Our two oldest children are trying a brand new method of home education this year: K12. And adjusting to it has been…an interesting experience.
After years of relaxed homeschooling, shifting into a full school day based around live classes, offline assignments, and readings was a complete course change. We’ve have seriously bumpy days, days that were awesome, and plenty in between.
Now, though, we’ve developed a K12 daily schedule for two grades that has simplified our daily routine quite a bit – something we really needed since we’re still homeschooling our two youngest kids. If you’re considering K12 for your kids, take a look at our daily schedule to see what it could look like in your family!
Image c/o: seregam / depositphotos
Our K12 Daily Schedule for Two Grades
As you look at this schedule, keep in mind that this is the routine for our kids, who are in seventh and fourth grade. Younger children who use K12 tend to spend very little time in online classes and the vast majority doing offline work with their learning coaches (usually parents).
In upper elementary grades, though, kids start to spend more time with their online teachers. In fourth grade, the ratio is about 2 hours of online education to 3.5 hours of offline education per day.
My seventh-grader, though, spends about 3.5 hours of class time online and about 2 hours in offline assignments. These totals vary by day, but it averages out to about this much.
Now – for a look at each child’s daily schedule.
Our K12 Seventh Grade Schedule
Each K12 student has live classes called “Class Connects”. These daily sessions feature live instruction from a professional teacher and interaction with other students. My seventh-grader has Class Connects in four subjects: Math, ELA, Social Studies, and Science.
Here’s her weekly Class Connect schedule:
Monday: 8:30 a.m. – Social Studies; 10:00 a.m. – ELA; 11:30 – Science
Tuesday: 8:30 a.m. – Math; 10:00 a.m. – ELA; 11:30 – Social Studies
Wednesday: 8:30 a.m. – Math; 10:00 a.m. – Social Studies; 11:30 a.m. – Science
Thursday: 8:30 a.m. – Math; 10:00 a.m. – ELA; 11:30 a.m. – Science
Friday: 8:30 a.m. – Math
Since she finishes her classes at the same time Monday through Thursday, she stops at 12:30 to have lunch and then gets started on homework. We encourage her to take a look at her assignments for the week on Sunday evening, so she can plan out how much work to do each day. Getting behind is NOT fun.
The remaining subjects (Art, Health, and Phys. Ed.) are self-paced, so we work on those day by day. By the time she completes all of her assignments, homework, and studying for the next day, she’s usually done at 3:00 p.m.
There’s only one live class on Friday, so we spend most of the day catching up on anything that’s unfinished or studying for quizzes. We generally wrap up by noon on that day and have a long weekend.
Our K12 Fourth Grade Schedule
My fourth-grader is a completely different story. Since so much of his work is completed offline, I am still the primary educator, which takes a significant amount of time each day.
Here is his Class Connect weekly schedule:
Monday: 9:00 a.m. – Science
Tuesday: 9:00 a.m. – ELA; 10:15 a.m. – Math; 12:45 – Social Studies
Wednesday: 9:00 a.m. – ELA; 10:15 a.m. – Math
Thursday: 9:00 a.m. – ELA; 10:15 a.m. – Math
I spend about an hour on Sunday evenings looking at his schedule and his upcoming assignments. The lesson plans are already written for the subjects I need to teach, but I still have to read over them and make sure we have the necessary supplies in advance.
We get a monthly instructional calendar from his school, which outlines how much to do for each subject per day. All of the assignments are related to the live classes, so I tend to wait until after he’s had a live class on the topic before I start an assignment.
So, I often hold off on teaching Social Studies for the week until after he’s had his Social Studies class on Tuesday. That way, he’s already been introduced to the topic. Fridays are his days “off” from Class Connects, so I save most of our science experiments for that day when we’ll have plenty of time to complete them.
As with my seventh-grader, my fourth-grader’s art, health, and phys. ed. classes are also self-paced, so we do some of those day by day to keep up with the hour requirement.
I’ll be sharing my homeschool schedule for my younger kids next week, but here’s a hint: It’s largely situated around our K12 daily schedule.
Are any of you using K12 with your kids this year? How do you schedule your routine? Share your ideas and experiences in the comments!
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We just started K12 after homeschooling my daughter the 1st two years. It has certainly been an adjustment for all of us. I had to give up my autonomy (and ability to plan before the first day of school), and the first two weeks were rough. My daughter had to adjust to a more rigid school schedule and a greater workload. However, we are finding a rhythm as other K12 parents said we would. I am interested to see how it goes if we continue next year and add a Kinder to the mix. I’ve heard the parent time for Kinder is pretty high.
Yes! That’s what I’ve heard about the earlier grades also. Fourth also requires quite a lot of parent time, so I can only imagine what it’s like for younger ages.
We’re finally settling into a rhythm here too, but there is a definite learning curve. Thanks for stopping by!
I have a girl who will be entering fourth grade and we are thinking of doing k12. (Texas online preparatory) Can you tell me about what time you finish up in the afternoons—like how many hours are spent on a typically day? Has it been a manageable amount of work? Thanks!
Hi Celeste! We usually finished up around 3 p.m. I had to change our curriculum, because using K12 just wasn’t manageable for us since we have two other children who were not doing the program. But if I only had one or two kids, I think it would have been a better fit.
At the 4th grade level, we spent about five hours per day on schoolwork.