Are There Enough Connect The Thoughts to Cover Junior High and High School? (or How Long Does CTT Take to Do?)

    

The short answer is that there are 6-7 years of history, science and creative writing, and electives, built into Connect The Thoughts . Here's the long answer:

Lower School History and Science Courses (for students ages 9-10) are MUCH shorter, and contain easier materials overall, than Upper School (ages 11-adult). Upper school courses are generally based around college-level materials.

A student should start with the basics courses; How To Do Connect The Thoughts Courses Course ; Information - Right Or Wrong ; How To Do Research ( Lower School if ages 9-10). These, if done in a concentrated manner without starting history, science, or creative writing, should take about 2-3 weeks, about 4 hours a day, on a guess. They can take longer...this is pretty new for the student! They can be done faster, depending on the student.

The "average" Lower School History course might take a student anywhere from 25 hours to 50 hours of study. A few are longer, particularly toward the end of Lower School , as we start to prep a student for Upper School materials.

The Lower School History is intended to be done about 1 hour a day, and Science, about 1 hour every other day (say twice a week). At that rate, you'll need around 4 "semesters" to get through, though I've seen students ace the science very quickly. (This accounts for 2 hours or so of study per day. The curriculum is designed to have a student also do Creative Writing (about 3 days a week, 1 hour, to start, so it balances history, science), spelling, and an elective. (Maybe 2 times weekly, an hour or so.) We don't offer math, but I usually recommend Saxon, I like the design of their first three books (5/4; 6/5; 7/6). After that, I have no great recommendations for math, other than a good High School level economics book from AGS. Anyway, math is another hour a day or so.

Upper School courses are much longer, and the Upper School curriculum is designed to take roughly 4-5 years (without Summer School). A student should first do the basics courses, if they haven't yet, and they should certainly do Upper School How To Do Research , which may take as long as a few weeks, in a focused approach.

In Upper School , one does both History and Science every day, Creative Writing at least twice a week, and an elective, as well as math of some sort every day. I also believe a student should do a current events-oriented course, probably completing about one every two months, maybe four-five of these per year. (We have five. I'm about to author many more.) This would be 2-3 times a week, an hour or so each day. We're looking overall at 4-5 hours a day, five days a week (excluding holidays and summer), plus "homework" in the form of reading a book every month or so (advised, sometimes required by the state). There is generally no other "home work".

Generally, you'll need to do some kind of P.E. activity. Each State has its own requirements for P.E., in California, it's twice a week, for 45 minutes, I believe.

Hope this helps!

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts