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Short lessons with an older student
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My daughters are in 1st, 5th and 7th and we’ve been homschooling since day 1. We’ve used a mixture of things over the past years but the staple has always been good living books. I’ve always wanted to be a Charlotte Mason purist, but, well, it hasn’t happened yet.
I recently purchased Planning Your CM Education and it was a lightbulb moment. I can do this! However, I’m working through several issues and am hoping for a little help.
My first issue is short lessons with my 7th grader. I’ve always given them an assignment sheet and when they’ve completed their tasks they are done for the day. The only thing I do with my 7th grader is family subjects (right now history and read aloud). However, she takes a long time on her individual subjects. Math can take her well over an hour. Part of the issue is I’ve been requiring her to complete too much, part of it is she is a perfetionist and part of it is after an hour she starts zoning out (who wouldn’t?).
My question is how do I go about implementing short lessons for individual subjects? One of the problems I’ve identified I need to correct – requiring too much work. Would you have her set a timer? It is a complete change from what we’ve done in the past. I know she will be willing to work with me on this but what is the best way to go about training in this area?
Also, how long should lessons be for each different subject area?
Thanks!!!
We set a timer and then I have to enforce the timer, lol. 😉 It is hard for them to suddenly stop in the middle of an assignment and be “done” for the day. If the timer doesn’t work, then assign just a set amount of problems or pages,(or whatever) that you feel she can realistically cover in that amount of time.
On our check-off lists, I listed the amount of time by each subject to help us all keep progressing along…
I also think that you have to adjust the times required by your student and their abilities. I think that generally 7-8th grade students do lessons 30-45 minutes. By high school, I think that they are up to an hour per subject – again based on their abilities.
I have a 7th grade girl. We don’t do timers, I just assign what I think can be done in a reasonable amount of time, taking into consideration how much needs to be done daily/weekly to finish some programs in a years time. If you’d like an idea of what she does:
Math-U-See: 2 pages or a test every day (30 min. or little more)
Apologia General Science (30 min. or little more every day….following schedule I bought)
Write with the Best: 15-20 min. per day 4x per week/Written Narration a couple days a week
Grammar: 20 min. 3x per week or so
Wordly Wise: 15 min. or so a day (she struggles w/voc.)
Spelling Wisdom: 10-15 min./3x per week
Devotion: 10 min. or so every day
History chapter from SCM module, maybe 1-2 ch. per week (about 30 min. per chapter)
Current Events (God’s World News): Maybe 10 min. per day a couple times a week
Piano practice: 10-15 min. per day (should be more!)
We’ve been very lax w/foreign language this year, but I’m looking for online Spanish and her dad is supposed to start back w/Greek.
I’ve been very lax w/literary analysis, but hope to get better this year!
That’s her main independent work…takes her about 3-3 1/2 hours per day. Then together, we do:
SCM history handbook for history/geo/Bible…only about 30 min. per day.
Bible and poetry memory work, maybe 10 min. per day
Poetry/Composer/Artist/Fallacy Detective/Hymns/Brothers and Sisters Best Friends devotion/family lit. book: only one or two of these each day for about 15-30 min. (sometimes gets dropped if day is busy).
Her whole day generally takes about 4-5 hours…..generally closer to 5 when you count interuptions/transitions/new puppy care:) Hope that helps and doesn’t confuse! Blessings, Gina
My 8th grade ds list/routine is very similar to Gina’s.
I do worry that my ds is not doing enough but his days are full, so I don’t know.
HTH
Thanks for all of your ideas. I think I will start with just putting times on her checklist and assign a reasonable amount. We’ll see how that goes. If she not able to keep an eye on her time I might use a timer BUT I will put it in a different room. Having a timer right next to her would probably be a distraction.
Thanks for your schedule momto2blessings. That was very helpful.
I haven’t read the other responses, so forgive any repetitive advice. Yes, use a timer and write on her assignment list the amount of time she should spend per subject. It works wonders. If she needs/wants more time, she does it on her free time.
Yeah, I often wonder if dd is doing too much/not enough. How to gauge? I always feel like we’re not getting to everything I want to, but her days seem long enough as it is. Of course, we’re not very early risers…so that’s part of why her day feels long sometimes, I think. But at least she doesn’t have evening work like I imagine a lot of schooled 7th graders do! And at least she’s not getting on the 7am bus….I can’t imagine:) It just seems like so many subjects sometimes, doing a CM education. Dd has asked why she has so many things to do when her good friend only has like 5 subjects and gets done before her. But all seem important….
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