Typical length of hours for academics in High School?

[j_thurm]

Hi, how long is a typical high school day for academics in a homeschooled High School curriculum?  My child will be starting 9th grade this year for a reference.  Thanks!

[Hilltopmom]

Ds spends around one hour per day per subject, more on math.

 

Number of subjects change depending on the semester & outside commitments.

 

His extra curriculars are academic as well & very time demanding (20-30 hours per week at times during the year, for robotics team & science fair projects)

He also did an internship this year.

His hobbies are academic in nature, so it does seem like he's always doing school-like stuff.

 

Gone are the days of "schoolwork for an hour then let's head to the park to play with friends!" ;)

 

Eta- on days he has classes at the CC,it's longer,,since he has class time plus needs to spend time doing the work for them too

Edited May 30, 2017 by Hilltopmom

[Carrie12345]

We don't really have any "typical" days in our house.  It's not unusual for a day at home to be focused on school from 9am to 8pm  (or more), but it IS unusual for us to have a full day at home, which is why it can run from 9am to 8pm!  My kids do tend to dilly dally when it comes to reading/researching, so that plays into it, too.  I give assignments, not schedules.  I may consider changing that up a little bit in the coming year, but we'll see!

[regentrude]

In 9th and 10th grade, I expected six hours of seat work per day - enough to do five credits in the core subjects and some for electives.

 

I stopped paying attention to hours when they started DE classes.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I assign stuff and it takes my kid however long it takes him.  I really don't know.  I tried other ways, but I found I get the best work/results doing it this way. 

 

 

[SebastianCat]

A good rule of thumb is that 1 high school credit = 150 hours of work on average.   For a school year of 180 days, that equals 50 minutes of work, 5 days a week, per class.  Some subjects, like math, may take longer.  

 

We don't keep track of exact hours, but last year in 9th grade my DS typically spent at least 6 hours doing school.   Some days were much longer.   

[Garga]

Here was our last year (9th grade):

 

Monday and Wednesday: 8-8:20 bible.

8:30-11:20: academics

11:20-12:00: lunch

12-3:30: academics

 

6.5 on academics

 

Tuesday and Thursday: 8-8:20 bible

8:30-10:50: academics

10:50-12:50: karate and lunch

12:50-3:30: academics

 

5 on academics

 

Friday: 8-8:20 bible

8:30-4:30 academics, with an hour lunch break

 

7 on academics

 

Total of 30 hours/week, or 31.5 hours/week including bible time.

 

In addition to his 3 hours a week at karate, he also worked 15-20 hours a week at McDonald's.

 

Before he had the job, there were a number of times where he didn't get his work done during the week and he would do some of it on the weekend. After he got the job, I pulled out my crazy-awesome planning/coordinating skills to constantly shuffle his workload around so that he could get it all done during the week. Even so, he never had time to properly do some of his Astronomy work, so he'll be finishing that up over the summer. Oh joy.

 

If he didn't have the job, I would probably have expected about 4 hours of work on the weekends to bring the weekly total up to 34-35 hours/week for school. Next year I won't let him work as many hours at McDonalds--10 will be the limit. He needs one day off each weekend to have wiggle room to finish up schoolwork, because this year felt so rushed and pressured to get his work done.

 

Note: he has ADHD and we *have* to get his work done before the meds wear off or all bets are off. If he takes the meds in order to be ready to go by 8:30, then once 3:30/4:00 hits, he is incapable of focusing on schoolwork. I would try to squeeze an extra hour out of him on Fridays, but it was usually frustrating to everyone. This was a huge impact on how we did things and why I felt that we were always racing the clock to get things done.

[j_thurm]

Thank you so much for the responses!  I think it is just hard to not have those free park days :)

[regentrude]

Thank you so much for the responses!  I think it is just hard to not have those free park days :)

 

You can still fit them in - just work a bit longer into the summer. Of 365 days in a year, schools only use 180. 

[Garga]

Gone are the days of "schoolwork for an hour then let's head to the park to play with friends!" ;)

 

 

In 8th grade, we went on over 20 field trips.  

