How many hours of school do your middle and high schoolers do each day? And how much is independent work and work done with you?
I pretty much gave Rachael her books and that was it when she was in high school. REALLY!!! With my other two (Phillip finishing 7th grade, Faythe finishing her Junior year), I spend about a half-hour (each) with them in the mornings, and that's about it. During that time, I go over/grade the work from the day before, and go over their assignments for the day. Then they're on their own. If they have any questions, I am available to answer them. I also usually read aloud to them every day. We do school from about 8 AM until 3 PM, with about an hour for lunch. Tuesdays are spent at the co-op, and next year we might be at a different co-op on Wednesdays, too.
We start school at 8:15 and work until 11:45, lunch. We start up again at 12:30 and work until 2:45 dismissal. Or whenever their parents show up. How much schoolwork they actually get done in that time is up to them, mostly. I put the work on the board, and they know they're supposed to do it. There are some kids who need more "discussion" time, and others who are quite independent workers who only need to "go over" stuff before a quiz or a test. Either DH or I do all the checking, and we divvy up the subjects according to who is doing what that year, mostly I do all the reading and English/LA, all the planning and grade-keeping, and some of the history and science, while he usually does all the Bible, math, and some of the history and science. I've had some kids who just didn't get it unless it was teacher-directed, and others who could do all their lessons without any help at all, but most are subject-by-subject. They're all individuals.
We just can't seem to get going in the mornings, so we only are doing shorter days and going all year. I only log the required 180 days, but we just keep going till the work gets done. We usually get started at 10am and finish around 3. We do history and grammar together. My dd needs lots of help with math (son rarely needs help with math). The rest they do independently. They do their reading at night before they go to sleep.
I've always done 1 hour's schoolwork per day for their grade level. So my 1st grader did an hour a day, 3rd grader 3 hours a day etc. Somehow at some point reading and PE counted as schoolwork, so by 5th grade they were doing 5 hours a day, but 1 hour was reading and 1 hour was PE, so really 3 hours a day. It worked very well in 6th grade, but in 7th grade it was too much. Oh, we only work a 4 day week, so requirement was 5 x 4 = 20 hours for 5th grade and 6 x 4 = 24 for 6th grade. But in 7th grade 28 hours a week was too much. Each year they work more independently, so by 9th grade I'm not doing anything with them except scheduling and sometimes marking.
My oldest spends about 8 hours including everything. Off the top of my head, he will probably spend 3-4 hours with me each day next year. We do a bit of learning together in addition to some teacher-intensive programs.
My oldest will be in 5th next year. He'll do history and literature (combined ... historical fiction) independently (about 45-60 min daily), math independently (30-45 min daily), English is about half & half (10-15 minutes, 2-3 days/wk), Bible with me (10-15 min daily), spelling with me (weekly, about 5 minutes), writing with me (daily, about 10 min), science is about half & half (3-4 days/wk, about 20 min), and vocab independently (10 min, weekly). He will average about 2-3 hours per day.... more at the beginning of the week than at the end. We usually do half days on Fridays. We'll add approximately 30 minutes per year to this timeframe, adding more time to foreign language, math, and science mostly. By high school, it will be almost completely independent other than science labs or something.
My thoughts were always about 30 minutes per grade starting with K. I don't schedule that but it's always been in the back of my mind. Looking at the time we actually have spent, that seems about how it worked out. Garrett did about 3-3 1/2 hours a day in 6th grade.
For the most part, Em is an independent worker. If she needs help, I help her. As to the hours, we work until she is done for the day. Usually it take anywhere from 4-6 hours.
For high school with sd we would meet together for 30-45min in the morning to go over Math corrections (some days were quicker than others) and then we would sit down to go over other subjects each day from 12:30-2:30 or so. I would vary the assignments so we did different subjects (or combinations ) each day. She would do her independent work from 9:30-noon and then from about 3 till whenever she finished.
This year, Ds14 has spent about 7 hours per day, 4 days per week on schoolwork. We discuss history and literature a few times per week, and we go over his writing assignments together once every week or two. Apart from that, Ds is entirely independent. Ds12 and Ds9 spend 5-6 hours on schoolwork, 4 days per week. About half of this is independent, while half is with me.
This sounds like us too. We run errands in the AM if needed and then have lunch around 11am. Then we start school. We take a break around 2pm and have a snack then continue to work until about 3:30-4pm. We have to keep track of the required 180 days and that is how my planner is set up. This year it's just my 3rd grader since my older daughter has graduated. My daughter works independently for the most part. This year we are going to dedicate a full day to history for the first half of the year, and then a full day for science the second half of the year. Those are the two subjects that seem to get neglected and put off the most.
