Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments what does your HS day look like, mine is crazy

Hello

I'm wondering what your HS day looks like. This is mine and it's killing me and all of my dreams of getting anything beyond HS accomplished.

I manage to convince my DD6 to get started by 10 am, this is a major accomplishment in and of itself. She then spends the next 10 hours alternating between playing, complaining and doing 'schooly' things. All toll she puts in about 3 or 4 hrs. for 'schooly' part of things. She has a lot of freedom in her choice of activities. Everyday is a bit different but in a nutshell it goes something like this.

* 30 minutes (in total) of a mix of spelling, vocabulary &/or grammar
* 30 minutes of writing (what she writes is completely up to her)
* 30 minutes of independent reading (again, her choice of material)

* 1 hour of math (I have 2 shelves full of math materials, nothing 'assigned', other than a grade 1 math workbook, just to make sure we cover the bases, it's super simple for her, despite her strong dislike for math....)

* 30 - 60 minutes (in total) of science, history and/or geography (here she generally works for an hour solid, fav. subjects)

Typically she breaks things up into 15-30 minute chunks and then plays for long stretches of time with DS3. After about 30 minutes I try to bring her back. A large part of her day is spent outside and drawing. I also suspect that she has ADHD because she is unable to work independently whatsoever, she needs to be prompted to return to her chosen activity every 5 minutes unless she is in a hyper focus frame of mind. I've been reading tons about ADD/ADHD and she shows virtually all of the symptoms. For a while I let myself believe that this was all just 'over excitabilities', or just her age, or the nature of HS but I really don't think that this is the case anymore. We are in the process of hoop jumping for a referral. Anyway....

DD absolutely is unable to work any other way, we have tried. I have tried 'deschooling' in hopes of getting to a happy 'unschooling' situation but this doesn't work for her at all and ironically I found it completely stressful but that's another story.....

My question is, am I expecting too much?

I would love to know how you approach your day. And I welcome any and all feedback, not just from those of us that are HSers.

Thanks, as always,

Annaliisa

A friend of mine homeschooled her sons for a year. Dinner prep and bed making were on the curriculum.

I just did a big 'flylady' experiment here - I'm wondering if your physical environment is dragging you down. It seems like with small kids running around that clutter is just plain undefeatable, but really it isn't. It takes working smarter, not harder though.

I think it would be hard on me to still be homeschooling at 8pm. Is there anyway you can quit at 2pm? That way she can do socialization stuff with the kids who go to school and you aren't so 'on' so many hours a day.

Is there a strong local Homeschooling community? Perhaps one day a week can be for playdates or taking turns with other moms being the teacher?

I've heard that over the years that HS kids get better at working independently...but you may be exactly right about the ADHD. At the very least I would 'shamoo' her by praising even 60 seconds of staying on task.

Best wishes,
Grinity - not a homeschooler

Hello there-
I didn't homeschool my son at first grade, so I may be off on this. I looked around at a couple of resources and found the average to be in the 1-2.5 hour range. That was even with advanced kids. Have you looked at the Well Trained Mind website? They have an accelerated forum that you might be able to get some more feedback on this topic. I noticed my son at 9 is still pretty dependent on me for school, although that is improving. It's really tough trying to figure out. It just takes a lot of fine tuning for who your little one is. As it is, we've only been doing this for 4 months and I'm still working out the kinks. I wish you well-

So, you've tried unschooling. You've tried having four hours of school spread over a ten hour day. What else have you tried?

Four hours of individual attention school is a very long time for a first grader. That is much, much more than we were doing at that age. What worked well for us was to have a structure and routine to the day and to have school included as a specific but small part of it. Much more time was spent on: taking walks, activities out of the house, housework, reading, etc.

On average both DS6 and DS8 spend a little more than 3 hours/day on school. That doesn't include independent reading and outside classes (piano, swimming, piano practice, etc). We have a specific schedule for each day and try to fit most of our school work between 9 and 12.

It has been working really well for us, but this is already my 3rd year of hs. It takes time to find the right rhythm for everybody.

DD is 4 1/2, and we are unschoolers, so take this with a grain of salt.