 

In 9th grade, it was only 3 and they were on Saturdays.

 

I've tried working all year round so that we have more time off during the school year, and I've tried having a very short summer vacation so we have more time off during the school year, but it doesn't seem to work for us.  Somehow following the traditional school schedule is what works (August to late May/early June). 

 

But I miss our field trips so this summer I'm planning a bunch of field trips and then in late August we'll be back to hitting the books all day.

 

Someone had posted in another thread that she wanted to find other high school homeschoolers so that her kids would have someone to do daytime activities with, but if she found us she still wouldn't have someone to do daytime activities with.  We're schooling all day at this point.  Our time with friends is in the evening or on weekends.

 

I miss the old days when 20 days of our 180 day school year could be in field trips and we still could get the academics done.  And I feel bad for my youngest who really misses the field trips, but now that his brother is in high school, we don't have the time for them.  I'm actually at the computer right now because I'm supposed to be making a little plan for our summer that includes field trips so that I don't let the summer get away from us without going on them.  :)

Edited May 30, 2017 by Garga

[Lanny]

There are threads of the past about this on WTM.  The Workload from Middle School to High School more or less doubles. From High School to University, it doubles again.  More hours will be needed.

[mirabillis]

Gone are the days of "schoolwork for an hour then let's head to the park to play with friends!" ;)

 

 

 

!! Agree wholeheartedly!! School takes all day now, until 3-4pm every day. 8th grade we finished by noon - 9th grade a whole new ballgame.

[mirabillis]

And I feel bad for my youngest who really misses the field trips, but now that his brother is in high school, we don't have the time for them. 

 

Me too! Kinder for my oldest looked far different than kinder for my youngers now that they have a high school sibling. Figure it'll all even out in the wash.

[j_thurm]

So glad to hear other comments and to know that we are all together in this :)

[j_thurm]

Me too! Kinder for my oldest looked far different than kinder for my youngers now that they have a high school sibling. Figure it'll all even out in the wash.

 

I am in the same boat!  Hoping that is true!

[Lori D.]

It really does depend on the student, the amount of credits, the rigor of the credits, and the involvement in other activities. And, of course, your goals as the homeschooling parent.

Both DSs were average/slightly above average in school work, and were NOT self-motivated learners nor were they that interested in "school". I had one DS with mild LDs, so we had to spend some time every day on remedial work, AND he could only manage to stay focused on math for 45-50 minutes a day at MOST. So those were things we had to work around.

Our experience in moving from middle school to high school was NOT such a gigantic jump in time/rigor -- BUT, we were not doing rigorous Honors or AP work in high school. We were average, and we transitioned very slowly, so we were only adding about another 30-45 minutes a day in school work to go from middle school to high school.

DSs did NOT do any AP classes, and did not do any dual enrollment classes at the community college until 12th grade (and that DOES make your homeschool schedule much tighter and more difficult).

For high school, we were able to do focused/concentrated school work for about 5.5-6 hours a day, Mon-Thurs, and then maybe just 2 hours on the Fridays that we had extracurriculars. In 9th grade DSs were doing extracurriculars 3 Fridays per month; by 12th grade they were only doing 1, sometimes 2 Fridays a month. One of the extracurriculars I made sure we did was to schedule about 6 field trips per year for when DSs were in middle school up through grade 10-11. The other Friday extracurriculars were activities with the homeschool group -- Student Council and social activities that DSs helped to plan and execute as members of the Student Council.

Other extracurriculars DSs did included church Youth Group (year-round), YMCA Youth & Government (fall semester), and public high school tennis team (spring semester).

We almost never did homework (schoolwork in the evenings or weekends), but we did do family read-alouds through high school (in 9th grade we were able to do that 2-3x/week, but by 12th grade we could only manage 1x/week). We also had a regular weekly family game night or movie night just for fun and keep connected. We worked a solid 36-week school year, and we did have "summer school" several years in order to complete the Math and once in awhile some other subject needed an extra 1-3 weeks for finishing up.

