We start first of August, usually take a week at Thanksgiving, 3 or 4 weeks at Christmas, a week at Easter, and are done the week of Memorial Day. There might be a few random days taken off here and there for "mental health" :-) as well.

I had a 12 year old 7th grader, 8 year old 3rd grader, and 5 year old K-er this past school year, and we did all of our schoolwork in 4 hours a day, so I thought I'd butt in and respond to this. LOL The short answer is that my kiddos can do all their "3 r" work in about 2 hours a day, then our "together" stuff (we use MFW, so that is Bible/history/science/read aloud) takes about 2 hours as well. In my house, the key to getting our schoolwork done in that period of time is that the older 2 work fairly independently on their "3 r" stuff, and while they are doing that, I work with the little one. Also, the math, english, etc. curricula that we use doesn't take a very long time each day. Hope that helps! Amanda

from Heart of Dakota This is what I'm doing with my "in between" reader - not using the plans, just going down the list of books. It's been a GREAT fit so far!

I have a chart I made out of 1/2 a poster board. There are 7 pockets - 2 for each kid (one "to-do" and one "done"), and then one for the extra cards. I made 3x5 cards with all the chores I want done each day on them. When I started, I made a list of everything around the house I wanted done, and categorized it by daily chores, weekly, monthly, etc. It just worked out that there are 9 daily chores (so 3 for each kid), and 15 weekly ones (so each kid gets one weekly chore every day). The monthly ones, I just dole out as needed, cuz there are only a few of those. Oh, and every day, each kid has a "morning routine" card, which means make up bed, teeth and hair, clothes picked up and put away. SO, every day, each kid has 5 chores to do. I keep track of how many they do each day - at the end of the week, they get paid based on how many out of 25 they did. (and they DO have to do them all, but if they don't do one on the day they are supposed to, they don't get paid for it) Oldest dd(13) gets a potential $6/week, Ds (8) gets $4, and Dd#2 (5) gets $2. My daily chores are Morning routine, unload dishwasher, load dishwasher, set table, clear table, sweep dining room/kitchen, meal helper, take out trash, sweep inside steps, fold 1 load laundry. My weekly chores are broken down by rooms - Monday's chores are bedrooms (dust, vacuum) and sweep the outside steps (cuz I needed a 3rd one LOL); Tuesday's are bathrooms (I have 3 bathrooms, so each kid cleans one); Wednesday's are living room/dining room (dust, vacuum) and clean microwave; Thursday is kitchen (mop kitchen floor, wipe down fronts of cabinets and fridge) and clean out van; Friday is downstairs, which is den and guest room (dust, vacuum), and windex all mirrors. Saturdays are not "paid" days in our house - we all just do whatever most needs to be done; Saturday is also the day that I change all the sheets (as needed), and dust the fans - those 2 are "mom chores" LOL. Hope this makes some sense! It's the first chore system that has ever worked in our house! Amanda

In your situation, I'd choose HOD. I'm a die-hard MFW-er, but the phonics is so integrated into the program that IMO, if she is beyond the phonics level (which it sounds like she is), you'll have to REALLY tweak it, and that would destroy the ease of the program for you. HOD takes a little longer each day than MFW (done both Little Hearts and MFW K), but it IS a little more laid out, and open and go, and is easier to adjust the phonics/reading and math level up and down.