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There isn't much time once activities are done and they do their homework. They do like to study different topics on their own, but it is entirely self-directed. I will take the initiative to take them to the library, or to reserve books for them on their "topic", but other than that it is entirely self-directed.

My children have to have some free time, to decompress from school and pursue their own interests, or they would be too stressed. They are very physically active, and after sitting in school most of the day, they HAVE to have physical outlet, so they participate in different sports three times per week, and usually have a game on Saturday.

They are not interested in "studying" on the weekend outside of their required reading, and outside of their current topics of interest, and we do not push it.

One of my sons does sometimes get stressed during school because he feels like he is "wasting time" that he could actually spend learning something new. Luckily his teacher has been great this year at providing differentiated work, so when he starts to feel that way, she gives him harder work and it seems to help.

I think if you stripped out everything that wasn't learning, school would probably take about 12 hours a week. I base this on my daughter's school, where she has 12 hours a week of instruction including: math, language arts, science, social studies, art, music, and technology. Schedule-wise, this is three days a week 9:30-3:30 (includes an hour lunch and 15-minute breaks between classes). There are usually a few hours of homework a week, which she has plenty of time to do (we do expect this to go up as class levels do). PE is covered by swim team and martial arts outside of school and she also has time to socialize, read for pleasure, pursue hobbies, and lay around lazily avoiding chores.

Because of the odd nature of the school, I can't say for sure that's she's learning everything she'd learn in regular school (but regular school wouldn't let a 10-year-old take middle school classes, so it's a moot point). I can say that in her opinion and mine, she's learning more than she ever did at public school and she's hardly in danger of falling behind.