I've been intending to do a thread like this for years, because as the years pass it seems that eventually almost everyone runs into a situation where the school day seems to be running longer than the parent would like. This often results in bewilderment as to why the day is going too long.
So, here are some things we've found through the years that are wise to consider, because they make a big impact on how long your school day is and also help you know whether your expectations for your day are truly realistic.
1) Have you as the teacher set aside time to teach, or are you instead answering the phone, typing emails, checking message boards, reading facebook, texting, doing laundry, making meals, baking bread, etc.? Your day will go much more smoothly if you focus on teaching as your "job" and direct your attention fully on your students. This one is something I battle all the time, yet when I really am focused everyone is much happier, including me!
2) Are your kiddos well-rested when they begin their day?
I mention this because being well-rested greatly affects a successful school start-time for both parent and child. While you can enforce an early start-time to your day, if your kiddos (or you) are exhausted from the night before, they will function sluggishly and sleepily at best. This makes things take so much longer than they should! I must admit that I am a night owl, and I have had to adjust my start time for teaching accordingly. However, my two older sons love to get going earlier than I do. So, they are up at 6:30 and starting their day. Make sure to ponder this important area to gain more focused school time. 3) If you have little ones, have you planned what your little ones will be doing, so they have a daily routine too? Little ones who are left to endlessly interrupt at will can quickly derail the best laid plans! With my little ones, I make sure they are rotated among tasks and places in the home every 30 min. or so. I keep their routine, or order of things, similar each day helping them gain comfort in their day too.
If you are not sure what do with your little ones throughout the day, there are terrific threads on our message board for occupying little ones during school time if you search. 4) Do you keep a similar routine each day so that your children's routine becomes second nature?
While you don't necessarily have to be exactly on time each day, it is so helpful to keep the same general routine or order of subjects each day. This takes away the question of what a child should do next and minimizes interruptions. I've had to become more scheduled the more years I've taught. 5) Have you written your routine down and provided it for your child, so the child knows what to do in what order each day? This is a necessary step in making a routine function effortlessly.
6) Do you have an efficient set breakfast, lunch, and chore routine? If not, it is wise to ponder these as they will also steal huge amounts of teaching time from your day.
7) Are you making sure in the guides from Preparing on up to follow the suggested level of independence for each box in the guide?
If you are having your child do the 'S' (Semi-Independent) or the 'T' (Teacher-Directed) boxes without you, it will add time to your day in either checking later, problems during the work time, or mistakes that aren't caught and need to be fixed. 'S' and 'T' boxes are harder and require more parent help. I compensate for these by sticking close to my kiddos during 'S' boxes, popping in at the beginning or middle to check progress. For the 'T' boxes, I am always present as many of these boxes are discussion based. On the other hand, if you are thinking that the 'I' boxes mean that the child is totally independent and you have no role in the box, this is a misunderstanding. 'I' means the child can complete the box 'Independently", but independent work also needs to be checked. So, I always go over all of the 'I' boxes with my child, discussing what is in the box and checking any work done independently. This is a similar situation to when a classroom teacher assigns homework to be done independently at home. Can you imagine how quickly a child would quit doing homework well, or doing it all, if it were never checked! So it is worth checking the way you are handling each box in your HOD guide in order to be more effective. 
Have you trained your children in Preparing on up (and even begun in Bigger) to read right from the HOD guide? Do you allow your children to have the guide in hand as they work? These two steps are crucial for a child to be able to do the 'S' and 'I' boxes in the guide. Working without a guide in hand is very difficult, as the child will be running back to the guide as he/she works, striving to remember a lengthy list of directions. In addition, if you are still needing to read aloud all directions to a child even from the 'S' and 'I' boxes, this will add significant time to your day. So, train your kiddos to read from the guide early and often. It is a skill that pays big dividends not just within HOD, but all throughout life. 9) Are you taking over the assignments from the 'I' boxes, reading aloud material that is meant for the child to read?
