Weekly Schedule That Works

[hs03842]

For the 5th to 8th grade range, what is a typical weekly schedule? How long would you say the school day takes?

Edited June 8, 2020 by JoyKM

[8filltheheart]

How old is your oldest right now?  Did I see 1st grade?

I have been unable to gauge where my kids will be academically in middle/high school when they are little.  They are all so variable that middle school has not looked anything remotely the same for any of them.

For example, I don't do preschool with any of my kids, so they all start K as non-readers, or for my kids who were resistant to sitting still and doing school in K, we skipped K and waited until 1st grade.  I have had kids who went from non-readers to reading Charlotte's Web within a very short period of time.  I have also had dyslexic kids who struggled with learnig to read and were still struggling with reading in 4th grade.  My worst dyslexic wasn't reading on grade level until 5th grade.

My kids also start K (or 1st depending) without preschool math.  My same ds who wasn't reading on grade level until 5th grade took his first algebra course in 5th grade.  My current 4th grader is doing 6th grade math.  I have no idea whether she will slow down or progress even more rapidly as she matures.

Anyway, unless kids' only options are to stick to completely grade leveled materials, I don't think it is possible to plan middle school for a young child until they get there.

[Lori D.]

Welcome! I see by your post count that you are new.

"Amount of time" will vary widely, depending on several factors:
- how many subjects you decide to cover, and at what level of depth
- how academically-minded each student is (or how much the student loves academcs), and how self-motivated/self-disciplined each student is about doing academics
- does the student have LDs or delays (that will increase your time to remediate or do therapies -- or it may mean dropping some subjects)
- what materials you choose to use -- some are "meatier" and some "lighter"; some require more time/thinking/work, some require less
- if you choose to outsource some/all of your subjects -- some online courses require huge amounts of work/time at home

Some things you can do to get the schedule "tamed":
- some subjects do not need to be done every day, just because it's scheduled in the book for 5x/week, doesn't mean you have to do it that often -- you can just do selected problems; skip reviews or tests if it's clear your student *knows* the material; spread the program out over 2 years, doing it 2-3x/week
- alternate History and Science (so each gets covered 2x/week, and then the 5th day of the week can be about any finishing up)
- some people only do grammar in 4th, 6th, and 8th grades, which leaves a time slot in each of 5th and 7th grade to do other things

All that said, we started homeschooling when DSs were grades 1 and 2. They were typical students (not that "into" anything school-like, but could focus for a normal length of time on school subjects), one with mild LDs that took extra time for remediation, in grades 5-8 we were able to cover the subjects of:
LA = reading/literature (5x/week); writing (4x/week); handwriting (3x/week); spelling (4x/week); grammar (3x/week); vocabulary (2x/week)
Math (5x/week)
Science (4x/week)
Social Studies = History (4x/week); Geography (2-3x/week)
Logic/Critical Thinking (3x/week)
Bible/Family Devotions (5x/week)
Art/Music Appreciation (1x/week)

Sadly, we were never able to work Latin or a Foreign Language into the mix, nor regular Music (learning an instrument). We participated in a homeschool support group all through the years, which had great youth (grade 6-12) a Student Council, social activities, volunteering/community service opportunities, and a weekly PE day.

For at-home school work, we typically spent:
5th grade = 4.5 hours/4 days a week  + separate student solo reading time + separate family read-aloud time
6th grade = 4.5 to 5 hours/4 days a week, with 1-2 hours of the 5th day + separate student solo reading time + separate family read-aloud time
7th/8th grade = 5 to 5.5 hours/4 days a week, with 2-3 hours on the 5th day + homeschool support group activities
 

ETA -- I just read the other posts in this thread that you are thinking years ahead, and have a 1st grader currently.

Agreeing with previous posters that:
1.  transitioning from a school into homeschool for the middle school years will look very different from if you started from the beginning (which means those of us who homeschooled from the start/near the start will have very different times than what those who transition into homeschooling partway through)
2. looking at materials for years down the road is pretty useless because:
a. new materials will be available when you get to the buying/using stage
b. you have no way of knowing what type of learner your student will turn out to be, and what type of materials will best fit your students

Edited February 5, 2020 by Lori D.

