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How much time do you allot per week toward PE and "fine arts"?


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I'm sorry if this has been discussed ad nauseam. I've just jumped into the deep end of HS planning and haven't spent much time here until this week! I've learned so much already, and I'm alternately comforted and terrified :lol:

 

Anyway, our state doesn't have actual requirements for homeschoolers, but in my planning, I'm aiming to meet the state's diploma requirements for public schools. These include three years of PE at .75 credits per year (and .25 credits per year of health). The requirements also include 1 credit of fine arts. 

 

We had gym every day in high school, but from what I'm hearing, that's not common anymore. Actually, DH told me he had gym once a week in his private Catholic school. (And I had to put on that stupid gym outfit every stinking day--I feel so cheated!) So I know that academic class credits assume 120-160 hours of work per week, but surely this isn't true for PE, especially when public schools don't really even do that anymore. How much time do you consider worthy of 1 credit? Do you think that any dedicated physical activity is enough, or do you feel like you need to make it a survey of sports and activities? And do I really need to subject my kid to square dancing to make it count?

 

I have a similar question for fine arts. I remember having art daily in high school, but is that still standard? How much time would you consider worthy of a fine arts credit? We'll be outsourcing that, and I don't see managing to fit in more than 2 hours per week of art classes of any kind. I can beef that up with museum trips etc., but only so much.

 

If there are already threads that answer my questions, please feel free to direct me there. I was searching but not coming up with much that actually addressed my concerns.

 

Thanks!

 

ETA: Please feel free to set me straight if I'm not looking at this from the right perspective. My high school was tiny, and we took the classes they handed us and that was that, and when it came time to go to college, I applied to our state school and was accepted--no essays, short basic interview, the end. I'm really coming at this from a base of almost zero knowledge. 

Edited by ILiveInFlipFlops
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I do 60 hours for a half credit and 120 for a full credit for PE and as a minimum for Fine Arts. (Academic credits for us are 150-180 hours--one or two have gone over that--or 75-90 hours for a .5 credit. When I hear the "120" hours as part of the range for a credit, I assume that means for non-academic classes.)

 

PE can be any physical activity. I've included: walking, running, biking, boating, swimming, park days, time with friends (things like air-soft gun games, laser tag, shooting hoops, etc...), gym days with our hs group (they meet once a week for 1.5 hours to do a PE class with calisthenics, group games, and swimming at our local Y), various summer activities...Really, it's pretty easy to get a PE credit. You could aim for 30 minutes of some type of exercise per day on school days, which gets you to 90 hours over a 180 day school year, and then add in some summer activity and you're there. I like there to be some instruction mixed in, but I don't personally feel it all has to be--I'm going for a mix of activities and a habit of daily exercise as my goal. Your goal may vary!

 

No square dancing, LOL! (Though I personally enjoyed that in school!)

 

Fine Arts--we have a number of credits in this from various music lessons, theater, art etc... My dd took a class this spring that met for 2.5 hours every other week for 8 weeks, and spent another 10 or so hours outside of class working on that project. She also does a lot of drawing, did a painting on her closet drawer (she googled how to simulate a wood-grain technique) etc... She'll do another art class in the fall, and I'll count the two together plus her outside work as a .5 art credit. She'll be in that 60-90 hour range at that point. Music lessons--my kids would practice 30 minutes per day when they did lessons--give or take. I never counted exact hours but did a rough estimate. Practice, lessons, performances usually added up pretty quickly to make a .5 credit there. 

 

HTH some!

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My daughter is only in eighth grade , but next year we plan on her doing a fine art AP art class online with weekly outsourced lessons. Total hours per week would be about 4 hours and sometimes more. She already spends almost that right now with her art and outsourced art lessons.

PE is a little subjective to me :) my dd is pretty active. She plays basket ball, skate boards, uses my treadmill upstairs very regularly , and plays outside sports with her sibs. We are adding archery and some ice skating to the list next year. I would say over 3 hours a week is what she will do in ninth grade.

She also plays two instruments and sings in a choir, but I'm not counting any music this year or next. I think in 10th grade, I will have her take a music appreciation course or a music theory course. It will be about 1/2 hour a day course. She will also continue with her other musical ambitions which adds to the time, and I will call it a elective that year.

I also plan on some sort of foreign language for her last two years of high school.

Edited by Peacefulisle
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Dd does not spend any schooltime on PE because she dances (ballet) for many, many hours a week.

 

We are folding four years of art history into one arts credit. We've studied art along with ancient history and US history and visited museums and exhibitions over the years. Some weeks we'd do a lot. Others nothing at all.