It was VERY important to me to make sure our family had balance in our lives, and that DSs had regular "down time" to recharge, to fiddle around with personal interests, and to have time to continue to develop friendships. For example, probably at least once a month during high school, DSs would get together on a Saturday and go airsofting with friends. Just my personal goal, but it was very important to me that DSs learn how to balance work and personal interests and physical activity and friendships. I did not see how that was going to be possible for DSs if they were doing schoolwork/academics 40 hours/week.

So, we focused on quality, not quantity with our school hours; we did lots of interesting and educational extras regularly throughout high school (documentaries, field trips, etc), and we did loads of thinking and discussing in our everyday life, esp. as we were commuting to extracurriculars, or me driving them back and forth to their dual enrollment classes.

To sum up: just our experience, but throughout high school we were averaging about 22-24 hours/week in 9th grade, and more like 25-26 hours/week by 12th grade, and had a good balance of extracurriculars and personal life, and we managed a total of 25-26 credits in high school. Looking back, and considering the personalities, strengths/interests of my two DSs, and what they have done since high school, I would not do it differently.

BEST of luck to each family, as you plan what high school needs to look like for each of YOUR high school students. ? Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited September 25, 2018 by Lori D.

[MerryAtHope]

There are basically 2 ways to do credits for high school--one is "materials-based" (ie, finish the Algebra 1 book, get 1 credit for Algebra), and the other is "time-based" (150-180 hours for an academic credit is pretty standard. Some go down to 120 hours for elective credits). 

 

I did a mix of the two, depending on what I was using and also on my student's needs. Using only time could penalize a student who works quickly (why make them spend an hour on math if they can get the work done accurately in less time?). Using only "materials-based" methods could penalize a student who does good work but isn't as fast (one year we did a history program that often took 2 hours a day--I decided that I would make some cuts to what we did and how we did it after that.) You do have to know your student (does it take a long time because they don't read as fast as other students or they need more time to process, or does it take a long time because they dawdle/daydream/play on their phones?) 

 

It's good to plan roughly an hour per day per credit, and then build in a bit of wiggle room for extra discussion time, a hard concept that needs more time than usual, occasional extra reading that doesn't impact the typical schedule, etc...

 

I found my kids generally spent 6.5-7 hours for 6 credits of work.

 

HTH !

[J-rap]

For us, it was generally 5-6 hours.  We always began at 9am.  My kids were often in sports clubs and other extra curricular activities which began at 3:30, so they were done by then.  Occasionally they'd have evening homework, but not often.

 

[Lori D.]

PS
Just want to also caution about planning for high school, and the possibility of over-scheduling, or pushing too hard too early, either of which can cause burn-out in a student (and parent!). This is esp. true with a student who has special needs -- either learning issues, or a delayed learner, or a gifted/accelerated learner. But is also an easy trap to fall in to with an average student, thinking somehow the student *should* be doing more when compared to some other student.

Absolutely need to make sure your teen is getting PLENTY of sleep -- teens need MORE sleep for good physical and mental maturing. AND make sure your teen is having unrushed/unstructured time to explore personal interests that may become lifelong hobbies or activities that are the very thing that allow the student to de-stress.

Here are two food-for-thought articles:

I Homeschool Network: "High School Burnout"
Love how this author stressed the importance of building time for fun and personal interests, and regularly scheduling *margin* into the homeschool schedule. 

Psych Central: "Forget the Ivies: Some Kids Bur Out From Stress Before College"
While this focuses on public school students, a lot of this is applicable to homeschool parents who are stressing about their students getting into a good college or needing merit aid to go to college, and so push the advanced/rigorous academics when the student might not be ready for it yet, or when it might not be a good fit for that student

Most of all, I just encourage you, that when planning for high school, don't worry about "what everyone else is doing". You know your own student. ? You know where you student is in her/his education and abilities. And you know what your student needs to keep moving forward in skill development and academics, as well as life skills and personal interests. Be gentle on yourself and your student, and plan for success and NOT burning out by building in flexibility and "wiggle room" in your schedule. Wishing you all the BEST of luck as you plan for high school! ?

