High school hours???

[lisaha1]

Does highschool really take 7 hours a day (assuming everything goes smoothly for them)?? When does the student have time for chores and can they still be helps with the littlest ones? The idea of my oldest working on school all day is not great, she has chores and is a helper around the house. How do you manage high school in in your household?

[8arrows]

We do have Fridays to spill over into (that is not counted in the hours). I completely see where you are coming from. My daughter has done REV2REV and MTMM beefed up for 8th and 9th. We will be doing the world history guide next year. This is how we handle it. She does have mornings reserved for school, but if I need help with lunch, laundry, or kids, that has to take precedent. She will be a wife and mother first, so I want to set those precedents for her early instead of working against them. She also has violin, guitar, and art classes, which in the long run, may prove more beneficial than some of the actual school subjects (since this is where her gifts lie). So, these are also priorities for us. If we finish a guide in a year, great! If we don't--there are summers and next year. Depending on where you live, you may not need all the credits anyway. We will definitely have home-ec credits. For us, the girls will probably stop math at Algebra 2. That means their fourth math could be a consumer math which is easily completed alongside another math or during a summer. For us, it is working to take each day at a time and do the amount of work that be accomplished while not neglecting the family or the home. We seem to have time to catch up on Fridays and in the summer. If we did not, I still would give priority to the family, house, art, and instruments. (I do think an education is important, but we are seeking balance.) Your goals may differ, but perhaps our schedule will give you some food for thought to create your livable, enjoyable, and serviceable schedule. One of the reasons we chose to homeschool is so school would not rule our lives. We continue to keep that goal in front of our eyes, even at the high school level.

[LynnH]

My daughter did not do HOD because she was past the guides that were out at the time when she came home for high school, but yes it took at least 6 hours a day because usually she was trying to earn 6 credit hours. We did co-op on Fridays so that was schooling 4 days a week. If we would have stretched it to Fridays then it would have been a little less each day. I go by HSLDA's guidelines for how many hours equals a credit so if you are just schooling during the school year and doing 4 days a week then each 1 credit hour class should take about an hour a day. For her some subjects took a little less and some a little more. She did chores and worked at chikfila after school was done. We don't have little ones though. For us school was her first priority as far as how she spends her time during the school week, but I know that is different for each family. Now that she is in college she thanks me for getting her used to working those kinds of days because college takes so much more time than that and she really has to manage her time well.

[MomtoJGJE]

I've been wondering this too...

so far we have been consistently finishing a guide in roughly half the time (slightly more sometimes when we add in stuff) listed that it should be completed in. So I"m hoping that remains true for us. Because quite frankly if they are going to take 7 hours to finish school then I'll just send them to school

[LynnH]

Having had a daughter that was in ps up through the end of 9th grade I can say it is still way less time than is required if they are in ps for high school. She would leave for school before 7 and get home around 2:45 and that was with me driving her. Then she averaged 3 hours or more of homework each night as well as work on the weekends. As a homeschooled highschooler she didn't have any work at night or on the weekends until she did the dual enrollment classes through her college, and even then she fit most of it in to her daytime schedule.

[Gwenny]

I've always wondered how you all are so so fast!!

Don't forget, if you send them to school, that's 8 hours and then they come home to do homework! Also, that's not YOU doing 7 hours! (hallelujah!) haha

[lisaha1]

Our goals for our children is to put, God first and then family. I hope my daughters are stay at home moms and my sons are doing good honest labor as adults-putting God and family ahead of money and prestige. I partly wish we were Amish so the kids could quit school and apprentice after 8th grade! lol! I really think they learn valuable information from apprenticeships. They need enough credits to graduate and work in the area that they wish.

[StephanieU]

I am a numbers person, so I was just hinking about the hours in a day. If you set aside 9 hours for sleeping, 30 minutes per meal for eating, and 30 minutes in the morning for shower and getting dressed, that leaves 13 hours in the day for most teens. If you take half of that time and devote it to school (so 6-7 hours), that still leaves half of the day to help around the house, serve God, etc. I think that is a lot of time! And if your child isn't planning on going to college, I bet you could pare down the high school guides to about 5-6 hours of work. Classes like logic, foreign language, and even some of the science and math won't be necessary. Of course you would want to look at your state requirements though as well.

[MomtoJGJE]

I have to add in that even if your child IS planning on college, college requirements are less time per day than that. A full load in college is 3 hours per day roughly (less on some days, maybe more on others, but not likely). High school, even though they are gone that long, they are not working that whole time... maybe 5 hours MAX on a VERY VERY BAD DAY.

I guess my biggest problem with the amount of time is that since we are homeschooling, I was planning on my children doing duel enrollment or having an internship.

Our hourly whatever per day is between 10-12 hours sleeping, plus we have extracurricular church, sports and choir. If they are spending 7 hours on school daily.....

I know I have years to go... this was just a shock to me to hear that the guides take that long regularly.

[StephanieU]

College is only 3 hours a day? I teach college classes, and most students take 15 credit hours a term. That is 15 hours a week in class and then 15-45 hours a week of homework. So, for an easy class load, that is 30 hours of school work a week. If you spread that over 4 days (like HOD spreads out the high school guides), then that is 7.5 hours a day of school work. That is no where near the 3 hours you are stating. If you only went to class, it would still be more than 3 hours a day, 4 days a week. And I don't know of any class that meet for the same number of credit hours that don't have any "homework." Labs, PE classes, etc all meet for more than their credit hours to make up for the no homework.

