Blocks of time

[Lux Et Veritas Academy]

I am working with an 8th grader and a 5th grader next year-

What do you think the idea schedule would be in terms of time blocks

45 minute blocks-like periods everyday
25-30 minute blocks daily
1.5 hour blocks every other day with 4 blocks a day

[Beth in Central TX]

I think it depends on the subject. For Latin & Greek, I'm going to schedule 45 minute blocks daily next year (this is new for us). For spelling, grammar, etc. I use 25-30 minute blocks daily. For history & science, I use 1 hour blocks 2 or 3 days a week. For things like art & music, I schedule a 30-minute block one day a week.

[Wendy in ME]

Here's what we're planning for 5th and 6th

Latin, Math, and Writing: daily 1hr
Bible: T,Th 1hr
Literature: M,W,F 1hr

lunch break: 1hr

2hr afternoon classes
History and science M,T,W alternate weeks
Gym and music class Th
Geography F

[Linda in NM]

For 8th grade, we are using basically 45-minute blocks (give or take a few minutes) for literature, history, and algebra; 25-30 minute blocks for Latin, German, language arts, health, geography...1.5 hour blocks for science (twice a week)...typing and logic about 15 minutes of fun activities/day on the days we do them...

[Deece in MN]

We do the following in 1 hour daily blocks:
Math
Literature
History
Science

The following are 1/2 hour daily blocks:
Foreign Language
P.E.

Things like writing, grammar, art, geography, logic, etc. are incorporated into our other subjects. This has streamlined our days so much.

When we had everything separted out into individual subjects at different amounts of time it stretched our days out and many times we didn't get to everything. Transition time and breaks have to be accounted for and I didn't realize how much time was wasted due to these things. I have found that incorporating subjects together things make more sense, my dc make better connections and our time is put to better use without so much waste.

Anyway, sorry to ramble on. I really like block scheduling and combining subjects; makes things so much easier.

[Lorna]

We use blocks of time. I allow 40 minutes for the following subjects but they generally vary according to the subject and so there is a 'buffer-zone' of ten minutes.
Maths 40 minutes (but I often allow this to over-run a bit to complete work)
English 40 minutes (sometimes over, sometimes under)
History 40-50 minutes
Reading 40-50 minutes
French 40 minutes
Latin 40 minutes
Science - open ended. We often take two hours for science to allow time for experiments games and writing
Danish - (yikes!). We have two classes a week now and I intend to do 30 minutes revision in the evening after tea. This is just a temporary subject for fun and cultural reasons because we are in Denmark
P.E. - three hours twice a week because it just takes so long to walk there, shower, swim, walk back etc!
Art, electronics and craft - whenever the fancy takes us.

I like having blocks of time because it stops me from pushing the children to keep going just to get things done. This rarely works well for us and if someone is going slow I think they need a change or a break. I remember someone telling me that people's attention span in a lecture was about thirty minutes. I certainly used to find myself looking at the clock after about this amount of time. I think that when a subject isn't very 'hands-on' it is difficult for a child / or adult to keep their interest beyond thirty to forty minutes. It helps keep things fresh.