We don't have much routine, but on average DD spends probably an hour a day using the computer (playing games or watching videos); an hour a day reading (usually at bedtime); three hours playing outside; three hours playing inside (art/legos/stuffed animals/etc.); and the rest of the time she's dawdling, trying not to get dressed, brush her hair or teeth, or eat her meals.

I'd worry that DD had ADHD, but after watching her with other kids her age I've concluded that in fact her attention span is vastly superior to most kids her age. On a typical day there's no way she'd sit down and spend an hour on a worksheet. She can focus on something, when it's her choice. Or she can focus on something if someone is helping her to remember to focus. But if you put something down in front of her and ask her to do it, and then walk away...yeah, she's going to be climbing on the table, pretending to be a lion, before the minute's up.

This is what we did at 6:

Science/reading (as in I read to him) - over breakfast.
Science experiments - always some ongoing theme over here.
Math - he gets to choose from a total of 2 or 3 workbooks. I try to keep it balanced among them. We've abandoned some if they're unpopular. Revisiting them months later sometimes helps.
Writing/Language - he flat out refused, so I left it at that. Plenty of catchup this year, but I had to choose my battles.

All this is done between 9am-12pm. Rest of the time - he's reading, asking questions, looking up Brainpop, Lego (a lot). The afternoon is for me to chill, plan, do my own thing. He goes to the park at around 4-6pm. Sometimes preferred to stay in. Had regularly scheduled playdates which, when I look back, were a complete disaster.

You might try doing a weeks worth of one subject per day. I homeschooled myself as a kid a few times and that's how I liked to do it. Spelling on Monday, math on Tuesday... And sometimes you can get in the zone that way and work ahead a little and earn a day off. Hey, maybe it will work. I don't know how mom reported my schoolwork to the state.

I have a GT 6 year old daughter, who's a young first grader. I haven't had her fully assessed but she reads at the 4th to 5th grade level and seems to have well above level conceptual math understanding.

This is what my 6 year old does on an average homeschool day

1 - violin practice 20-30 minutes
2 - copy work 5-10 minutes
3 - out loud reading - 10 minutes
4 - grammar/LA (I'm using First Languge Lessons 2nd grade - may dump this soon). - 10 minutes
5 - journalling - 10 minutes
6 - Singapore math/manipulatives - 20/30 minutes
7 - science/lit/history read aloud (by me) during snack time (kids are often bouncing around during this) 20-30 minutes

We are doing Spanish and science out of the house right now once a week (with possibly a little homework). We do history once a week usually which maybe takes an hour or so (we are starting to listen to it in the car via audio books). We do lots more outings and she takes dance, circus, music lessons, and is involved in other play groups. We try to do hands on outings that tie into history, science, social studies, art. We participate in a book club and an art club.

But on a daily basis, she's sitting doing "table work" for an hour and a half. And she's still WAY ahead of the game. To me her behavior sounds age appropriate.

I banged my head against the wall for a while on finding balance, but I came up with a bare bones basic plan. I find that the earlier in the day we get going, the easier our days seem to go. Dragging it out just makes it seem harder and worse! I sometimes offer incentives for getting it done by a certain time (recreational computer time, TV, and/or Wii works well in these parts.

We are unschoolers. We don't have a routine or curriculum but I've found a bit of a rhythm that works for him on home days (we spend a lot of time out and about and also at my partner's house).
Mornings are the best time to invite him to write or work on things he finds difficult. It isn't worth trying when he is tired as the meltdowns are massive. He likes me to sit with him while he does this.
He reads by choice throughout the day, sometimes several hours, sometimes just at bedtime. He reads his current novel (Harry potter and the Chamber of Secrets atm) aloud or to himself, or he reads a library book (usually non fiction) to me or occasionally to himself.
The evening, after dinner, is when he does maths. He only really likes to do a few problems at a time but will watch khan academy videos for an hour or two. He seems to get into a groove when dark falls and he really enjoys it. The problems he likes me to sit with him for, but the videos he enjoys alone.
He has around 2 hours of screen time during the day, plus we might watch a nature documentary together.
The weather is getting warmer here so we go for walks down to the beach in the afternoon and we talk about all sorts of things, often inspired by things we see washed up. This often triggers a google search back home.