[StephanieU]

And as for the guides taking that long, I think Carrie has even mentioned that some of the "electives" they have planned you can skip. For example, logic in the World Geography guide isn't required for graduation. But, if you aren't doing other classes, it is a great option. Foreign language can be done differently, possibly as a dual credit for example. The same goes for science, math, etc. I know many families only plan on using the Economy package for high school guides, which is perfectly fine. Carrie wrote the guides to be very complete and prepare students for a rigorous college.

If that isn't your plans, there are EASY ways to simplify what she has. But, I think 7 hours isn't bad for high school. I know I was in class (and not athletics, etc) 4-5 hours a day in high school. And then I did have 1-2 hours of homework most nights, if not more. Now, if I wasn't taking honors classes, my homework would have been almost 0. But, it was still 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week for the "simple" class load back in the mid-90s. That didn't include any Bible either, which is about 45 minutes a day in the high school guides (plus World Religions and Cultures which is 20-30 minutes a day). So, if you take that out of WG plus logic (20-30 minutes), then you are down to 5.5 hours a day. If you take the living library out (which I would guess is more "honors" work), you are easily down to about 5 hours a day. And you are still doing advanced math, language arts, and history (plus Spanish and a lab science).

[MomtoJGJE]

College is only 3 hours a day? I teach college classes, and most students take 15 credit hours a term. That is 15 hours a week in class and then 15-45 hours a week of homework. So, for an easy class load, that is 30 hours of school work a week. If you spread that over 4 days (like HOD spreads out the high school guides), then that is 7.5 hours a day of school work. That is no where near the 3 hours you are stating. If you only went to class, it would still be more than 3 hours a day, 4 days a week. And I don't know of any class that meet for the same number of credit hours that don't have any "homework." Labs, PE classes, etc all meet for more than their credit hours to make up for the no homework.

I took full loads every semester. I took three classes MWF (50min), two classes T-Th (1:15), in the fall I had band which was a 1 credit class that met 3-4 days per week for an hour and in the spring I would have another class that was either a lab or other type of 1 day per week class that was 1.5 hours. The only homework I had was studying for tests and projects that were well laid out in the syllabus so only took massive amounts of time if/when I procrastinated. If I was on my game it took maybe an hour a week outside of class time. That's where I was getting my times from. That was generally ~16 hours per semester. Dh had generally less class time than I did, but more out of class project type stuff so it evened out. So yes... roughly 3 hours per day.

In high school I had 6 classes (we didn't do block scheduling). One of those was band which would be something extra to add for HOD so I'm not going to use that. The other 5 were 50 minutes each. So even if you just count those 50 minutes that would be a little over 4 hours of class time per day. Obviously we didn't use the whole 50 minutes for instruction and work, but just for arguments sake. I had a 50 minute study hall that I did my homework in. So even if you add in that time as well (which homeschoolers would obviously not have) you'd have right at 5 hours of work, assuming the whole 50 minutes in each class was taken. If you just take 10 minutes off of each class (to account for everyone getting there, the 3 minutes until the tardy bell, getting everything ready, teacher starting, many questions, people cutting up, and then anything at the end of class) with the study hall it would be 4 hours even and without the study hall it would be less than 3.5 hours.

[MomtoJGJE]

I feel the need to add in here that I still feel HOD is the best curriculum out there. I am in no way trying to compare it to out of home schooling in content.

We (my family) are not called to homeschool. We homeschool for two reasons... one is that they can work less hours per day than if they were to go to school and the other is that we can take trips whenever we want to. A side effect of homeschooling is that we can have more control over their environment and another is that they get a better education.

This is why it is such a shock to me to see that 7 hours is the average time. I was thinking more along the lines of 5 hours being the average time.

[lisaha1]

I was hoping for a max of five hours also! When I was in highschool I rarely had homework and I took independent studies classes bc I could complete the credit in way less time on my own then by taking a class. I went to college post secondary and had even less homework with classes from 8:00 too 2:00 (an hour lunch). I want the children to learn what they need but to have time for apprenticeships, chores and general family time. I'm trying to figure out how to fit in 7 hours of school, it can be done...

[StephanieU]

Like I said, it is super easy to cut just a few things out of the high school guides and get it to about 5 hours. This is still enough for most kids. And it isn't taking anything really away from the guides. It is just elective-type things that you are replacing with apprenticeships and other activities. Here are the times from Julie:
World Geography box: 35-45 min.
Living Library: 20-25 min.
Geography Activity: 20-25 min.
World Religions and Cultures: 20-25 min.
Foreign Language: 25-30 min. (with audio online practice included)
Logic: 20-25 min. (longer on discussion days)
R & S English/Essentials in Writing/Dictation: 30 min.
BJU Lit/Boy Set: 40-45 min.
Math: 60 min.
Bible Study: 40-50 min. (plus the devotional once weekly in addition to this as part of the Bible credit)
Science with Lab: 40-60 min.
If you take the things I put in bold, that is under 5 hours and still a good solid high school education.