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Personally, I do not plan to put PE on the transcript. And most private schools I have known just require a student do a sport or whatever to add up to the credit. And I think where I live, they only have to have 1 credit total. I know stuff like camping and archery and bowling are offered as PE credit. So I would at least make it fun, or make it some sort of sampler. I might have them swim over the summer. The next town over has some swimming life saving classes. I think that is an important skill so I think I might require that of them.

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On 5/18/2016 at 2:47 PM, ILiveInFlipFlops said:

… So I know that academic class credits assume 120-160 hours of work per week, but surely this isn't true for PE, especially when public schools don't really even do that anymore. How much time do you consider worthy of 1 credit?...


Actually, that's per YEAR, not per week to equal 1 credit. ? lol

A few thoughts on counting credits for high school classes (and, YMMV ? ?
- credits can be done without counting hours (as in completing a standard textbook -- usually a Math or Science course)
- to help stay on track or keep some consistency with credits, esp. "DIY" courses (often Fine Arts, Electives, Literature, or History) or "mushy" subjects where you could just go on and on (again, History and Lit.), you can count hours.

Chart for counting hours to help determine credits:
  .   .   .   .   .   .minimum  .average. maximum
1.00 credit = 120 - 150 - 180 hours
0.75 credit =   90 - 112 - 135 hours
0.66 credit =   80 - 100 - 120 hours
0.50 credit =   60 - 75 - 90 hours
0.33 credit =   40 - 50 - 60 hours
0.25 credit =   30 - 38 - 45 hours

The "minimum" for 1 credit is considered to be 120 hours, which is the Carnegie credit. That refers to 120 teacher contact hours, although it also assumes there will be additional hours spent on outside-the-class work.

The "maximum" for 1 credit is considered to be 180, which is based on typical public school requirements -- classes that run 45-50 min/day x 180 days of school year + weekly hours spent on homework, roughly comes out to 180 hours.
 
The 150 hours falls mid-way between 120 and 180 hours, so it makes a nice average, and gives you a very do-able range of 135-165 hours for 1 credit, to help keep your credits consistent. What you don't want is some credits -- maybe the 1 credit of PE or 1 credit of Fine Arts barely hitting 120 hours, yet having as much "weight" as 1 credit of an academic course such as Science that took 180 hours -- that's 1/3 again as much time spent from 1 credit to another 1 credit!

 

On 5/18/2016 at 2:47 PM, ILiveInFlipFlops said:

...in my planning, I'm aiming to meet the state's diploma requirements for public schools. These include three years of PE at .75 credits per year (and .25 credits per year of health)…

So I know that academic class credits assume 120-160 hours of work per week, but surely this isn't true for PE, especially when public schools don't really even do that anymore. How much time do you consider worthy of 1 credit? Do you think that any dedicated physical activity is enough, or do you feel like you need to make it a survey of sports and activities? And do I really need to subject my kid to square dancing to make it count?...


Just what I would do, as someone who shoots for the average for credits -- yes, even for things like PE -- Realize that many activities that you are probably already DOING can count towards PE:

- organized sports
- gym or home use of weight lifting, aerobics, yoga, etc
- family recreational time of hiking, backpacking, kayaking/canoeing, skiing, etc
- classes in martial arts, fencing, dance, etc.
- personal fitness of running; jump roping, biking, trampolining, swimming laps

What physical activities does your family/student already do? You can just log those hours. If your student participates in an organized sport only casually, you probably want to count that towards an extracurricular activity rather than "hiding" that activity that makes your student more interesting on a college admission application. Or, if your student is avidly into a sport and spends many hours a week at it, count some of the hours towards PE, and the majority towards the extracurricular activity.

For your desire to count 0.75 of PE per school year -- do remember you can count a variety of physical activities, and you can count activities done on weekends, in the summer, etc., as well as those hours accrued on school days. So:

0.75 credit of PE = 110-115 hours
(3 hours/week during the 36 weeks of a school year -- about 1 hour/day 3x/week)
(or, only 2 hours/week if spread over the 52 weeks of the whole year -- about 30 min/day 4x/week)

Just what I would do -- for Health, instead of counting hours, I would either get a complete 1-credit program, or, look at the table of contents of several solid Health curricula to see what topics to be sure to cover, and then once we had completed the program or checked off studying all the topics on our own, credit completed. Or, if you want to count hours, then:

0.25 credit of Health = 35-40 hours
(so, 1 hour/day, 4-5x/week for about 1 quarter/9 weeks)
(or, 1 hour/day 1x/week for 1 year/36 weeks)
(or, something in between)
 

On 5/18/2016 at 2:47 PM, ILiveInFlipFlops said:

I have a similar question for fine arts… How much time would you consider worthy of a fine arts credit? We'll be outsourcing that, and I don't see managing to fit in more than 2 hours per week of art classes of any kind. I can beef that up with museum trips etc., but only so much.


