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Angel
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| Posted: March 09 2009 at 3:12pm | IP Logged
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I have a request from my 9 yo (4th grade) and 12 yo (6th grade). They want to know, on average, how much sit down work your 4th and 6th graders do every day. We have our read aloud time in the morning, which runs about an hour or a little more, but doesn't really count as "work" to anybody (but me  ). Then we might have some "choice time" for projects, which has been squished down until we are lucky to get in 30 or 45 minutes. The kids do sit-down work -- math, language, spelling, Latin -- in the afternoons. This may take 1.5 hours, or maybe 2 hours. No longer than 2 hours, ever. I do not, at this point, require them to read specific books.
My 9 yo dd and 12 yo ds do not like this sit-down work and have been grumbling about it, and the time it takes. (1.5 hrs, generally). They would like to know how much time other homeschooled kids their ages spend on required work. This could be, if you require them to have a work period of a certain length but they're allowed to pick and choose what they do in that work period... down the contiuum to if you do Seton, how long does it take to do all the work?
I believe they want to know if I'm being unreasonable. 
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Angela
Mom to 9, 7 boys and 2 girls
Three Plus Two
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KerryK
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| Posted: March 09 2009 at 3:36pm | IP Logged
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Angela,
My 8yo dd does about 1.5 hours of sit down per day - maybe a little less if she gets right to it, which she usually doesn't do. My 12 yo ds may work a little more like 2 hours per day. Like you, we have a reading period, everything else is project stuff, which they usually want to do so don't think of as "work".
So I think we are in line with what you do...for what that's worth!
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Kerry
Mom to
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New baby Samuel 2/26/07!
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Bookswithtea
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| Posted: March 09 2009 at 3:38pm | IP Logged
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I have a 6th grade girl. Her sit down work is probably closer to 2.5 hrs...a little more if she is working on a narration/composition (she types them herself now). She probably does more than my ds did at the same age...I'd say 2hrs for a 6th grade boy is very normal.
For a 9 yr old 4th grade boy...I'd probably be closer to the 1 - 1 1/2 hr mark. I think my 9yr old 3rd grader probably spends 1 hr 15 min. on non-unit study activities.
This also doesn't count either of their daily reading times...1 hr minimum for the 6th grader, and about 30 minutes min. for the 3rd grader.
Funny how kids get the idea that even the most reasonable requests are soooooooooooo horrendous when they don't have the experience of a classroom, first, huh?
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Blessings,
~Books
mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and  due 9/10
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KerryK
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| Posted: March 09 2009 at 3:43pm | IP Logged
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I'm just jumping back in to say that, as books suggested, kids think of this much differently when they have experienced classroom life. My ds was in school until fourth grade - now he thinks he's getting away with murder with our schedule!
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Kerry
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New baby Samuel 2/26/07!
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mooreboyz
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| Posted: March 09 2009 at 3:47pm | IP Logged
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Angela,
My 3 older sons do about 2 hrs of sit down work in the am (math, spelling, la, penmanship, special topic...logic for 11 yr old, writing 9 yr old, US geog 7 yr old). The rest of the time before lunch they practice piano, read (they're all reading dif levels of King Arthur and doing little projects too), and do various choicework (prac life, geography, art, math games, la games, and so on).
After lunch we spend a solid hour to hour and a half working on either human body, animal classification, or history and geography. The rest of the afternoon they work on choicework or read.
We do have a coop day on Wed and also piano lessons and so we don't do "school" on Wed. Also Fri is for fine arts and fun and so they are a bit dif. too.
Let me know if you need any other info. My boys are challenging this time of the year too. I wish it would get nice out.
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Jackie
7 boys - 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 15, 17 years
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joann10
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| Posted: March 09 2009 at 4:19pm | IP Logged
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My 9yos-third grader, also does about 2 hours of sit down work a day. But lately, he has been daydreaming his time away-so it is closer to 3 hours if I force him to get things finished. Today he actually was reading out loud to me, paused, looked out the window and asked me (mid read aloud sentence) if his father has his fishing liscence yet?--so I don't believe he is using time management skills.
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Bookswithtea
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| Posted: March 09 2009 at 5:11pm | IP Logged
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joann10 wrote:
| Today he actually was reading out loud to me, paused, looked out the window and asked me (mid read aloud sentence) if his father has his fishing liscence yet?--so I don't believe he is using time management skills. |
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Blessings,
~Books
mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and due 9/10
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Cay Gibson
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| Posted: March 09 2009 at 7:38pm | IP Logged
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I have a 5th grader who does approximately 2-3 hours seatwork. Depending on how many days we missed outside the house and how many "breaks" she takes.
Probably safe to say 2.5 hours on average.
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Cay Gibson
"There are 49 states, then there is Louisiana." ~ Chef Emeril
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AndieF
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| Posted: March 09 2009 at 9:03pm | IP Logged
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My 9 year old third grader does her required subjects in the morning. She has to read for at least a half hour, but she often does more than that. Right now, we are studying each of the American Girls, so one week, she reads the American Girl books of the girl we are studying, and then the next week, she reads books about the place/culture, etc. Then there is spelling (maybe 15 minutes every day) and then writing (around a half hour) and Math. We are hitting Math harder now because she is finally getting into the groove with Math. We were going slowly during Nov-Feb. So she probably does at least 45 minutes a day on math right now. She also does geography, and usually some botany or zoology. She is done by 11:30 almost every day.
In the afternoon, she does music, art, poetry, and cooking/sewing. Not always every day, but the music, art, and poetry most days, and the cooking and sewing at least once a week.
Andie
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JuliaT
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| Posted: March 09 2009 at 10:28pm | IP Logged
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My 9 yr. old (4th Grade) spends about 1.5 hours in the morning doing her seat work. In the afternoons, we do our unit study and she may do another half hour to an hour of seat work with that, depending on the day.
Blessings,
Julia
mom of 3 (9,8,6)
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: March 09 2009 at 11:28pm | IP Logged
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I deleted my previous post because when I answered I hadn't realized you asked specifically about 4th and 6th grade.
I don't have either of those, so I will just shut up now!LOL!
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
LaPaz Home Learning
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Sarah
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| Posted: March 10 2009 at 6:39am | IP Logged
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4th grade boy 1.5 but dreamy so quantity isn't a lot.
6th grade boy 2 to 3 hours, but not all at once. He has several clubs that make work take longer.
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KC in TX
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| Posted: March 10 2009 at 8:21am | IP Logged
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My 4th grader spends up to 2 hours doing seatwork. He sometimes takes less sometimes more depending on how long math takes. He has autism; he has attention issues due to it.
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KC,
wife to Ben (10/94),
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sunshinyliving
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| Posted: March 10 2009 at 9:57am | IP Logged
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5th & 7th graders: 3 hours, mostly on their own(they do reading/lit, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, history, science,handwriting, math, and geography)
*In addition to this, we usually do about 2 hrs together (classroom style) as well. (Apostolate's Family Catechism, Bible story, Bible verse, Bible chapter, Latin, writing, poetry/lit study; each day I also teach "classroom-style" one lesson from one of their history/science lessons)
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Diana Cunningham
Chloe (13) Kievan (11) Allister (7) Benjamin (5) Anna Claire (1.5) William (1mo.)
HolyTwins School
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: average time doing required subjects?
