How much time do you spend doing school?

[displace]

I'm curious how many hours in a week you "do school"? Including direct instruction, free reading, work alone, anything. If you could include a grade level too, that would be helpful.

 

I'm curious because I felt like when we homeschooled we were constantly working and I think it led to some burnout. But we were doing a lot of therapies, commuting, etc. The typical homeschooling answers are about an hour per grade from my recollection, but we were way beyond that. Maybe 4-5 hours per day x 5 days per week in second grade, plus therapy?

 

After observing the inefficiency of PS, I'm thinking about how effective we were and considering our options for future education.

Edited November 2, 2016 by displace

[wendyroo]

My 2e, 7 year old, 2nd grader spends 2ish hours on obligatory "school" four days a week.  This breaks down to 30ish minutes of math, 30ish minutes of language arts, 30ish minutes of history or science or art and 30ish minutes split between Spanish and piano.  He also does math on 2-3 "non-school" days each week.

 

That bring him to about 10-11 hours of formal school each week.  Of that time, about 60% is direct instruction/being read to/discussion/working with me, about 30% is working "on his own" right next to me and asking me frequent questions and about 10% is true independent work where I have walked away for 5 minutes and he actually accomplishes some small, concrete goal while I am gone.  

 

I aim for 45 minutes daily of literature read aloud to the older boys (and 20 minutes to the younger kids), but I expect I would do that even if they were in a B&M school.  The 7 year old also chooses to do free reading for 3ish hours each day (quite a bit at bedtime and in the early morning because he has a hard time sleeping).  He has an hour of therapy each week, gets dragged along to an hour of speech therapy for his siblings, has two hour long gym classes and a 30 minute piano lesson.

 

All together, formal school + reading and extracurriculars take up less than half of his waking hours each week, which leaves plenty of time for meals, chores, errands and appointments, hygiene, outside time, lego time, Daddy time, screen time, etc.

 

Wendy

[Lecka]

I was in my daughter's 2nd grade class volunteering for Fall Party on Friday afternoon, and I found it very well-run and efficient, with the children quick to follow their routines and help other kids to do what they needed.

 

But the main academic times of day are reading block and math block, totaling about 2 hours a day. They have probably an hour more of this and that that I would consider academic.

 

Specials, lunch, recess, snack, and social times take up the rest if the day.

 

The social times and down times go way down in 4th grade. Way, way down. Through 3rd they are a lot.

 

I hear this bc my son with autism has programs designed for him during the down and socioal times to practice social or participation skills, and I hear as a given that the opportunity for this declines abruptly in 4th grade.

 

I would hope for orderly and efficient even if they are doing circles or activities that are not particularly academic but maybe more fun or related to a random theme.

 

I would say in public school 2nd grade here 2 hours solid and 3 hours counting peripheral stuff that could possibly count.

 

But I think my kids like the down time and random themes and get a lot out of it, and I am pleased with my younger son's IEP services right now.

 

However when my oldest son was in 2nd grade I afterschooled a ton for him to stay at all caught up in reading, he needed much more time/help/practice/repetition.

 

Edit: overall I see the hour-per-grade for 2nd grade as realistic, if it would not be realistic for my older son who needed more time for reading and struggled with math facts etc.

 

School is finally easier as his strengths show more, and he is a good reader now, and his writing is doing better this year.

 

So I think generally yes 2 hours in 2nd grade, but not with reading remediation. But could you let some things go besides reading remediation? Eh, I don't know. Pros and cons with whatever you choose I am afraid.

Edited November 2, 2016 by Lecka

[PeterPan]

And the ps is assigning some reading, maybe 20 minutes a night, which really puts them at 2 1/2 hours a day, by Lecka's calculations.  Homeschool advice is usually grade + 1, including reading time.  So really, if you figure the ps is probably doing some social studies or science or art or something 15-30 minutes each day that we would include in our totals, then they're about the same, 2-3 hours a day for 2nd.

 

Our stuff takes longer, because ds needs a lot more support to stay regulated and gets so many breaks, basically double that.  We WANT him having that amount of interaction, so I'm not trying to get the time down or make him more independent.  I'm also not doing as much hyper-custom as you were.  I find idiotically simple stuff tutors can use that is open/go. We read books and play games.  Really low key.

Edited November 2, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[Guest]

My SN kiddo is 13 years old, working somewhere around a 1st-3rd grade level, depending on the subject. He is extremely resistant to "schoolwork" and teaching him is like pulling teeth. I keep it to a minimum. It comes to about an hour per day (not counting therapies).

Edited November 2, 2016 by Kinsa

[Guest]

Expounding on my answer:

 

This child gets lost in his imaginative play, which I think is beneficial to his cognitive development. I let him play as much as possible.

 

Math is about 10-15 minutes per day, but then he plays Prodigy on the computer, and he'll do that for a really long time.

 

Language is about 15 minutes per day, but then I read to him for 30 to 60 minutes each night before bed.

 

Handwriting is sheer torture for him. Five minutes a day.

 

Science and history are "tag along" subjects for him, where he just listens in or "assists" when I'm teaching his 10 year old brother. Those come to about a half hour per day.

 

I do home therapies with him, mostly OT but also a bit of ST. I spend about 15 minutes per day on those.

Edited November 2, 2016 by Kinsa

[Heathermomster]

When DS was 5th grade, he worked with a reading tutor 3 hours per week, at 3pm. We rotated history and science every 2 weeks and those subjects took at least 30 minutes. I scribed while he practiced typing 20 min per day. Language and math took 20-30 min each, and DS used audio books for literature. Bible took 15 minutes. DS also wrestled and went to practice several times per week. I guess he worked close to 3 hrs per day plus the Wilson tutor. Also, my DD was 2.5 yo at the time and suffered issues associated with a birth defect which required extensive surgery and recovery. DS and I both fondly look on that time together.