Edited September 25, 2018 by Lori D.

[MerryAtHope]

 

Most of all, I just encourage you, that when planning for high school, don't worry about "what everyone else is doing". You know your own student. :) You know where you student is in her/his education and abilities. And you know what your student needs to keep moving forward in skill development and academics, as well as life skills and personal interests. Be gentle on yourself and your student, and plan for success and NOT burning out by building in flexibility and "wiggle room" in your schedule. Wishing you all the BEST of luck as you plan for high school! :)

 

YES to all of this! (And definitely about the sleep--teens generally need as much as toddlers!)

[j_thurm]

Wow, thank you Lori, and all the other responses!  That was very helpful.  I can't wait to read the articles more closely as I am planning high school.  I just love the support on this site.  It has been a tremendous help and blessing to me on this journey!

[Chrysalis Academy]

Yes, I want to third Lori's last post, and also say that it's really important to be flexible. I was all set to have one kind of school year for 9th, but then dd developed a chronic illness in August, just before school started.  We had to be flexible and be willing to change plans. She has good days and bad days, and emotional and social and physical therapy needs on top of the academic stuff. 9th grade didn't look how I thought it would look, but given all the difficulties, we've had a successful year. I'm grateful we were homeschooling so that we could accommodate dd's needs - at least we didn't have the stress of getting "behind" academically in school on top of everything else. But we've had to do shorter days and a longer school year, and we've had to cut back some credits, in box-checking classes that aren't strong interests, to make it all work.  So she'll have 6.5-7 credits by the end of summer, but not all of them are up to the level of rigor that I had originally intended (which may have been unrealistic anyway!  :001_rolleyes: )

[Lori D.]

...dd developed a chronic illness in August...

 

:grouphug: Rose & DD  :grouphug:  So sorry to hear about the chronic illness! Hope it will be something that resolves/heals!

[Saddlemomma]

I also have an incoming Freshman, and I'm worried about burnout already!  We have 10 classes scheduled; five classes/day, 80 mins. each on an alternating, block schedule. These are classes DD WANTS and is excited about.  Twice, since we finished school on the 12th, she has come to me and told me how extremely excited she is about the upcoming year.  She has even tentatively suggested we may be able to start early!  Six of the classes are core, including a foreign language (Japanese, which I'm nervous about) and four are electives that DD just can't wait to dive into.

 

I'm also excited right now, but I'm also worried it will be too much.  While I don't designate AP or Honors, many of these classes are meaty enough to garner those designations. Most are using college-level resources with lots of primary documents, academic and research papers.  Again, what DD wants.

 

Another issue is that DD likes to delve extremely deeply into a subject she's interested in.  That is why we can't use normal, planned-out curricula and the reason for the heavy-duty resources for most of her classes. It took me years to realize that the reason DD was bored with school was because most curricula were only scraping the surface of content as far as DD was concerned. She got bored with all of it early on. That's when I started actually composing her curricula myself.

This makes it extremely difficult to limit any of her classes to one semester. I struggle with that. However, I have no problem scaling back or dropping a class if necessary.  Unfortunately for DD, the first class dropped will be one of her eagerly anticipated electives if necessary.  Hopefully, we both will be able to maintain momentum and enthusiasm.

 

I will say that I've never seen DD so excited about an upcoming school year.  It's quite refreshing.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Well, 10 classes does seem a little ambitious! But a student's buy-in and enthusiasm is priceless. One option could be to spread out some of the electives over multiple years - that way she still gets to cover the content she wants, but you don't feel the need to do them all every day/every other week.

 

My dd ended up having essentially three credits worth of stuff that could have been called English, and we ended up breaking it into three separate classes, one official English class and two electives - Theater & Film, & Creative Writing. Between those three classes and her History credit (where we went into historical background of the time periods of the literature she was reading, so it was heavily lit-inspired too) she was able to go really deeply into the subjects that she is passionate about.  OTOH Math, Science, and Spanish were just get 'er done subjects, with minimal time spent/material covered. There was no way we could have done all 7 classes to the same depth.