[egao_gakari]

Yeah, after almost 4 years homeschooling (started with DD in 4th and DS in 6th) I wouldn't recommend making purchases more than 6 months in advance! But I loved, loved, loved doing S&S planning years in advance. It was one of my favorite hobbies until I wound up having to go back to work, and now I don't really have the time to devote to it. Have at it, it's wonderful and fun and mind-bending, but hold those plans in open palms. I'm adding some lengthy reflections below that may or may not help you in your planning. Your original post inspired a lot of Wednesday morning navel-gazing, so I'm presenting them to you, since you were the Muse 😉 

DD is currently in 7th, and DS in 9th. They work independently now except for DD's math. They do about 7 hours of school per day, but that's because they are slowpokes and take a lot of "breaks." I leave their timing up to them, but I've gotten good at planning out a reasonable yearly "task list" and they know that they have to finish out the year's work before going on summer break. So far this year, they are choosing to have a shorter summer and do less work per day 😄 Kids change though! Last year, DD made it her goal to finish earlier than predicted, and she actually did. DS had to do school for 3 more weeks than she did. This year, she has the puberty virus, and everything just seems so much more difficult to her, and she's going for the instant gratification rather than the delayed.

Getting a good sense of "what's reasonable" for each kid took me several years. Regarding times-per-week, we basically did what Lori D. said above. However, I've had do revise my expectations regarding how much of the program we'll get through in that time. For each class, I now plan out 32 weeks of work, and we get that done in 36 weeks. In previous years, I planned out 36 weeks, and it took us 40-42 weeks to get through! They often needed 2 days to get work done that the textbook said should take 1 day. That was discouraging for all of us. If it's a curriculum that's broken down by days (like Writing With Skill), I now schedule it for one more day per week than the curriculum says. So for Writing With Skill, it says 36 weeks, 4 days per week. I schedule it for 5 days per week. We get it done in 36-38 weeks. (When we were trying to do 4 days/week, poor DS worked on it all.summer.long and was still finishing it up when the following school year began.) If it's a multi-year program that contains a lot of review (like Saxon), I don't worry about completing the textbook. For example, DD does Saxon 4x/week. I have her scheduled to complete up to Lesson 120 (there are 138 lessons in all). Next year, we'll just start the next book, and I can count on the program to cover whatever we missed.

Two other things I learned:
(1) Just because it comes highly recommended doesn't mean it's actually good for your homeschool, or for certain kids. I loved the look of Life of Fred, and it worked great for DS as a standalone curriculum because he's mathy. But it didn't work at all for DD. She's happier with Saxon. Or again, I trusted the WTM recommendations for reading lists and assumed the books were "at my kids' level." Well, the kids complained so much about The Golden Goblet, I sat down and read it. Honestly, I sort of liked it, but the copy I'd purchased had like 10-point font, no margin space, no pictures, and it was a difficult read for fifth/sixth grade. Maybe not so difficult for a lifelong homeschooled kid, with no learning differences, who grew up with no TV (me as a fifth grader), but for typical middle schoolers like my kids, it was read-aloud material, not independent reading.
(2) If you hate it, your kids will absolutely hate it, so you have to read through it before assigning it to them. In the elementary years, this is super obvious, but in middle and high school, we're busier, the material is heftier, and it's very tempting to just take a reading list like the ones in WTM and say, "OK kids, read these books this year," without vetting. I've made this mistake multiple times. I heard over and over that Oxford University Press' The World in Ancient Times series was so good. Pricey, but I acquired it and assigned a certain number of pages per week. The kids couldn't stand it, and when I sat down and read through it myself, I understood why. It bored me to tears. I couldn't possibly expect them to get anything out of it if I didn't. This required me to completely rewrite my beloved middle school S&S that I'd been working on for years, because I had put all my eggs in a basket that I'd trusted strangers on the interwebs to vet for me and my homeschool.

Again, take all of this with a grain of salt! Homeschooling is so very individualized. I have a kid with dysgraphia, they both started behind grade level because of years in a charter school that wasn't meeting their needs, they are my stepkids and their early childhood was nothing like what my ideal would have been, particularly related to screentime, etc. I have had to throw every plan I made out the window in order to really meet them where they are, and with the child who has a learning difference, it's been year after year of, "Well, that didn't work. Let's find something else to try." Your experience is going to be totally different on the granular level, but the "throwing the plans out the window" will likely be the same in at least a few cases. Treat the planning as a fun hobby and edifying exercise for yourself, and don't buy anything until you're six months out!!!!!

[Lori D.]

^ ^ ^ Absolutely 100% agree with everything egao_gakari just said!

[egao_gakari]

9 minutes ago, Plum said:

^agree with everything above and adding a reminder that middle school is also a time for growth spurts. Days may be longer as they drag their feet or get tired/hungry/sleepy. Subjects/lessons may need to be dropped to make time for those stages. My ds and dd had a completely different middle school experience despite me teaching them the same thing at the same time because they were at different stages. 

So true! When DD was in 5th and DS was in 7th, I fell into the trap of believing that DD was academically oriented and DS just wasn't. Fast forward two and a half years and after a rough first semester, 9th grade DS has finally settled into a good routine where he is enjoying his classes, getting decent grades, and talking about law school (!!!), and it's DD who is dragging her feet, missing deadlines, claiming that missed deadlines and bad grades "don't matter because I'm never going to use this stuff anyway," etc. Precisely where DS was when he was in 7th. So now I think it's just 7th and 8th that are awful grades and awful ages. We suddenly expect nearly high school-level work from kids whose brains turned to mush the summer before 7th. 

