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Hello ladies,
Is there a thread that addresses how much time daily that I will need to be teaching for each level? I've read through the schedule sharing thread, but I still don't see a totally clear answer to this question. Since I'm looking at teaching 4 or 5 levels each day, and also at having baby #8 at the end of January, I want to make sure I'm not biting off more than I can realistically chew. Would someone be able to give me a breakdown of time required of me for each of the guides? I would be so appreciative! Thanks in advance. : )

I can't help you with everything, but here is a sample . . .

LHTH takes about 25-30 minutes
Little Hearts takes about 90 minutes
Beyond takes 90min - 2 hrs
Bigger Hearts takes about 3 hours

With these younger guides you would be doing the majority of the teaching. It is not as daunting as it may look. I taught LHTH, LHFHG, and Bigger last school year and total school time was only about 3 1/2 hours. There were occasional things that after I explained my child could take and run with.

I have not used any higher guide, but starting with Preparing Hearts the child begins to have independent assignments.

HTH!

TrueGrit has it pretty close for the younger guides. I would say Preparing is probably the most time consuming because of the length of read alouds, and just the big jump in skill level from Bigger. That said, I know I was usually done by noon with the afternoon time sometimes used for any of the craft activities so we could relax and enjoy them a bit more. That said, the levels after that are even less teacher intensive. By CTC, they have the notebooking pages to fill in, more written narrations, independent reading. I didn't read all of the read alouds out loud since I had a younger child that needed me, but we did the oral narration work. I made myself familiar with the books in advance (I read ALL SUMMER so I can enjoy their books and have meaningful conversations about the books with my kids during the school year.) I have been running 3 guides the last few years, and it is hard to say I spend X number of hours because I just go from one child to another, seeing where they are and doing with them anything that requires me. So it is bits and pieces of times throughout the morning primarily. (Which was much different from our textbook days, which required all me, all day and we were still doing school when Dad came home because so much was required of me to implement.) HOD is nothing like that. I can go from guide to guide, and everyone can keep moving without me standing over them.

BTW, for my younger one (age 8 now), I have a "busy box" under the table hat I have her chose from of things to do if she is done with what she was working on, but can't move on without me, but I am busy with another kid. It has puzzles, coloring pages, dot-to-dot, wrap ups, math games like Down & Out, word searches, etc. That keeps me from losing her attention and having her slip away from me. That keeps the day flowing and eliminates a lot of conflict and impatience.

This is a great question, and I also think this will vary greatly (especially for an older child) from when you first start a guide to when you move further into the guide. It is much more intensive for you as the teacher as you are starting a new guide with a child. They have to learn what is expected of them in each area and you have to be more a part of it while they are learning. After they've figured it out and you can generally trust them to follow through and do well on their own, you can get them started, or have their stuff ready and if they know what to do when it requires little time from you. Of course if they hit something difficult you might get pulled in, and my most recent schedule has me checking in with my oldest more often than I was before. It's easier once a child has been doing a guide for a while to do things a bit more concurrently, if you plan it well.

I think this may be why some of the moms on here start a guide at 1/2 speed (doing 1/2 of a day's plans each day) in order to help the child get into a groove on what they are doing. I just start full speed and plan on it being more intensive for the first 2-3 weeks.

I only teach 2 guides right now and it takes about 2 hours of my teaching time. Bigger Hearts is not supposed to have "independent work" so if I was really with my girl in Bigger the whole time she was doing school it would be the whole 2.5-3 hours. She does math, cursive, English, and some of the notebooking on her own and I look over it when she is done. But that is not the recommended way of doing it. I get interrupted often also as there are 2 younger children who often need at least direction, but the 1 YO often needs tending to.

I also don't find that it takes us as much time as the average recommended time once we get going. We easily shave 5 minutes off each box by the end, which does really add up in time!

I also start having them do things independently early on, which helps. A lot of people say Bigger is most teacher intensive, but after doing Preparing, and now doing Bigger again, I think going through Preparing the first time is more work than going through Bigger the first time. The readings in Bigger are not nearly as long, and there's not the amount of work to check either. Bigger has a good deal more writing than Beyond, but not nearly the amount that is in Preparing.

As far as independent work before Preparing, my Bigger child does handwriting, vocabulary, math (once I teach it), and notebooking (once I explain it). We do all English orally at that point, which also saves a good chunk of time. My LHFHG child does handwriting and math, once I explain it, and is a good enough reader now that if I'm needed for someone else she can read her ER lesson on her own. That's not common, but it CAN happen. We also do Story Time readings at bedtime and I've combined CTC and Bigger story time by doing the genre related read alouds from CTC as opposed to the history related ones.

Also, we school year round, and I've started doing 5-6 weeks of the regular guides and then 3 weeks of DITHOR along with math/English. So DITHOR does not factor in with our typical school day. We'd add in 30ish minutes of school total, and about 10 minutes more of my time. If we did.

All that to say, this year I'm doing CTC, Bigger, LHFHG, and LHTH and my total teaching time for those is about 3 hours. Which includes changing diapers, feeding the baby, fixing breakfast/snack/lunch, and doing chores/paying bills. Along with DH coming home in the middle because he works early mornings and gets home around 10am.