 

I use content-based crediting for Math & Spanish, and time-based accounting for the other subjects.  Buy that reckoning, dd completed Creative Writing 1 (with 180 hours of work) in the beginning of April and is already well into Creative Writing 2.  She's wrapping up her other high-interest subjects as we speak, but Math, Science, and Spanish will all carry over into the summer.  That's how I was able to give her "permission" to spend extra time on the high-interest subjects over the school year - she had to commit to completing the must-dos over the summer. It was worth it for her.

Edited May 31, 2017 by Chrysalis Academy

[Lori D.]

On 5/31/2017 at 8:14 AM, Saddlemomma said:

I also have an incoming Freshman, and I'm worried about burnout already!  We have 10 classes scheduled; five classes/day, 80 mins. each on an alternating, block schedule. These are classes DD WANTS and is excited about...

...I'm also excited right now, but I'm also worried it will be too much...However, I have no problem scaling back or dropping a class if necessary...

...Hopefully, we both will be able to maintain momentum and enthusiasm... I will say that I've never seen DD so excited about an upcoming school year.  It's quite refreshing.

Wow, Saddlemomma, how exciting!   :hurray: And it sounds like you are being very aware so as to not burn out. ?

Just a quick question to consider about the block scheduling: often students who go deep have a very difficult time switching gears to a new subject. Will DD be okay switching gears repeatedly after intense time blocks to different subjects -- and again all over again the next day with 5 completely different topics?

Also, will this amount of credits leave time (or mental energy) for enjoying/exploring any extracurricular activities -- or perhaps the elective credits ARE doing that for DD?

And finally, just a thought -- and please discard if not helpful ;): Since DD is so eager to start, couldn't she start enjoying doing 1 of her 4 electives this summer? That way she's busy and engaged now while enthusiasm is running high. And she's getting practice for next school year (you could set the timer and go for 80 minutes and practice what one block of time feels like and if that looks like it will work). And, DD could knock out 1 credit in advance of starting in the fall, which would give you some wiggle room in the schedule (80 minutes every other day) to use towards any other courses if needed.

Just a thought! ? Have a GREAT, deep, and varied 9th grade, Saddlemomma! ?

Ideas for anyone who finds a "DIY" credit is running long (we had to do some of these for our DIY History and Literature credits  :o ):

- in advance, make a note of which 1-2 books or resources could be dropped if starting to run long
- in advance, make a note of a few chapters in the textbook that could be skipped, if needed
- track hours, and once you hit a certain time limit (ex: 150-180 hours), close the books, credit is done -- if the student is still interested, the rest of the books could be done as personal interest over the summer -- or, plan to continue tracking hours, and count the course for the additional credit earned
- not everything has to be for credit -- some things (esp. Elective subjects) work fine as extracurriculars or personal hobbies/exploration as the student is interested in pursuing them in free time -- that takes the pressure off having to do a certain amount to meet credit requirements
- some credits can be casual accumulation of hours/work over several summers or over several school years
- not every credit has to be high rigor with a lot of output; while it's good to have mostly consistent credits as far as time/rigor, it's okay to have a few "lite" or "box checking" or "get 'er done" credits

Edited September 25, 2018 by Lori D.

[Saddlemomma]

Well, 10 classes does seem a little ambitious! But a student's buy-in and enthusiasm is priceless. One option could be to spread out some of the electives over multiple years - that way she still gets to cover the content she wants, but you don't feel the need to do them all every day/every other week.

 

My dd ended up having essentially three credits worth of stuff that could have been called English, and we ended up breaking it into three separate classes, one official English class and two electives - Theater & Film, & Creative Writing. Between those three classes and her History credit (where we went into historical background of the time periods of the literature she was reading, so it was heavily lit-inspired too) she was able to go really deeply into the subjects that she is passionate about.  OTOH Math, Science, and Spanish were just get 'er done subjects, with minimal time spent/material covered. There was no way we could have done all 7 classes to the same depth.