Edited February 5, 2020 by egao_gakari

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Everyone above is right.  But I will give you concrete details, because that's what you asked about!

I have a 5th grader and a 7th grader.  We school from 8am-2/3pm, with an hour off for lunch, plus an additional half hour each in the evening to do German with dad.  Not all of that time is face-to-face with me.  They also have reading lists related to history, science, and literature, typing practice, German homework to be done independantly, and map study.  

Face to face with me is math, language arts, Latin, history, literature, physics (7th grader), various science topics (both).  Because we are a bilingual family (English/French) and have an additional foreign language (German) and Latin, we spend an absolutely ridiculous amount of time on language skills.  It's exhausting, honestly, and I wouldn't recommend it.  😂  We have to test in French, so can't drop that, I want their English to stay up with their French, German is required, and Latin... well, they just reeeeeaaaaalllllly wanted to do Latin.  Sigh.  

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

And I agree with others, do NOT buy any materials ahead of time.  Invest in yourself as a teacher by listening to The Great Courses on audible or reading SWB's History of the World series or brushing up on your math or whatever subjects you may need.  This will be money much better spent than finding curriculum before you absolutely need to.  You may find if you invest enough in yourself, you don't need much at all in terms of expensive curriculum.  

[egao_gakari]

5 minutes ago, Monica_in_Switzerland said:

Everyone above is right.  But I will give you concrete details, because that's what you asked about!

I have a 5th grader and a 7th grader.  We school from 8am-2/3pm, with an hour off for lunch, plus an additional half hour each in the evening to do German with dad.  Not all of that time is face-to-face with me.  They also have reading lists related to history, science, and literature, typing practice, German homework to be done independantly, and map study.  

Face to face with me is math, language arts, Latin, history, literature, physics (7th grader), various science topics (both).  Because we are a bilingual family (English/French) and have an additional foreign language (German) and Latin, we spend an absolutely ridiculous amount of time on language skills.  It's exhausting, honestly, and I wouldn't recommend it.  😂  We have to test in French, so can't drop that, I want their English to stay up with their French, German is required, and Latin... well, they just reeeeeaaaaalllllly wanted to do Latin.  Sigh.  

HA! I have never had a child really want to do any subject.

[hs03842]

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Edited June 8, 2020 by JoyKM

[egao_gakari]

48 minutes ago, JoyKM said:

Thanks for the detailed year to year times. I’m not really buying things now so much as reading reviews, looking at options, and otherwise getting to know what is out there. We also do modified WTM stuff as tutoring.  I had always thought that being homeschooled involved a significantly reduced amount of time spent schooling each day/week (I was homeschooled for a couple of years myself—the stack of workbooks in two hours method using LifePacs), but I have also seen families in this forum struggling to fit everything into even long days. My oldest is not going to do seven hours of school work per day alone, so if we are looking at that realistically it gives me pause. Barring special circumstances we are continuing public school for elementary and feel much at peace with that. 

I should clarify--it takes my kids from about 9 to 4 to get all their tasks accomplished. But they take an hour break for lunch and probably 10-15 minutes of break time after completing each task, and unknown time being distracted 😄 I plan about 45 minutes per subject per day, and we don't do every subject every day. Each of them has one 5x/week subject, a couple of 4x/week subjects, and beyond that it's 2-3 times per week for the others. If I had more free time, I could keep them on task better, and they'd finish in 4-5 hours. But I work (from home, but on a do-not-disturb basis) 5-8 hours daily, so they largely have to practice time management by themselves.

[8filltheheart]

2 hours ago, JoyKM said:

  I had always thought that being homeschooled involved a significantly reduced amount of time spent schooling each day/week (I was homeschooled for a couple of years myself—the stack of workbooks in two hours method using LifePacs), but I have also seen families in this forum struggling to fit everything into even long days. My oldest is not going to do seven hours of school work per day alone, so if we are looking at that realistically it gives me pause.........

I am a former teacher myself (middle school, actually—I’ve seen quite the variety of what middle school can hold over the years!) and planning has always been one of my favorite parts of teaching. That’s probably why I’m already working out what I’d like to aim for now—I really like that aspect along with the feeling of being prepared. I am very much hoping to focus on skills, streamline the school work, and have extra time for some other things I want to do with my middle schoolers that aren’t appropriate priorities for us now. What I specifically want for that age is the luxury of time to pursue predetermined goals that are not “subjects” but are important to me to address in that age bracket. 