Edited November 3, 2016 by Heathermomster

[kbutton]

My third grader probably does 5 hours per day with therapies and extracurriculars (music, etc.), but we are also not getting to all the things every day. I compact things when he's got it and expand on things when they need to marinate. He is a bit scattered. He is not a fast worker (2e). We tend to do more than one resource per subject in a couple of areas because he needs more than one approach, but then I kind of compact those resources or go back and forth. Also, we might have one day that's grammar heavy, but math light. Or a math heavy day. Or a speech heavy day. If I tried to do all the things each day, we'd be going in circles. If we couldn't skip some assignments or linger on others, we'd be a mess as well. It would not work out the same, and we'd probably not get done in 4-5 hours.

[Sk8ermaiden]

My DD is in 2nd grade...10-15 hours a week?

 

And she does gymnastics, lego league, aerial silks/lyra, girl scouts, and sometimes the science classes at the local nature center, but I didn't count that...though the nature center wouldn't vary the totals much. She reads herself to sleep at night too, or in the car, etc, but it's not assigned so I don't keep track.

Edited November 3, 2016 by Sk8ermaiden

[displace]

Thank you so far, these are good ranges to know. I'm mentally putting together some starting plans. Idk if we'll need them or not, but the honeymoon of PS is starting to end for DS (mine has already been over 😂). DS has become more independent since PS - naturally, and I think he'd work more compliantly with me, and I'm taking care of other issues I need to, just in case.

[eternalsummer]

I read on these forums that 8filltheheart does 1 hour per year of school, and that is more or less what we do, so it was reassuring.

[samba]

I haven't tracked our hours, Like Kinsa's ds, my ds15 is very resistant to schoolwork. I keep it short and sweet. Reading often doubles as history or science. So does writing. Math is difficult and tedious but getting better, I think.

 

Ds has out-of-the-house activities every day that are very important to him (and us) and I consider part of his therapy/school (swimming, art, piano, martial arts, flag football). These are just as important to us as his academics.

 

Ds loves reading and being read to, listening to audiobooks, drawing/coloring, building with legos, creating things in our basement, shooting hoops, jumping on the trampoline, getting lost in imaginative play outside (he can spend more hours with one stick than I thought possible, lol). Whenever I start to feel guilty or pressured about his lack of "academic" time on-task, I remind myself that his time is spent productively and is what he needs developmentally. 

 

 

[PeterPan]

Displace, that independence and realization that he CAN be a self-starter and CAN make things happen for himself can be good!  You can harness that!  It's always in the minds of my team people who come in.  They're always looking for ways to bring in independent work, etc. etc.  And I agree, it's a catch 22, but I also think it sort of goes with the efficient brain of engineers.  At least that's what I tell myself.   :lol:  I'm trying to make more choices that work WITH that tendency, rather than against.  

[displace]

The independence is only because of school and not transferring easily to home/after school yet. He likes me working with him closely because I'm there to give him tricks and tips and show him new, faster ways to do things. But if I'm considering homeschooling again, I need a limit of direct instruction for me to sustain a long term, healthy goal. I am exhausted after 4-5 hours of work, with a lot of it direct instruction or quick assignments from him of only 5-10 min. Plus, I'm thinking ahead of DD starts K at home, PS, or what.

 

I think, because his reading is more independent now, I would have more freedom of instruction. And, seeing how little the school does with some subjects, I'm more at ease with the pace we had before we enrolled in PS.

 

ITA that counting therapeutic activities is included in school too, as well as extracurriculars, and even play dates. Our need for multiple breaks wears me out though. My personality needs to focus, and breaks so often are hard, unless I'm working. But then I do housework and I'm focused on that and our ten min break becomes 30 😄

[MistyMountain]

I was wondering this too because I only will have so much time to work directly and I worry it is not enough time. I am considering whether to pull my child or not. Last year he was much better at learning from the school to work independently. This year not so much.

[displace]

I was wondering this too because I only will have so much time to work directly and I worry it is not enough time. I am considering whether to pull my child or not. Last year he was much better at learning from the school to work independently. This year not so much.

Us too. I had another emotional morning with DS. We have no electronics before at least some work and a breakdown over "no one else has to work on the weekend". After discussing that quite a few people work on weekends, and we don't live our lives based on others' lives, then I talked about how we MUST do X curriculum, whether or not he's in public school. And we may have to start doing Y curriculum just to pass PS requirements. Sigh. There are only so many hours in the day, we all have challenges, but I refuse to not do the best I can wrt his disabilities. And a lot is direct instruction.

[mom of 2 boys]

My 5 year old son is 2e, we do about 4 - 5 hours of formal sit down school per week, and he also does classes at the YMCA for about 3.5 hours per week on top of that (art/gym/swim). He's not in therapy right now. 

[shinyhappypeople]

Daughter with LDs spends maybe 1-1/2 hours on traditional academics and that's about what she can handle.  If I add in the Lit program I'm considering she'll be working 2 hours a day.  I wish she were able to handle a larger volume of work, but it is what it is.  She works hard (just not long) and I'm proud of her progress. :)

[displace]

Thanks, all. I've been thinking a lot of PS hours, homeschooling hours, summer work, etc. This has been helpful for general plans while we continue the PS trial.

Edited November 9, 2016 by displace