How Many Books/Pages Do I Assign per Child per Term?

Have you read Sonya’s earlier blog posts about scheduling?  They can get you started, and then when you get the scheduling book it’ll make things really, really clear.  Basically, the thing to do is to think about what your individual children need.  I have an 8th grader, and this past year, he did daily lessons in Spanish, Latin, science, math, some writing every day (varied from longer copywork, longer dictation, written narration) and three or four individual readings.  I tend to end up somewhere between just the categories here on SCM and the Ambleside categories–for instance, we do Shakespeare and Plutarch every week, maybe two or three literature readings, then readings in scattered other things like geography, nature readings, biographies, economics, etc. 

I have to start with what I think we ought to do each year.  Then I break it down into terms, weeks, then how many days I think it needs to be read to get done what I want in a year.  I try to avoid 10yo and under doing the same thing for more than 20-30 minutes at a time, but my older ones can work for up to 45 minutes on one topic now without losing focus.  I don’t always schedule just a chapter, because some books have 5 minute chapters and others have hour-long chapters; we see how long a chapter is and break it down or do more than one as needed.

OK.  Here is the first of the blog posts on scheduling:

http://simplycharlottemason.com/2008/03/12/new-planning-series/

Then follow these through and I think you can get a jump-start and then fill in details when you get the planning book. 

HTH!

Michelle D

Chock this one up to another one of Sonya’s weird project ideas, but I was curious about this very question a few months ago and did some research and some math. Here are my best estimates on how many pages per day students read in Charlotte’s schools.

• Grades 1-3 read from about 2 or 3 books per day, about 4 pages from each book.
• Grades 4-6 read from about 3 or 4 books per day, about 4 or 5 pages from each book.
• Grades 7-9 read from about 4 or 5 books per day, about 5 or 6 pages from each book.
• Grades 10-12 read from about 5 or 6 books per day, about 6 or 7 pages from each book.

The rest of the time was spent dealing with “things,” like handicrafts, nature, art, scientific experiments, physical exercise, music, etc.

Now, please keep in mind that we do not have to duplicate Charlotte’s schedule, but I thought this information was helpful as a guide.

Good question. No, math was not included in that page- or book-count. I guess I should have said “Most of the rest of the time was spent dealing with things.” 🙂

So in the older grades was it multiple history and science books, or does that count include foreign languages too?

Thank you Sonya 🙂

We are all in this together 🙂

We have a sample week with subjects spread throughout each day at the bottom of the Family Enrichment plans in our free curriculum guide. There’s also a page with sample weekly and daily schedules that might help.