Daily 'blocs' in highschool

[nobeatenpath]

Not sure what the accepted terminology is - I am not sure it fits 'block scheduling' - but my kid wants to try devoting at least a chunk of each learning day to just studying one subject. So every day we do maths, English, language 'maintenance' for Latin and Japanese, set reading, music theory and aural skills and then one day we do Chemistry, one day we do Roman Roads Greeks (including relevant Great Courses lectures, documentaries etc), one day we do Japanese language and culture (separate to the day he a lesson with his tutor) and one day we do Latin. I have said we can try for a month (then we are going away for holidays anyway) as we don't have activities at the moment.

 

 My worry is that he is going to forget a lot if we are only doing it once a week (like chemistry) and really cramming stuff in. My kid has never really been a unit studies/project work kind of kid so getting him to devote half a day to something is not something I have really tried (he flagged when he had four hour days at jewellery school).

 

Have you tried something remotely like this? Did it work?

[RootAnn]

I've not tried this - mostly because my kids, so far, don't do well with more than about an hour spent on any one subject. (Eldest's online classes have been longer, but that is interactive & that makes it feasible. Just her working on something by herself doesn't work for more than an hour. Sometimes, she doesn't make it even that long!)

 

But, I'll bump for you.

[Arcadia]

For high school chem/bio/physics, I had

3 hrs lab session weekly which includes writing and finishing the report by the end of 3hrs

1.5 hr lecture

1.5 hr tutorial

 

I think it is possible to squash into 2hr lab, 1hr reading, 1hr discussion for my oldest but when he did one week's worth of science in one afternoon, he end up feeling deprived compare to when we spread it out. 4hrs continuous for any subject isn't an issue with my oldest but he doesn't care for once weekly. He will remember for chem and physics because he will read those even during his leisure time but he will forget quite a lot of bio.

[AggieMama]

When I was in high school we took 4 classes in the fall and 4 in the spring. I did ok, although I think I could have done better if I had done one math a semester and a foreign language. I was ok with every other subject. I think different schedules work for different kids. You may want to look at a 2-3 day a week schedule to reinforce key concepts.

[Carrie12345]

I feel a lot more comfortable with a 2x/wk schedule.  One of my bigger concerns would be how much chaos one unexpected delay/event/illness/etc. could cause with a core subject that was only scheduled for once a week.

 

My 9th grader is plowing through a good chunk of math, French, and English this summer to lighten her school year schedule, but all three are still on the calendar for 2-3 short sessions/wk through the year to keep it all fresh and hopefully avoid any major detours.

[elegantlion]

We tried the once a week early in high school. It didn't work for us because it seemed like life was getting in the way and one hiccup in the schedule meant we were behind an entire week. 

 

What worked better was a more traditional college schedule with classes 2-3 x per week with homework assigned in between. We did a few half credit type classes on a block schedule, like formal logic. We did that 4x/ week for 10-12 weeks (can't remember) and then we were done. We also rotated the composition and literature portion of English so we weren't spending a huge amount of time on English each day. 

[Momto6inIN]

My 2 high schoolers like a modified block schedule. Mornings are for daily work, afternoons are for blocks.

 

They do math and Spanish and either grammar or writing or literature (or a combination of those) every day. Science seems to lend itself well to a block of time because they have a longer time period to do labs and write lab reports. They do that 2x/week for about 2.5 hours each. They also do their electives in a block. They usually do 2 half-credit electives spread out over the school year instead of 1 at a time each semester, so those are each 1x/week for 2.5 hours each. The electives they choose are not usually skill-based and they seem more "fun", so they are more likely to keep their momentum and retention is still good after a week away from them.

 

They do history every day also because I like to watch the lectures with them and have discussions, and with my youngers to work in throughout the day, it works better with *my* schedule to do it daily. But if they had their choice, they'd do history 2x/week in a block too.

 

My DD (7th grade) is much more structured than her brothers and strongly opposes any type of block schedule for her work. She highly enjoys checking off the boxes every single day for every single subject. Whatever, to each his own lol!

[vonfirmath]

We tried the once a week early in high school. It didn't work for us because it seemed like life was getting in the way and one hiccup in the schedule meant we were behind an entire week. 

 

What worked better was a more traditional college schedule with classes 2-3 x per week with homework assigned in between. We did a few half credit type classes on a block schedule, like formal logic. We did that 4x/ week for 10-12 weeks (can't remember) and then we were done. We also rotated the composition and literature portion of English so we weren't spending a huge amount of time on English each day. 

 

Our local high school has alternating A/B schedules.  ON A days, you take 4 classes a day, ~90 MIN EACH and on B days, you take 4 classes a day, ~90 min  a class.  Your schedule tells you which class you take which days and they alternate. So one week you have 3 A Days and 2 B days. The next week you have 3 B days and 2 A days.

[katilac]

I can't imagine it working for chemistry. The other stuff, probably so, but I don't see how you get through high school chemistry in one day per week. There's a limit to how  much information you can absorb at one time. 

 

Even for twice per week college courses, you are expected to be working in between. 

[Julie in MN]

We did a strange block schedule for ds's last semester of high school.  He was going through a difficult phase and had done only DE for first semester, then for his last semester at home he insisted he just work on one class at a time, until it was finished.  And it worked for him (for the one semester, at least).  I'd say he learned far more than he had when he paid partial attention to 6 different classes each day.  He really concentrated when it was just one class all day.  I was surprised.

 

But I agree with the others that the week in between might be too long. I don't think it would've worked for my ds to work all of one day and then not come back to the material again for a week.  Seems like a lot of time would be spent on review?  Maybe if it was a class that could be separated into units done discretely?

 

Julie

[nobeatenpath]

Thank-you so much everyone for all your suggestions and sharing your experience, this has been very helpful. I talked it over with my DS and we have gone with the 'A day, B day' schedule idea (and since Monday and Tuesday are half days for us due to outside commitments, decided to stick to 5 days a week, at least until we go away on holidays). We will still do language maintenance every day, and by his choice Algebra I (that was a surprise).

 

Julie I was super tempted by your one class at a time until it is finished! I am definitely keeping that idea for a future date ...

[wintermom]

We did a strange block schedule for ds's last semester of high school.  He was going through a difficult phase and had done only DE for first semester, then for his last semester at home he insisted he just work on one class at a time, until it was finished.  And it worked for him (for the one semester, at least).  I'd say he learned far more than he had when he paid partial attention to 6 different classes each day.  He really concentrated when it was just one class all day.  I was surprised.

 

But I agree with the others that the week in between might be too long. I don't think it would've worked for my ds to work all of one day and then not come back to the material again for a week.  Seems like a lot of time would be spent on review?  Maybe if it was a class that could be separated into units done discretely?

 

Julie

 

Our local Alternative High Schools use this method of doing one subject at a time until the course is finished. The students are typically a little older (17+) and work independently. They can have other extra-curricular activities going on during the school year as well, so there is some variety to the days.