If so this will definitely add time to your day, as in typical situations kiddos can read to themselves much more quickly than you can read aloud to them. Students also usually retain better when reading to themselves, so be sure to encourage your child to do the 'I' boxes on his/her own (while still checking your child's work in any 'I' boxes). Training a child to read his/her material is a critical step in preparation for the higher levels of reading, analysis, and application to come. It can take time for a child to learn to read purposefully, but almost all kiddos will be asked to use this skill regularly by high school.10) Are you using HOD's choices for language arts and math? If so, this will help keep your day in balance time-wise with what we schedule in the guide. If you are instead using some of your own selections in these areas, be sure the time spent on each area is in line with the amount of time we spend on these areas in our guide. Otherwise, you will find your school day going much longer than we calculated simply due to your own choices in language arts and math. Language arts and math are the biggest time stealers in the day. They can easily take over the day, leaving little time for the other subjects. So, strive to note how often we schedule writing, dictation, DITHR, and grammar and stick to a similar schedule. Also, be sure math does not overtake your day either.
11) Is your child correctly placed in the right guide? This is such an important question and one that deserves immense amounts of pondering. This is because one of the true gifts of homeschooling is being able to meet our children where they are and teach from there.
So, correct placement makes a huge difference on how much time a guide will take each day. This is where wise counsel comes in to charting a good path. Surround yourself with wise counsel on this important decision from those who are familiar with HOD and can help you talk through an accurate placement your children. Pray for the Lord's discernment, and I know He will answer! 12) Have you trained your kiddos in CM style skills? If you hopped into an upper HOD guide, you will have to assume that some of the skills your child is being asked to exhibit were meant to be practiced in previous guides. This means that there will be a learning curve especially with the CM style skills of oral and written narrations, dictation passages, poetry study, reading living books, creating notebooking entries, sketching, and learning in a CM style fashion.
Allow time and additional help in your schedule for this, and know that these skills do not develop overnight. So, be patient, and you will eventually see the fruit! 13) Have you checked the message board for the listing of how long each subject is meant to take in each of our guides? This can be a help if your day is too long, because you can jot down the start and end times for each subject in a guide for a day or two and compare to the times on the board to find your time stealers. Here is a link to some suggested times for each guide:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2093&start=135#p74537
Revival to Revolution: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10230&p=74441
14) Are your expectations realistic as to how long your school day should be? If you have multiple kiddos, or if you are in an upper guide, school time daily should and does increase. When you think that our school days in public school were close to 8 hours and there was also a couple of hours of homework at night and on the weekends, what should our expectations be for a homeschool child? Sometimes in our quest for the "shorter day", we forget that school is meant to be a big part of our child's day. It is meant to be very important!
It is not just something to "get over with", so we can get on with our day. I know there are more things to consider, but this list of questions should get you thinking! I know that this list has helped me so much through the years!
I pray it will be a help to you too!Blessings,
Carrie
I had tried having my dc keep a list of how long each subject was taking and I couldn't figure out what was taking so long most of the time. It seemed that each individual task was not that much out of line but yet our day was running long. I had a printed schedule for my dc to follow with blocks of time for each task in the order listed that they should do them, yet that wasn't working. 
So I had fallen into trap#1 above by not being as attentive to their school during the day while they were working. Last week not only did I do my teaching/meeting time, but I spent my time after that doing checking and corrections before their day was completed. That way we were able to actually complete the days work in that day. That gave them a better sense of accomplishment and didn't start the next day off on a negative note. It really didn't take any more of my time. I just had to rearrange my time a bit. 
We're half-way through Bigger at this point and my 7-year-old is trained to do a lot independently already. I hadn't thought to actually let her start to read directly from the guide rather than my explaining it to her. What areas would you suggest this is a good idea for? She already has asked to read the history herself, which I allow, but I still read it to her if she asks. I was thinking the science box, Poetry, history notebooking, timeline, and Bible study. I would still ask her to answer the questions for me, or write them down.
and I want to do all that I am able to to help my son succeed