SCM School, and still taking ALL DAY???

Do you HAVE to do complete lessons every day for the AG and geometry?  It seems those are pretty advanced for a 12yo—my kids are really good at math, and we rarely hit geometry before 8th grade.  Also I save most of our grammar study for middle school.  Could you find ways to lighten this up some?  This seems like a long time to be spending per day on those subjects for that age.  I have never used Right Start or AG, so I don’t know if splitting is feasible.  For that age, I usually do little grammar past a little that we need to help in dictations and narrations and foreign language (we usually begin Latin around this age.)  We use MUS and rarely take more than 20-30 minutes a day at this age.  

I agree with Bookworm. We’ve used AG and shortened it. We did one season per year in 6th-8th. Plenty of time to complete the program. Though Season Two did stretch us:) Thankfullly Season Three is a breeze so far! Some things we did to shorten were:

1) If you stretch a season a full year you can just do labeling one day and diagramming the next. This cuts daily time in half.

2) if my dd knew the lesson well we’d do just half of the sentences per page.

For math, I can’t imagine trying to do geometry in 6th grade. That’s great if she’s that advanced, but if it were me and I was stressed I’d slow up on the math program, or do something else for a period (maybe Life of Fred or something like SCMs math).

I’d also try to transfer any readings to my kids to do independently if I could. Just what I’d try;) It sounds like you’re doing a great job. Hope you feel some relief soon! Blessings, Gina

I feel like I;m doing school all day, too — but my problem is that I set the children to do something and then I do a household chore and then I get distracted and then I have to call the children back to do more school.  And then i get distracted and I have to call them back. And then I get distracted and I have to call them back…..see what happens at my house? *L* 

Is that happening at your house?    Perhaps changing you daily “rhythm” or “schedule” or “order” would help. 

Perhaps changing your math and grammar curriculum would help.  I actually do Christian Light Education’s Math and Language Arts with my children.  They are “workbooks”, but the girls can do them on their own, with moderate help from me.  They are learning, and that’s what’s important.  Everything else is done “CM way”.

PS. The RightStart Geometry isn’t like high school geometry.

SCM does recommend spreading out AG over three years, and even on AG’s website, they show a 3-year timeline where you only do units 1-10 in 6th grade. Looking at the sample unit 3, it seems as though you could end up spending a long time on it if, for example, you read through the notes on day 1, then completed exercise 1 on day 2, etc.

What I would do, rather than rush to finish those 10 units in the first 10 weeks of the school year, only do grammar 3 or 4 days per week. As someone else mentioned, you could do only the labeling part of the exercise one day and the diagramming the next time. Instead of using the AG review course, there is nothing wrong with stretching it out into 20 weeks or even longer if you need to. Or you could make it simply a matter of time: whether you work with her the entire time or not, I would just stop altogether after 20 minutes for the day and pick up where you left off next time.

As for the geometry lessons, since you say you are calling their hotline so frequently, it’s probably not the easiest subject for you. Although, I am good at math but often have a tough time explaining it all to my oldest daughter. She is struggling with algebra, but it’s been difficult for her to get it when I do all the teaching. We had to ditch MUS and take up Teaching Textbooks. She still finds algebra to be hard work, but she is finally getting it slowly but surely. Perhaps a different math curriculum would be better for your daughter.

On the other hand, maybe you could look into a homeschooling mom tutor of sorts. If there is someone who is good at teaching math, you might ask if she could come over a time or two each week to give you a break by teaching the lesson & working with your daughter, maybe while you read literature to her kids along with your own. Don’t give up–you’ll find a solution to this.

And don’t forget to combine subjects whenever possible. We’ve done that with literature and history for quite some time now, and until the kids were a bit older, they would take turns narrating orally.

It would be very frustrating to be doing school all day long when things are supposed to be easier. And, yes, RightStart is VERY teacher intensive although a great program. The possible trouble areas to me are that your oldest may be working on material that is too far above her level indicated by how long it takes to do RS Level G and the Analytical Grammar. Have you checked with RightStart if Level G should be able to be done independently by the student or if it is meant to be as teacher-intensive as the other levels?

Another option to consider is doing Science on day and History the next.

From what I can glean with what you have posted, these are the requirements on your time for your school-aged children provided that your 6th grader needs this much input from you on her independent subjects:

2 hours total together; 2:15 hours total working one-on-one

:30 Together Daily: Devotions: Sally Michael’s (God’s Providence, Names of God, God’s Promises Series *LOVE*)

:15 Together Daily: Spelling Wisdom: As copywork Monday, Dictation Tuesday, Copywork Wednesday, Dictation Thursday

:30 Together Apologia

:30 Together Daily: Module 6

:15 Together Daily: Memory: Verse and Hymn

:15 Individual Daily: RightStart Math: Kindergarten

:30 Individual Daily: RightStart Math: 3rd Grade

:30 Individual Daily: RightStart Math: 4th Grade

:45 Individual Daily: RightStart Math: 6th Grade

:15 Individual Daily: Analytical Grammer: 6th Grade (If it is taking longer, it makes me wonder if it is not a good fit for her yet.)