Four days per week? Is this course load too heavy?

[DragonFaerie]

Can high school be accomplished only working four days per week?  My daughter wants to take on another music class, an hour-long guitar class in addition to the 30-minute clarinet lesson and two-hour band rehearsal, all of which are on Thursdays.  She also does tumbling for two hours on Thursday evenings.  With travel time, there is just no way to get anything else done on Thursdays.  None of us want to do school on the weekends, besides which, between church, 2.5 hours of symphony rehearsal, and evening youth group, there's no time for anything on Sundays anyway.  Saturdays are our only real "day off."  So, that leaves us with Monday-Wednesdays and Fridays.  

 

With all the music she's doing (the six hours I've already mentioned plus another weekly half-hour piano/voice/theory lesson) and the four hours of tumbling every week (two on Tuesday as well as the Thursday hours), she has more than enough time in for a credit in music performance and probably music theory, too, as well as a P.E. credit.  So we're only talking about the core classes for the other days (okay, core classes plus practice time).  

 

I'm looking at English (literature and composition), Geometry, Anatomy & Physiology (her choice), and American Government and Politics.  She wants to start her foreign language, too (Gaelic, also her choice), but I may have her hold off until 10th grade to do that so she doesn't get overwhelmed.  So, if I'm counting this up right, she would have four credits for the core classes plus one for music performance, one for music theory, and one for P.E.  Seven total, right?  Is this possible?  Does this sound like too much?  Typing it out, it looks like too much, but then what can be dropped?  She'd never agree to dropping any of the music or tumbling. LOL... Maybe I just need reassurance that this is possible and a perfectly doable schedule.  

[regentrude]

I see no need to drop anything.

Five core classes (math, English, social science, science and foreign language) means approx 25 hours per week (a credit translates roughly into 1 hour daily 5 days a week = 5 hrs/week).

With a 4 day week, that's a bit more than 6 hours on those days. I don't see a problem with that.

 

And you can always do some reading over the weekend, listen to history lectures in the car, school a bit longer into (or even through) the summer - you get the credits in.

Can high school be accomplished only working four days per week?  My daughter wants to take on another music class, an hour-long guitar class in addition to the 30-minute clarinet lesson and two-hour band rehearsal, all of which are on Thursdays.  She also does tumbling for two hours on Thursday evenings.  With travel time, there is just no way to get anything else done on Thursdays.  None of us want to do school on the weekends, besides which, between church, 2.5 hours of symphony rehearsal, and evening youth group, there's no time for anything on Sundays anyway.  Saturdays are our only real "day off."  So, that leaves us with Monday-Wednesdays and Fridays.  

 

With all the music she's doing (the six hours I've already mentioned plus another weekly half-hour piano/voice/theory lesson) and the four hours of tumbling every week (two on Tuesday as well as the Thursday hours), she has more than enough time in for a credit in music performance and probably music theory, too, as well as a P.E. credit.  So we're only talking about the core classes for the other days (okay, core classes plus practice time).  

 

I'm looking at English (literature and composition), Geometry, Anatomy & Physiology (her choice), and American Government and Politics.  She wants to start her foreign language, too (Gaelic, also her choice), but I may have her hold off until 10th grade to do that so she doesn't get overwhelmed.  So, if I'm counting this up right, she would have four credits for the core classes plus one for music performance, one for music theory, and one for P.E.  Seven total, right?  Is this possible?  Does this sound like too much?  Typing it out, it looks like too much, but then what can be dropped?  She'd never agree to dropping any of the music or tumbling. LOL... Maybe I just need reassurance that this is possible and a perfectly doable schedule.  

 

How much daily practice does the guitar, clarinet, band, symphony and voice/piano require?  You measure the amount of time the lessons themselves take, but usually, don't most musicians spend way more time practicing than in their lessons?

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I don't think it's too much. One thing my son had to adjust to with high school was that there would be work to do in the evenings. Reading and writing mostly, but also work in weekly language homework.

 

You might consider starting the language as at least a half credit. I've not seen that my sons' workload got easier as high school progressed.

 

I try to make sure my kids always have a book with them in the car, at appointments, etc to catch odd minutes of wait time.

 

Audiobooks and Teaching Company lectures also helped us redeem car time.

[katilac]

No, it's not too much for high school. It's actually not a ton of core academic credits, so I'd be fine with keeping the foreign language in the mix. 

 

You might have to extend your school year a bit if you're on a typical schedule, and she may have to do some occasional weekend work, but that's very typical for high school. Like regentrude, I advise using your time in the car to listen to lectures, foreign vocabulary or podcasts, etc. We found it very worth the money to buy a dvd player for the car to watch Teaching Company lectures and such.  

 

I would carefully consider how you decide to credit her music and tumbling - if you count them for school, you can't double dip and also count them for extra-curriculars (assuming college is on the table).  Maybe music theory as a credit, performance and tumbling as extra-curriculars. 

 

That would be 6 credits and 2 or 3 activities, fairly typical for high school. 

[chiguirre]

In the same vein as using audio books and TC lectures in the car, Kindle books with Whispersync are great for the car. You can listen but still see the names or new words so that you can learn the spelling.

[DragonFaerie]

Thanks for the feedback, y'all.  It's very helpful.  Her music practice schedule adds another two hours to her days, but we do school through the summer (just on a much lighter schedule), too.  What I might do is forego the PE credit and count tumbling as extracurricular.  I also think the symphony could be considered extracurricular given that she does so many other music things that could be for credit.