Similarly, I would shoot for 150 hours = 1 credit of Fine Arts. And, similarly, hours can be accrued not just during the school year, but over the summer as well. If Music, count hours of instruction, hours for instrument/voice practice, recitals, etc. If Art, count hours of instruction, but also hours spent on creating art at home -- painting, sketching, sculpting, jewelry making, stained glass, digital arts software use, etc. If Theater, you will have plenty of hours accrued in a short period of time, as the 2 weeks before performances, and the week(s) of performance are virtually full time hours. But also, hours of instruction, summer theater camp hours, etc. If Photography or Filmmaking, again, in addition to class hours/instruction hours,  there are a lot of hours put into the creation of the final photos or movie.

Another way of accruing hours towards Fine Arts is through Appreciation (Theater, Art, Music, Film) -- reading about the history of, the different periods/movements, key artists / musicians / filmmakers, looking at /listening to and analyzing key works of art, music, film, etc. That can be done at home, in the evenings, on weekends, over the summer, etc.

Hope that helps! You will get a range of answers, so that means there is no one absolute answer. I just encourage you not to swing too wide of the average, or too far off of what is typically counted as Fine Arts, PE, and Health, and you'll be fine. ?

BEST of luck as you begin planning for high school! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited by Lori D.
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As a NJ graduate, 4 years of PE/health is ingrained in my head.  :glare:   I'm all about keeping kids moving, but the academic angle is plain silly to me.

It looks as though their ps graduation requirement is still 4 years! http://www.frhsd.com/cms/lib8/NJ01912687/Centricity/Domain/19/9th%20requirements.pdf

 

For my kids, a season of softball/baseball more than covers the hours.  If any of them quits before graduation, I'll worry about it then.

 

 

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I'm only doing one year of formal "PE/health" credit for high school for my high schoolers who are on competitive swim team.  That may change for #3, but we shall see :)

 

All three high schools I attended required 1 year of health/PE to graduate.  Of course, none of them accepted the PE/Health done in a different state :p  At least my 3rd time through I was at home, and could do my own thing.

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I don't track hours for PE or fine arts.

 

Oldest kayaks, bikes, skiis, walks throughout the year, some years more than others. Will use the gym this fall at CC.

He doesn't do a bunch of artsy stuff, but enough here & there over the 4 years to count as what they recommend. (& just got back from a grand European museum tour) Plans to take art history or something as DE senior year too.

For health, he did a one semester curriculum, git ER done style.

 

Younger teen dances 4 nights a week, plus walking, snowshoeing, etc.

She also spends hours weekly, sometimes daily on artsy things- drawing, painting, photography. Sometimes takes outside art classes or 4 H projects as well. Goes to art museums when traveling, does set, make up, & costuming for local theater.

Spends more time on PE & arts than academics.

For health, she will do a life skills health curriculum, likely each year (has LDs & could use the repeat of info in different ways over the years)

 

Almost forgot about participation in choir, music, & attendance at local music events.

Edited by Hilltopmom
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Thank you all! That was really helpful and gave me a bunch of ideas on how to approach these requirements (love the reminder not to hide a valuable extracurricular within PE requirements). This kid is a sedentary one (like me--we're indoorsy people!), so it will be a trick to get moving enough to fill the requirements. But the plan, even before all of this high school mapping started, was that we would all start exercising as a family, so we're moving in the right direction. 

 

This kid has a September birthday, so I'm considering this year her 8th grade year as we hammer down some skills and concepts, but since I'm starting from scratch here, I want to get as far ahead of high school as I can. 

 

 

Actually, that's per YEAR, not per week to equal 1 credit. ;) lol

 

A few thoughts on counting credits for high school classes (and, YMMV :))...

 

:lol: Lori, I really appreciate all this information. Based on my reading so far, I was starting to formulate a baseline idea about what "credits" are in order to move forward, but you just filled in several gaps in my knowledge and corrected me in a couple of spots. That was pretty much exactly what I needed to know. 

 

As a NJ graduate, 4 years of PE/health is ingrained in my head.  :glare:   I'm all about keeping kids moving, but the academic angle is plain silly to me.

It looks as though their ps graduation requirement is still 4 years! http://www.frhsd.com/cms/lib8/NJ01912687/Centricity/Domain/19/9th%20requirements.pdf

 

For my kids, a season of softball/baseball more than covers the hours.  If any of them quits before graduation, I'll worry about it then.

