Can anyone share with me how long your high schooler does lessons per day? Just the total number of hours (including in co-op classes)?
How often per week does your high schooler do each subject? Just frequency here … 1x, 2x a week type thing.
How many different subjects do you have on your schedule weekly?
As I plan this next year (roll in to it since we are year round) I am trying to avoid past errors. I do what I do and I have loved the results but not always the process. If that makes sense? I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m loyal to the methods CM used to teach but I’m sloppy on the implementation of her scheduling. I know that a lot of you are far better schedulers than me so I beg of you … HELP!Β π
Thanks, can’t wait to hear.Β I’d love it SCM if we could talk more about how these specific things change for high schoolers too.Β Show us some CM models for high school schedules? I feel like we have that, but honestly it isn’t connecting somewhere in my gray matter! π I’d love a little bonk on the head and help from the experts.
I think my answers are going to be very atypical, but here you go. We haven’t started our new school year yet so I’ll answer from last year’s numbers (10th grade).
1. He never spent more than 3 hours per day on lessons. We don’t do any outside classes. I think he might be really efficient or something. I have another kid entering high school this fall and I’m curious to see how they compare for time spent.
2. He did math, literature, science and writing daily, history 3x per week, electives 3x per week.
3. In a typical week, he does 6 subjects: math, writing, literature, history, science and one elective.
My daughter is in 11th grade and she spends 4-5 hours a day on school. That includes P.E. and family devotions.
Her daily work includes:
Math
Bible
Family Devotions
German
P.E.
English
Subjects done 4 days a week:
History
Science
And lastly she does geography once a week.
We don’t study art, nature, music, etc. formally at this stage. We do listen to classical music, appreciate great art and take lots of nature walks. She also enjoys drawing and painting from nature as well as crocheting, knitting and crafting in her spare time.
That makes 9 subjects done weekly.
Looking forward to hearing how others schedule their highschoolers!
Would it be okay to ask what history curriculum(or what resources) was used? Would that make a difference in how long it would take?Β Same for science – what did you use?Β I’m finding that a literature based history is taking quite a bit of time which stretches the day out longer than I’d like.
Yes, probably that would make a big difference. I look at things like BF history courses and I can’t imagine doing that many things for one lesson! We used Notgrass Exploring World History and Master Books’ Survey of Astronomy for science.
History/Bible/Classical Studies: 1-2 of these daily
Latin: daily
Composition: 4x/week
Grammar: 2x/week
Art: 2x/week with lessons, daily on her own
family read aloud & Bible reading in the evenings (one chapter of our current book and one chapter of the Bible)
CM co-op requires Shakespeare & Plutarch readings at home.Β We meet every other week and have a reading assignment to complete on our “off” weeks.Β We also cover singing, picture study, and PE/Folk dance through the co-op.
These are just our goals–we rarely get to everything in a week’s time.Β I just try to make sure we aren’t always skipping the same subjects.Β We are using Memoria Press for most subjects.
She spends her mornings on independent work.Β Then we get together for 1-2 hours in the afternoon to discuss readings, go over math, drill Latin, and anything else she needs help with.Β Her afternoons are usually spent on her personal art projects.Β She is really into drawing and digital art.
Here’s our deal – we spent about 5 hours a day last year on lessons. Our main culprit last year may have been distractions and too much outside the home at inconvenient times. Five isn’t a bad number; in fact we will likely do the same this year too but I’ll increase variety and be more realistic. Oh, and focus on spending lesson time diligently working so none is wasted.
I’m using the old PU schedules and all of the great work on them done by the Afterthoughts blog to get ours more in line this year.
I’m also going to use car commutes productively this year!
We’ve always organized our days by time spent, not material worked through. For that reason, what curriculum we’ve used hasn’t made much of a difference until this year when we started using Teaching Textbooks. My daughter now spends up to an hour and a half on math but that is by her choice. I only require 45 minutes a day for math. She just prefers to do an entire lesson in one day and that takes a long time with TT.
We school year round and take off when we are going on a trip, or just need a break. We end up doing many more school days than the public school and that enables us to work through curriculum in a timely manner even though we may spend less time on each subject per day than the average high schooler.