Science in the Beginning for science, allinonehomeschool.com for geography and art, and we also use Mark Kistler online drawing lessons. He does piano, and we are going through The Story of the Orchestra.

 

That's about it. He loves sport so plays a lot outside, and he does a bit of moutainbike riding with dh. This all takes about 4 hours a day. It works well.

[ScoutTN]

We haven't started yet, so this will undoubtedly get changed as we go.

 

Morning time all together. Bible, hymns or other singing, memory work including Bible, catechism, poetry etc., artist and composer studies, and RA from library books, fairy tales, biographies and whatever strikes my fancy. About an hour, sometimes more.

 

Math - 30 to 45 minutes, including facts drill. 5x week.

Writing - 30 minutes, 4 x a week. She enjoys writing and will do more on her own.

Grammar - 5-15 minutes, 3x a week. Often incorporated into other things.

Spelling- 15 minutes, 4x a week.

Penmanship - all her work will be on cursive this year, so less set aside time for practice. 15 minutes 2x a week.

Literature - 1 hour a day or more. Not usually a block in the middle of our day. She reads voraciously!

Latin - 15 to 30 minutes 4x a week.

 

Science - 30 to 45 minutes twice or three times a week.

History - 30 minutes twice or three times a week. Some times this is independent, sometimes not.

 

Piano practice 30 minutes 6x a week, lesson the other day.

Choir 1x a week for 45 minutes.

Art and Drama tutorial 1x a week, an hour and 15 minutes on each per week.

 

 

Still not exactly sure how my schedule will work, but generally we do skill subjects first and content in the early afternoon.

Generally it works out to be:

Morning time all together

2 hours skill work with me, 1+ independently

30 minutes to 1 hour content together with Ds

I aim for about 4 hours, though I expect we will often run to 5.

 

Wednesdays are shorter, no content subjects. M, T and Th are longer days.

Fridays are different because of her tutorial. No morning time, just piano and math.

We begin school at 8:30 and piano is already done by then.

[Gentlemommy]

Ok, reading those has put my mind at ease a bit...I was feeling like I had simplified TOO much...here is what I'm planning, feel free to comment or suggest changes.

 

Math-BA (4x per week), extra worksheet/Singapore/challenge math (1x per week) 45-60 min per day

Writing-CAP (3x per week), working on her own book (2x per week) 45 min per day

Grammar-KISS (3x per week) 10-15 min per day

Spelling-R and S (2x per week) and LOE (3x per week) 15 min per day

Science/History/Geography-Mystery of History, World Geography, and Apologia happen once a week at coop, but we will also have 'Tea Time' every day and do Layers of Learning, Sheppardsoftware, Ellen McHenrys units, CHOW, and SOTW on a loop so one of those happens every day 1 hour

Memory Work-15 min daily-we do poetry, X's tables, timeline, ect.

Reading-she reads on her own for 3-4 hours per day, I read to her for 1/2 hour each night from a book I pick

 

The reason I'm trying to simplify is that this year we have a ton of extra curricular activities happening. She has-

2 hours of riding per week

5 hours of gymnastics per week

3 hours of archery per week

1.5 hours at Awana per week

And one 2.5 hour art class per month

 

We really really can not be wasting time this year. I've tried to cut out the 'fluff', the unnecessary busy work without affecting the quality of the curriculum... I wasn't sure if the times I had listed were about right for this age. She's always tended toward a ADD personality, and hours upon hours of school work have never happened, nor has she been able to do much independent work. She's just this summer started writing on her own, which is miraculous, considering I scribed for her 95% of the time until now. She has had such a very hard time with writing...there are definitely some issues there, but we are seeing improvement. Anyway, it's helpful to see what is the 'norm' for fourth grade.