 

 

Me too! And yes, you're right, it is still four. That's what my spreadsheet says, but I was remembering incorrectly (and was too lazy to go look since I was thinking about it annually anyway!). I'm not sure how I feel about the state only requiring 3 years of math and 1 (!!!) of world languages, but four stinking years of PE/Health. We'll step up, regardless, but I feel like there are some misplaced priorities there!

 

DH is Latino, so he says NO square dancing. There will be required salsa and merengue classes instead :lol: 

 

Thanks again, all. 

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We have on our transcript for this year (our first homeschool year, with a 9th grader)

Fine Arts Credits

.5 - Instrumental Music (we pulled him out of public school in October -- at the end of marching band season, and a quarter of symphonic band - so I just called them a semester together, and he did private lessons and continued to practice both clarinet and guitar for that time)

.5 Intro to Theater (he took two classes, one hour a week each - one was Acting I and one was Musical Theater plus some homework for each... and he volunteered as the Student Assistant Director for his younger brother's Drama Club which was 1-3 hours per week)

 

Physical Education:

.5 Hiking and Backpacking -- we hike a couple of miles one day per week for school, and take at least a 15 minute walk together every other day... plus he's prepping for a trip to Philmont scout ranch with the Boy Scouts and a 70 mile backpacking trip there with lots of extra hiking. I'm  counting all of that as PE for his transcript. In addition he's done 1st Aid and Backcountry 1st Aid and I'm bundling those into this "class", too.

 

Edited by theelfqueen
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90 hours a semester each for Fine Arts and PE credit.  I make DD15 log all of her PE hours.  She has been able to get to the 90 hours well before the end of the semester.  This spring, she had 140 hours by the end of April thanks to ski team, softball and spending a week snorkeling in the Carribean where she was in the water 5-6 hours a day.

 

Oh the rough life of a homeschooler!

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Thank you all! That was really helpful and gave me a bunch of ideas on how to approach these requirements ...

… DH is Latino, so he says NO square dancing. There will be required salsa and merengue classes instead :lol:

 

Sounds good! It is freeing to realize that you actually have MANY ways to accomplish some of these required classes, to the point of it's sometimes just logging hours you're already doing and checking off the box:  âˆš = credit completed -- no extra effort needed! :)

 

One last thought on the Fine Arts credit -- one way to do it if your student doesn't have a strong pull in a particular direction is to try 9 weeks each of 4 different things and call it "Introduction to Fine Arts", or, "Survey of Fine Arts". So, pick four 9-week quarters and make your own overview of Fine Arts and have fun dabbling in a variety of things:

 

9 weeks = art appreciation -- learn about art; pick one medium; learn the history, artists, movements; analyze specific works

9 weeks = performing arts -- "doing" art

9 weeks = visual arts -- creating art

9 weeks = studio arts -- creating art

9 weeks = digital arts -- creating art

9 weeks = design principles -- learn the foundation for art -- color, line, form, structure

 

 

Performing Arts ideas

- dance: salsa, ballroom, hip-hop/street dance, folk/ethnic dance, ballet, jazz, tap, ecclesiastical dance, etc.

- music -- instrument or vocal -- high school rock, pop, hip-hop, other group; mariachi band; church service music; traditional orchestra/band/choir; learn an instrument for personal enjoyment; etc.

- drama/theater -- stage craft/build sets and props; costuming; work stage crew for performances; direct a play; act/perform; etc.

- performance -- creation/performance of "acts" for audiences -- juggling, illusion, circus, acrobatics, etc.
 
Visual Arts ideas
- drawing, colored pencils, oil pastels, watercolors, painting
- print making, etching, silkscreening
- photography, filmmaking
 
Studio Arts ideas
- pottery, ceramics
- sculpture
- woodworking, metal work, art welding
- jewelry-making
- glassblowing, fused glass, stained glass
- textiles, weaving

 

 

Digital Arts ideas

- graphic design, web design

- 3-D -- computer animation (software: Maya, Blender, Flash)

- 2-D -- computer image creation/manipulation (software: Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, etc.)

- digital photography

- digital filmmaking and editing

 

Appreciation ideas

- music

- art, photography

- architecture

- dance

- drama/theater

- film

 

"Options for Fine Arts credit in high school??" -- very recent thread that might spark unusual ideas for a Fine Arts credit

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We are planning on 1 credit of PE made up of cross country and archery primarily.  We may throw in some bowling, skating, and golf because they're fun.  For Fine Arts, dd is playing flute in marching band, concert band, and symphonic orchestra through a music coop.  We're moving to NC next spring so I'm on the hunt for a similar program there so she can continue through High School.

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