This week we've been doing school early due to swimming lessons starting at 8:45. So we get all of LHTH, LHFHG, and Bigger done in that time, and all my required time for CTC. So evidently when we really just sit and focus on school, my teaching time is only about 1.5 hours Not counting story time at night. Another 20ish minutes.

Wow, Lora Beth, that is impressive times! I go back and forth because I can get the work done quickly, but sometimes I feel we miss out on some things doing it that way. And I suppose there's a balance there. Some days to linger and discuss things more, or take more time and enjoy the art project, those things are great but you can't do them all the time! I'm just amazed you get it done before swimming at 8:45. We are doing afternoon school today because my kids have swimming at 10:45 and we are having lunch after with a friend, but we are also being a bit lazy this morning which is always nice to do every once in a while.

We don't discuss during school time. I mean, tangent discussions or lengthy discussions about the topic. We can do that after school time. I cannot get distracted or it just doesn't get done. If they have a question about a topic, I'll answer it if it's related or a word they don't get or something... but if it's more than a quick answer I'll write it down to look it up later.

And again, that's not counting DITHOR or Story Time...

I found it taking me about 2hrs with rev2rev with a child that needs me more than most kids do at that level. Bigger is usually the most teacher intensive Bc they aren't doing anything totally themselves yet usually. Preparing lets off a little and it drops from there. I've been teaching four guides. With lunch, breaks, chores, school it filled 8am to 3pm usually.

Thank you for sharing how you are working the guides into your days. There are a wealth of good ideas here.

Since I'm also looking at doing Preparing and Res to Ref next fall, if anyone would like to chime in on these two daily teacher time allotments, that would be super.

I haven't personally done Preparing - a friend of mine has and for them the child does the independent & semi-independent in 2-2 1/2 hours, then they work together for 30-45 minutes. This does not include DITHR. He does that on a separate schedule. Later in the day he will do more math, only because that is not his strong point, and needs more attention.

Here's what Carrie says about the time involved for Res to Ref: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7138&p=51937

You could estimate the teaching time required by adding up the 'together' boxes.

Our times for Preparing were running about 3 1/2 hours, 4 if including DITHOR.

Thank you for chiming in on preparing times!

Here is where I'd like to clarify. See, if I add up all of the recommended times for the guides we're looking at, I'm coming up with

Little Hearts: 90 minutes
Beyond: 120 minutes
Preparing: 210-240 minutes
Res to Ref: I'll call 50 minutes of my time, based on what I added up from the link to Carrie's explanation above, trying to compare it to a spread from the first week's sample plan book, sorting through the I's, T's and S's. (Can I pull my hair out yet )

When added all together I'm getting approximately 8 hours of each day devoted to teaching the children, not including their independent work. (Nor mentioning all of the other things mommies do.) Is this an accurate representation of what I'd be spending teaching HOD each day to my children? This is where I'm choking

When I look at this quote below, I feel like I can start to breathe normally again. But when I look at the numbers I listed above, I get apprehensive. Please help me out of this point of confusion!

"All that to say, this year I'm doing CTC, Bigger, LHFHG, and LHTH and my total teaching time for those is about 3 hours. Which includes changing diapers, feeding the baby, fixing breakfast/snack/lunch, and doing chores/paying bills. Along with DH coming home in the middle because he works early mornings and gets home around 10am."

I think if you did each child separately and completely before starting the next child it would take all day. But I can do LHTH almost completely through (not counting them gluing things to the letter or walking on the letter taped on the floor etc) while LHFHG child is doing their work independently (handwriting and math along with any art etc).... I can do LHFHG all except independent work while Bigger child is working on their independent work (handwriting, math, vocabulary, art, notebooking, etc).... And I get all of that and reading to the Bigger child while the CTC child is doing her independent work.

Now... I'm SURE at the beginning it's going to take you more time than you really want to spend on school But it's a learning curve. I'd suggest stagger starting... getting at least two units of each one down pat before starting the next child. I'd also start with the oldest, most independent child. And especially in the beginning don't feel bad if you need to go half speed just to get the rhythm down!

It really helps my time that I school year round, and have been doing HOD from the beginning. And my kids are off enough from one another that when one is beginning a new guide, everyone else is already good to go in their guide.

My estimates for Preparing included my dd's time-start to finish. I did not have to be there the whole time for that! Sorry for the confusion. I maybe spent 1 1/2 hrs of that time with her?? Sorry I can't tell you exactly, just trying to remember...I think that's about right, once we got into the swing of things, and she was very able to handle the "I" boxes herself, and lots of the "S" boxes, as well.

I agree with the previous poster who talked about being able to work with one child while another is doing independent work; it would look very overwhelming to add up all the times for each guide and think that was how long your school day would be! We've basically found our school day to be however long our longest guide takes to complete. During that time I'm floating from one child to another, and assigning them independent work, or play time while I'm with someone else. I do recommend stagger-starting your guides/kids. It's really helpful to have one child off to a good stride before working with another-that way they will know exactly what's expected for their independent boxes, with minimal-hopefully NO-interruptions while I'm with a sibling. I like to start with the most advanced guide, for that reason. Spend a few days to a week training them on what things will look like and they can take it and fly while you're working with kids who may need more of you.