 

I use content-based crediting for Math & Spanish, and time-based accounting for the other subjects.  Buy that reckoning, dd completed Creative Writing 1 (with 180 hours of work) in the beginning of April and is already well into Creative Writing 2.  She's wrapping up her other high-interest subjects as we speak, but Math, Science, and Spanish will all carry over into the summer.  That's how I was able to give her "permission" to spend extra time on the high-interest subjects over the school year - she had to commit to completing the must-dos over the summer. It was worth it for her.

 

This is exactly what I've done.  We're doing Ancients next year.  DD LOVES Ancient history.  She wants to concentrate on ANE history in conjunction with the Bible, as well as delving DEEPLY into ANE Mythology as it correlates to the Bible, oh, and while we're at it, Ancient Lit with all the usual suspects, and wouldn't it be great to add in ancient art as well.

 

While our history spine touches on Bible, history, and literature, it doesn't go into the depth DD is wanting. Therefore, I've split the classes up: Ancient History, Bible, Mythology, Lit & Comp.  In addition, she wants Ancient Astronomy/Archaeoastronomy, Strategic Thinking (thru GCP Masters of War) & GCP 30 Masterpieces of the Ancient World.  For a foreign language, she wants to try Japanese with the understanding that if it fizzles, we go to Spanish in which I can help her quite a bit.

 

So, for instance, in Mythology we'll be concentrating on ANE myths.  She'll be reading:

 

Enuma Elish

Enmerkar & the Lord of Aratta

Merodach the Dragon Slayer

The Book of the Giants

Gilgamesh

Etana & Gilgamesh

The Island of the Blessed & Hades

Eridu Genesis

Enki & Ninhursag

Enki & The Ordering of the World

Enki, Ninmakh, & The Creation of Humankind

Epic of Atra-khasis

Baal Cycle

Memphis Creation Story

Song of Ullikummi

Epic (Autobiography) of Sargon

Tale of Sinuhe

Tale of Aqhat

Legend of King Kirta

Man & His God

Babylonian Theodicy 

On..and on...and on...we have a ton of stuff like the above.  All of it will be contrasted & compared with the Bible and we have academic papers with scholars reflecting on the origins, potential meanings, cultural context etc...

 

To be honest, all this ANE interest stems from us reading the book Unseen Realm.  DD was ambivalent about history until we read that book.  Now she's on fire to absorb everything she can about ANE culture and history in general as well.  If she didn't get anything else from that book, I'm thankful that it lit a fire for history within her.  Actually, it also spurred a new interest in the Bible for her as well.

 

In order to make room for all that ANE stuff (DD's bread and butter), I structured our Lit/Composition class around the typical Ancient lit that is usually read like Plato, Homer's epics, Virgil, etc.  To give me a break, we'll be using RR's Old Western Culture with Wes Callihan.  DD will use the workbooks here.  Although she usually hates workbooks, it's the trade-off for the ANE Myth class.

 

Geometry is a get-her-done class (she hates math.)

Science is finishing up GCP: Joy of Science which she loves, plus she'll have the Ancient Astronomy/Archaeoastronomy as an elective second science.

 

I'm just wondering...will all her HS years be this convoluted??? How do you even decide whether or not this is AP or honors material? I'll be basing credit on hours and output.  However, sometimes, with self-designed courses, I'm fuzzy on the appropriate amount of output.

 

So yeah, that's what I'm working on now.  Getting all these classes structured and put together.  Oh, and in my free time I'm working on writing a curriculum for Unseen Realm now that I've gotten the author's permission. However, that's a lower priority at the moment.

[MerryAtHope]

I also have an incoming Freshman, and I'm worried about burnout already!  

 

One thing you can do is decide what the "core" classes are (6 or 7 credits that she should make sure to work on). The others can be interests that she pursues in her free time when she wants to, and when she has enough hours in, you can award a half credit or credit--but by making them "optional," she can decide when and if to do them instead of trying to work on that many classes at once. There's lots of time to pursue electives in high school--no need to do all of them at once :-). You might also have her lay out a basic schedule that she'll follow--she may find as she does that, that her classes will take more time than she expects. 

