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teachingmyown
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| Posted: March 26 2009 at 12:59pm | IP Logged
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I apologize if this is the wrong forum, feel free to move it if necessary.  I am trying to get a handle on what a typical day should look like for a 13 yr old 7th grader. How much time is given to schoolwork, namely written work? How much time for chores, reading and leisure? Do they do each subject daily or do you have a weekly plan that needs to be accomplished whenever?
I have a bad habit of never thinking my kids are productive enough. It drives me crazy to see them spend hours reading or playing. Kind of strange, because I fancy myself a bit of an unschooler!  Maybe I am just envious of that time dedicated to what they enjoy.
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Molly
wife to Court & mom to ds '91, dd '96, ds '97, dds '99, '01, '03, '06, and dss '07 and 01/20/11
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helene
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| Posted: March 26 2009 at 8:17pm | IP Logged
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My seventh grader wakes early and helps getting breakfast for the littles and then with clean up afterward. She then does her language arts work(one page, both sides)and 2 sides of a math worksheet (we use Abeka). I go over all her work with her. She corrects mistakes. After that is a lesson in Wordly Wise. Believe it or not, these 3 subjects take up the bulk of her morning. She sometimes has time to read before lunch. She has the whole afternoon free basically. I, too, sometimes feel I should be "filling it" with something....but she is never bored. I think her time to do what she wants is important. Once a week she does some out loud reading with me and a sibling in the subjects of religion, science, history, and art. She does ballet or her girls club almost every evening. But she does a lot of reading, too, before bed. So long as she is filling in her own gaps with good things I guess it's alright!
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Happy Mom to five girls (20,17,13,11and 4) and five boys (19, 15, 10, 8 and 6)
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Willa
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| Posted: March 26 2009 at 9:21pm | IP Logged
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Well, I'm an unschooly type who sometimes gets uncomfortable with too much leisure, too....
My seventh grader wakes up and does his chores and eats breakfast. Sometimes he plays a bit with his younger siblings, or reads, until we get started.
I usually read to him from history and religion (since I only have him and the two little ones this year, I have that kind of time). We discuss, he narrates.
Then grammar or Latin.... then he takes a break. Recently he's been taking the younger boys outside to play for an hour or so..... we still have tons of snow here so I don't like the little ones to go out without an older one supervising.
Then he has math, and some more reading to do independently. We don't do much writing at all -- most composition is oral. He's usually working on a story or comic or email and that's the way my other kids did most of their writing at that age, so I guess it's a pattern here.
He usually helps a bit around the house in the afternoon,.... yes, it does seem a bit of an easy life. From what I've heard, the middle school years are traditionally considered a consolidating time -- the local middle school is sort of a "holding tank" for kids who aren't really little kids anymore but aren't highschoolers either.
I was giving him daily plans but am now trying to phase over to weekly... my other kids moved to a weekly schedule at about that age, but it usually took a while to transition.
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Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
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Jen L.
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| Posted: March 26 2009 at 10:48pm | IP Logged
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Montessori has this age do LOTS of physical activity and real work (i.e. farming and cottage industry). I'm not saying that you adopt that 100% but it's always in the back of my mind with my 13yo!
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dh Klete,ds (8/95),dd (12/97), dd (11/00), and ^2^ in heaven
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Erin
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| Posted: March 27 2009 at 12:52am | IP Logged
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Thank you for starting this thread Molly, I really needed to hear this. I had a bad day yesterday, I feel much better now.
Willa, your description was very helpful. Actually my son is 14 next month and technically an 8th grader.
Molly mine spend hours reading, that's all they'd mostly do if I let them.
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KackyK
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| Posted: March 27 2009 at 7:51am | IP Logged
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My dd 13 would spend every waking moment if she could reading and writing on the computer. She has a bazilliion stories/novels/plays going at once. I'm almost begging her to do her math. But she gets it done sometime during the day. She hangs out with the other dc after breakfast until I manage to corral them all for prayer between 8:30 and 9. From there everyone disperses to do their assignments. She works then for probably 2 hours until she starts wandering and taking a break before lunch. She never seems to get back up onto that school horse again until after 1pm...then she'll work for another 2 hours or so. Sometimes that just means reading. She also goes to once-a-week homeschool co-op classes, that tends to be when she works on that. Oh and also in the morning she'll work with my preK or 1st grader too.
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molly
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| Posted: March 27 2009 at 10:23am | IP Logged
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My dd 12.5, takes care of feeding the horse and cow first thing in the AM. Then we make plans for what is on our schedule for the day. She pecks away every chance she gets, on the piano, she works on memorizing her lines for an up coming play, she helps w/ baby and younger brother, and reads and writes her plays and "novel". We are more radical unschoolers than most, so everyday looks very different from each other.
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Bookswithtea
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| Posted: March 27 2009 at 3:17pm | IP Logged
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Mine starts school around 8:30 ish, after chores and breakfast. She works through till about 11:30, then breaks for lunch. I sometimes ask her to stop schooling for a few minutes to watch the baby while I listen to the 6 yr old read aloud. She has lunch dishes as a chore so she usually gets back to work around 12:30. She finishes up by about 1:30, most days...occasionally as long as 2pm. She has a lot of afternoon free time that she spends reading, playing with her sisters, or crafting/sewing, or sometimes playing with a neighbor girl. She does Math U See, Sonlight's core 5, Sonlight's Science 5, and is memorizing for confirmation.
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melanie
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| Posted: March 30 2009 at 4:24pm | IP Logged
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I have a 12 1/2 year old. Her school work takes 3-4 hours a day usually. She uses Mother of Divine Grace with some tweaking done for her dyslexia. MODG gets heavier on the writing around this grade, but it's such a struggle for her. We certainly don't do more than is really necessary with her. She does a good amount of chores a day, I think,,,I don't know, maybe an hour all told? She's my oldest and I'll be honest, I lean on her quite a bit. She is always busy and rarely bored. She doesn't usually read or write voluntarily, but she loves art and has lots of projects going on at all times, and she is very involved in Irish dance. She likes science and does some extra stuff in that area too. She often plays with the younger kids, and sometimes gets all little girly on me and I'll catch her outside building fairy houses.  She's very extroverted and if we had good neighborhood kids for playing with she'd do that a lot too I'm sure. She probably has a good three hours of freetime on most weekdays.
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Melanie
homeschooling Maria (13yo), Kain (10yo), Jack (5yo), Tess (2yo), and our newest blessing, Henry Robert, born 4/23!
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4Real Forums : Mothering and Family Life
Topic: A day in the life of your 13 yr old?