There has also been a lot of advice about kids changing over the years which is also helpful.  My oldest struggles with one-on-one learning which is another reason I am regarding this from afar .....

I have been homeschooling our kids for 26 yrs.  We have 8 kids with a wide range of personalities and challenges.  All of them have changed radically between 1st grade and 6th.  I don't think your dd's dislike for 1-on-1 now is necessarily indicative of how she will interact in future.  (and the changes again between middle and high school graduation can be equally dramatic.)

My middle schoolers do have fairly long days, on avg 6-8 hrs/day.  But, they are most definitely NOT working for 7 hrs alone.   They are also receiving an education that does not in any way resemble a LifePac education.   There are so many different options on how to approach homeschooling that researching how different approaches teach skills might help you form your own homeschooling educational philosophy.  (For example, we rarely use textbooks.  I couldn't have created a resource list for my kids ahead of time b/c I build their courses to meet their individual needs.  If you scroll down this link. you can see a post that gives a brief look into a course that I did with one of my 7th graders.  (The course covered lit, history, and English.)  

_

Researching materials if you are planning on using preplanned curriculum, as Lori pointed out, is going to have very limited value b/c companies come and go.  There is no telling what new resources will be available then and what ones will no longer be being published.

 

[hs03842]

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Edited June 8, 2020 by JoyKM

[Momto6inIN]

I agree with lots of the advice you've alteady been given. I'm a planner too and I've mapped out the "ideal" pre-K thru 12 education and tweaked it innumerable times throughout the years. None of my kids have followed it completely so far - namely because none of them has been "ideal" so far, not to mention their teacher LOL - but I sure have enjoyed researching it 🙂

We typically do school from 9-12, take a break from 12-2 for lunch and outside time and free time, and do school again from 2-5. The elementary kids are never working that whole time and they take many other long breaks. In middle school they are generally working the whole morning session, and from 5th-8th grade their afternoon session gets progressively longer. My high schoolers spend more time than that because they also have demanding extracurriculars, but their assigned-by-me-work generally fits into those hours.

We do school 4 days a week, the 5th day is for math and extracurriculars (speech and debate club and drama troupe). Even for my high schoolers, this schedule has worked well. It provides loads of time during breaks and evenings to pursue their own interests.

[....]

On 2/5/2020 at 12:08 AM, JoyKM said:

For the 5th to 8th grade range, what is a typical weekly schedule? How long would you say the school day takes? I am planning to homeschool  during middle school and am already looking at materials, etc.  Realistic timeframes help with selecting things. 

 

I have a young 7th grader (she skipped 6th).  She probably spends about 3 hours a day on school - 4 days a week.  She's almost always finished by lunch.  We're doing a loop schedule right now, but I can post a snapshot of what she does in a week.

Monday - Works with horses in the morning at an equestrian center, lunch, then literature, Bible reading, writing, Morning Basket, art

Tuesday - Literature, grammar, spelling, writing, math, science reading, science labs, playing outside in the afternoon, Ballet classes

Wednesday - Literature, math, Bible, writing, science reading, science labs, Pointe class (ballet), Confirmation class

Thursday - Literature, grammar, spelling, writing, math, Morning Basket, art, science labs, playing outside in the afternoon, Ballet classes

Friday - violin, P.E. (ourselves with another homeschooling family - which is playing a sport at the park or hiking) or a field trip or a playdate with another homeschooling family- I don't schedule schoolwork on Fridays

That's basically what my daughter's week looks like as a middle school homeschooler.  Hope this helps!

 

[hs03842]

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Edited June 8, 2020 by JoyKM

[....]

1 hour ago, JoyKM said:

This helps a lot!  This is the kind of schedule I’d like to have for them as middle schoolers. I love that she has time for horses and ballet.  What tips do you have for choosing school materials to keep time open—what do you look for? (Others have said not to get my heart set in something for awhile, bit i like to look at what’s out there.). 

 

Having time to do real world things is very important to me - like working at the equestrian center.  My kids know so much about horses now.  Even the 12 year old (who only weighs like 85 lbs) can tack horses and lead them, etc.  Some of my other kids do homeschool sports - 18 year-old and 16 year-old did track & field.  16 year-old plays on a competitive homeschool football team and the 4 year-old even plays basketball and baseball.  Also, my 14 year-old and 12 year-old girls are VERY extroverted.  I try to get them time at least once a week to go over to another family's house or have their kids come over here.

I actually struggle with finding curriculum that leaves us with enough free time.  So, I usually put everything together myself.  If I use curriculum, I'm ok with skipping things that don't look interesting...skipping books if there isn't enough time and the books don't look wonderful, etc.  Also, we school year-round.  So, we do school all summer and that really gives us an edge in getting things done.

I'm actually trying to talk the teens into trying Beautiful Feet this spring.  That looks manageable for us.