Middle School Science -- How many hours?

[Sahamamama]

I realize that is a strange question, and I'm not (probably) going to actually log the hours, but as I'm planning for next year, I'd like a ballpark figure. We have all these resources (for Chem & Phys) that will (probably) work at the middle school level. Instead of minutely planning out "do this in Week 1," and so on, I am considering assigning an amount of time spent moving through these resources. But I have no idea what is reasonable, or customary, or the generally accepted middle school standard. I can't seem to Google it, either.

 

Any ideas? We plan to go from September through the end of June, so about ten months, with a few short breaks in there. Is 200 hours reasonable? That breaks down to about 20 hours a month, or 5+/- hours a week. This number would include "everything:" 

• Video lesson -- about 30 minutes per week
• Group reading(s) -- about 1 hour per week
• Independent reading -- about 1 hour of reading
• Notebook, written summary -- about 30 minutes of writing
• Hands-on lab(s) -- about 2 hours per week

Does that seem about right for 6th grade? I can't seem to get a grasp on what is a good target to shoot for, time wise. Help me, please. :confused1:

[Arcadia]

My 6th grader did Clover Creek Physics which is taught by WTMer MorningGlory and use Hewitt Conceptual Physics textbook. It was 30-45mins of daily reading and exercises, then 1-2hrs of lab (including doing and writeup). He also attended a 30 weeks x 3hrs of a homeschool lab class just for being with peers.

He did chem and bio informally. We do all three sciences every year and spiral up.

 

Looking at a random public school 6th grade schedule, they have 3 x 75mins weekly of science. So 3hr 45mins of science.

A private achool we looked at have two sessions of science per week for 6th grade, one at classroom and one at laboratory.

 

I know my neighbors didn't have science homework in the public middle school other than a science fair project.

[stlily]

In TWTM they include a schedule as a general guideline for the amount of time a student should/could spend on a subject. They listed 1 1/2 hour of science study, two days per week for a 6th grader. This would be a total of 3 hours a week or 108 per school year if the school year is 36 weeks long, which is the average.  We tend to spend closer to 4 hours a week on science.  I think your the hours you calculated are reasonable, in my opinion.  You'll have to consider the student work load in his other subjects as well. Hope this helps.

[Momto6inIN]

My 6th graders have each spent approx 45 min 4 times a week. That includes reading, experiments, and very simple lab reports.

[Sahamamama]

Thanks, everyone! This helps!

[J&JMom]

My boys spend about 30 minutes a day on Science. This includes reading/outlining the textbook and labs Monday-Thursday. I plan on 1 lab per week. Add in a nonfiction read aloud on most Fridays for another 20-30 minutes. Every quarter or two we watch a documentary series (several hours) and longer lab/projects.  Annually we have several field trips and a 'science fair' project which takes about 2 weeks to set up, write up, and present. 

Edited July 6, 2016 by J&JMom

[Holly]

I'm planning on about 3 hours per week.  We have a 40 minute video (every other week or so).  I'm planning 1-1.5 hours for our weekly lesson & experiment, plus another 30 minutes for a hands-on science kit (this will be on a separate day).  We'll also have a 1-2 nature study lessons per week (at most 15-30 minutes per week).  I have a couple scientist biographies to assign them as well, but this will be for their free reading time.

[MinivanMom]

My middle school kids have spent about 45 min on science, 4 days per week. So they average about 3 hrs total time per week. When they have a week where they are working on time-intense labs, I have them take a break from the regular daily science reading/outlining/reports. Otherwise they would be spending an overwhelming amount of time on science.

 

But if your kid is a big science lover, then it's probably fine to do everything all at once and spend closer to 5-6 hrs. My oldest two are humanities-kids and wouldn't have been happy spending so much time on science.

[MerryAtHope]

200 hours seems like a lot, but since a lot of it is labs, it might be okay. I aimed for about 45 minutes daily in junior high, to help my kids ramp up to the hour per day for high school science (about 180 hours for a credit). You might have one day a week that goes over for labs though (or you may want to take a school day once a month and do *just* science labs, to get a bunch done at once, if you don't like doing them weekly). 

[fourisenough]

My 6th grader will do DO Physical Science this year. I have scheduled it for (based on past threads on this board re: DO PS time estimates) 1-hour per day, 4-days per week.