I will have a 3rd and 4th grader and I'm trying to gauge how much time I should plan on spending with each subject. I think I'm spending too much time on language arts and Math. So tell me what works for you. Thanks!
However long the child wants/can handle. My 1st grader has a 10-15 minute attention span for work he doesn't care for (reading and writing). However if it's something he's into (science) his attention span magically becomes much longer LOL I've learned to walk away and come back to the stuff he doesn't care for as much-beats fighting with him to get it done. Usually it's not too much of an issue but some days we have walked away for hours and I might have to say "you can't go outside or have ice cream or do this or that until your work is done" but it works for him
Last school year with my 2nd grader math was usually about 30-45 minutes. Language arts (handwriting, spelling, reading, vocabulary, writing, grammar) was at least an hour per day if not more. Not every area of LA was covered every day.
Well, I'm going to tell you not to worry about time. In fact, I don't even plan out such things as we will do lesson x in subject y this day... I just say we will hit on a science topic today and math of course is 4 days a week, grammar (which for my oldest this year will include his spelling and vocab) and reading is also 4 days a week. Tomarrow we will hit on PA history and along with that will be some art, math, and grammar. More or less, I have a check list something like this: Monday: Math___ Grammar___ Reading___ Science___ PE___ Anything else that came along_______________________ (fill in what it was) Tuesday: Math___ Grammar___ Reading___ PA History___ Art___ Anything else that came along_________________________ Wednesday: Math___ Grammar___ Reading___ Science___ Music___ Anything else that came along__________________________ Thrusday: Math___ Grammar___ Reading___ PA Geography___ Health/Safety___ Anything else that came along___________________________ Friday: What subjects were hit on today in the fun activities? List the activity and how it connected with a subject. (Fridays are reserved for games, movies, family activities, and the occasional field trip but most field trips happen on the weekends when dad is home). We are VERY relaxed here, and I'm trying to get even more relaxed almost to a point of letting the kids lead the way, but I'm having a hard time esp with a hubby who is pretty sure the kids would want to do nothing but play video games and watch tv all day.
The amount of time we spend on each subject depends on what we are doing. Math usually takes the longest 1/2 hr or more depending on how well she is concentrating. Most of the other subjects average 10-15 mins each I guess. We normally spend about 3-4 hrs a day doing school work. This is based on her in 1st grade and I am sure some will speed up and some will take longer this year.
I agree with the others. Math may take us 10-15 minutes (2nd grade), and science may take an hour. It depends on the attention span and how much needs to be covered without breaking his train of thought.
It really varies. I have a kindergartner and preschooler so I plan for only 10-15 min for most subjects but sometimes we go over that if they are interested. I really look for signs of frustration to determine when it's time to quit. We can always come back to finish what I planned later!
I advise you pick a daily core (2-3 subjects done EVERY day) and rotate with a couple of extra subjects. 6yo spends about 80 minutes with his work but its all English at this point. He does 1/3 of a lesson (about 6 pages) of TRL reads a whole story from a volume of his first grade readers books. (He's on 3 out of 5) and then does some workbooks. 4yo spends about 20 minutes with his work. Right now the only thing we do is English (we're learning to read this Summer.) In a few days we're going to add in math to their daily routine. I try and keep their work days around the same length, and always short so now that we're making progress with our reading and letters, when they finish one of the workbooks they're doing, I'll be replacing those Alphabet/Reading Workbooks with Math books.
I wouldn't worry about how long each subject takes. I know what the goal is for the day, and we work until it's finished. I have tried to schedule out times, but that wound up being too stressful... paying attention to a clock just to see if we are finishing on time. What do you do if the time is up, and you aren't finished? Stop, and then what? Get behind? You could then have a snowball effect. We just work until finished, and I never look at the clock.
I think it's totally reasonable to spend the majority of your time and effort on language arts and math. If a child isn't solid in those, it will affect him far more in the later years of schooling than if he missed out on doing another subject which he'll study in more detail in the later years anyways. That said, well-rounded is good too, but in my eyes, I'm quite alright with focussing on the basics for my son's up coming grade one year, and adding in the other subjects as we have time.