Edited May 31, 2017 by MerryAtHope

[Saddlemomma]

One thing you can do is decide what the "core" classes are (6 or 7 credits that she should make sure to work on). The others can be interests that she pursues in her free time when she wants to, and when she has enough hours in, you can award a half credit or credit--but by making them "optional," she can decide when and if to do them instead of trying to work on that many classes at once. There's lots of time to pursue electives in high school--no need to do all of them at once :-). You might also have her lay out a basic schedule that she'll follow--she may find as she does that, that her classes will take more time than she expects. 

 

The first bolded - we've already delineated those: Geometry; Ancient History; Science; Lit/Comp; Japanese; Bible. The rest are electives. She will work on two of those by herself - Strategy & Astronomy. The other two I will do with her because I also have an interest in those classes. We like to learn together on some things.

 

Regarding the second bolded, DD specifically asks me for a schedule on all her classes each year because she recognizes her major weaknesses: procrastination and general academic laziness.  We've tried not doing a formal schedule, but she always comes to me within two weeks or so and begs me to institute a schedule to keep her on task. While I appreciate your thoughts in this regard, and it would be great, regrettably, it wouldn't work with my DD.

 

I don't know what has gotten into DD lately, but it's like the knowledge bug has bitten her.  She wants sooooooo many classes and she wants them now! I've never seen her so excited about an upcoming school year.  In fact, she was postulating about attending school year-round (she already has to do math and a reading list during the summers).  During past years I've tried to get her to agree to year-round schooling, but she absolutely refused.  Now, just this year, she's actually thinking about it for the future.

 

I think a lot of this comes from moving to more mature subject content - college texts, more extensive primary documents and more academic books and resources.  It's like a switch has been turned on and there's no turning it off.  It's actually a good thing because she was apathetic about most of her subjects before.

 

Like I said, if it gets to be too much, we'll drop something, or as you suggested, count the hours spent towards fulfilling either 1/4, 1/2, or full credit as applicable and pick it up, if necessary, over the summer.

 

Thanks for the input.

[FaithManor]

An hour a day would maybe be the average. It kind of depends, if the chapter is heavy reading, note taking, and assignments, then longer. However, there are always shorter, lighter ones as well. Plus, sometimes on days when they take a quiz or test, they are done quickly with that particular subject. Another variant is that in their favorite subjects, their passions, they tend to be faster.

 

Some days get long if they are running experiments, or writing papers.

[Garga]

I made sure my 9th grader always got 9 or more hours of sleep a night. And I think he might have needed 10.

 

This summer we're going to pick a set bedtime and then let him sleep until he naturally wakes up so we can figure out what amount of sleep he needs. A set schedule with no alarm clocks should show us how many hours he needs after a few weeks.

 

I'm a big (big!) supporter of making sure teens get enough sleep and at the right hours, even if it means they stay up late and sleep in late.

[Lori D.]

On 5/31/2017 at 11:40 AM, Garga said:

I made sure my 9th grader always got 9 or more hours of sleep a night. And I think he might have needed 10.

This summer we're going to pick a set bedtime and then let him sleep until he naturally wakes up so we can figure out what amount of sleep he needs. A set schedule with no alarm clocks should show us how many hours he needs after a few weeks.

I'm a big (big!) supporter of making sure teens get enough sleep and at the right hours, even if it means they stay up late and sleep in late.

Totally agree! ? Our start time had to shift by about an hour later in the high school years, so we were running more along the lines of 9:30-4:00.

Edited September 25, 2018 by Lori D.

[Saddlemomma]

I made sure my 9th grader always got 9 or more hours of sleep a night. And I think he might have needed 10.

 

This summer we're going to pick a set bedtime and then let him sleep until he naturally wakes up so we can figure out what amount of sleep he needs. A set schedule with no alarm clocks should show us how many hours he needs after a few weeks.

 

I'm a big (big!) supporter of making sure teens get enough sleep and at the right hours, even if it means they stay up late and sleep in late.

 

:iagree: DD needs her sleep or she's a mess the next morning.