Four- or Five-Day Week?

[Haiku]

I have always wanted to do a four-day school week, and last year we managed it. This year, when I looked at everything we have to accomplish, it seemed like cramming it all in to 4 days would result in days that are too long (I would prefer to keep things under 3 hours for my kids, who are in 1st and 2nd grade). However, our Wednesdays always feel rushed (even though we don't even have a "full" Wednesday) because we have two Wednesday-afternoon activities, and I feel stressed trying to get school done, feed the kids, and get to the activities.

 

I just sat down and tweaked our schedule so that it's a four-day week with Wednesday completely off. I am going to try it next week (at least, maybe I will try it for a few weeks).

 

Do most people with 1st-6th kids do four or five days?

 

Tara

Edited September 15, 2009 by TaraTheLiberator
close parenthesis

[Verity]

This is my first year with both older boys being homeschooled. Currently we do four and a half days. I make our Fridays a lighter day where we just do our end of week quizzes in Math and final drafts of writing projects but not alot of extra schoolish stuff. My goal is to make it a one hour wrapup then a day we can go to the zoo, beach, etc...it hasn't happened yet but I'm still new.

I will be interested to see how others respond!

[branycbur]

We do four days...and depending on the season they are: M, T, W, TH; or when ice skating starts: M, T, W, F. I think it was too rushed and stressed when we were trying to squeeze in schooling before activities. And once we get going with our work, we don't seem to notice that extra hour. My daughter loves having a day off when "everyone else" has to go to school, too. :)

[freeindeed]

We school year-round & have a 4-day week: M-TH. It works really well for us.

[Haiku]

We school year-round, too: four weeks on, one week off, with two weeks off at New Year.

 

Tara

[rafiki]

.

[meet me in paris]

We are 4-day people! Every year we do some sort of Co-op, so that day I don't plan any school work. It still counts as a school day for record keeping, though, since we are still doing learning activities on that day. The kids still do their reading and we do our read aloud, but they don't have any seat work scheduled.

[SilverMoon]

We do five day weeks. Some days are lighter than others. When work is done on light days we head out for a library or children's museum trip.

[bluemongoose]

We do 4 days a week and school most of the year. We take a long break at Christmas time due to Christmas and all 3 of my kiddos have birthdays around Christmas. Then we start strong again in Jan. We do a little lighter work during the summer, sometimes only 2 or 3 days in a week due to activities. I like being able to be flexible.

[tullyfamily]

We do 4 days a week full schedule w/ the 5th day for art lessons & any projects for TOG not yet finished. I love having a day for errands, appts & cleaning!

[Karen in CO]

We school year-round, too: four weeks on, one week off, with two weeks off at New Year.

 

Tara

With your schedule, I don't know if you can do 4 days and still get your required number of days in unless you are going to do 4 days of schooling and one day of unschooling. How many days are you required?

[patchfire]

We have always done a five-day week.

 

Next year, I'm going to switch dd to a rotating schedule, so that each subject is done just four days, but there are five days of school each week. We'll see how that goes. :)

[Haiku]

We are required to provide 900 hours of instruction. We don't have requirements about days. I have no problem meeting the 900-hour requirement because not everything that counts is seatwork.

 

Besides, I don't particularly care about the regulations. I know that I am providing my kids with a superior education regardless of whether it mimics the public school drill. I have a child in school and frankly, I wouldn't have to work half as hard as I do now to provide what the school provides. ;)

 

Tara

[sagira]

My ds is 6. I prefer to do a five day week because I find it less stressful. Trying to cram everything into four days stresses me out. That said, for K we did four days and it worked well. This year, however, we like to have short lessons, short days, free afternoons, and thus it ends up being five days. If we skip a day we make it up as well, on Saturday most likely.

[Karen in CO]

I do a 4 day week, but I don't cram everything into the four days. I just do a whole bunch of 4 day weeks throughout the year. I work weekends so Mondays as school days never worked for us - I needed a day off and the kids needed time with me. I have one of those year on one page school calendars, I start marking days at 1 when we start in August and count up until we hit 180 sometime in June or July. I suppose that one of these years we might squeak near August before we get our 180, but it hasn't happened yet. We take off when the weather is extra nice and now we take off when my oldest is home from college. We never school on Monday unless we are going somewhere that I can count as a field trip (like a museum or such).

 

I don't see any reason you can't do 4 day weeks in a relaxed style - there is no reason to try to put 5 days of work into 4 because that will become increasingly impossible. I would look at your present 4 on + 1 off schedule and see how that would work with few days in each week and which is more important.

[Karen in CO]

We are required to provide 900 hours of instruction. We don't have requirements about days. I have no problem meeting the 900-hour requirement because not everything that counts is seatwork.

 

Besides, I don't particularly care about the regulations. I know that I am providing my kids with a superior education regardless of whether it mimics the public school drill. I have a child in school and frankly, I wouldn't have to work half as hard as I do now to provide what the school provides. ;)

 

Tara

 

Well then you are just fine. :D

[Heather in OK]

Four-day week here.

[Calm37]

We have always done four days right through high school. It does present its challenges as the kids get older. But Dad is off on Thursdays and so there is no hope for school that day. No way will Saturday work for a school day, although we do often get reading done on that day. So I keep Monday through Wednesday as clear as possible of outside activities and we make sure we hit every subject on those days. Fridays are good for those things that need the most work.

 

I am using Sonlight this year and they have a 4 day schedule through 7th grade. That is a big help to me.

[Moni]

Do most people with 1st-6th kids do four or five days?

 

We do 6 or 7.

 

:seeya:

[sweetfeet]

We are on a 4 day schedule, but we do school Wednesday morning before homeschool group and on Friday morning before we go to play group or on a field trip. So we have 2 half days that equal one whole.

 

We do year round school here as well and strive to keep it under 3 hours per day for our full days. Though sometimes I'll just do the next lesson while I have the materials out and the day could stretch to 4. I don't count reading aloud, nature walks or her art as a part of our schooling time.

[Haiku]

I don't count reading aloud, nature walks or her art as a part of our schooling time.

 

Yeah, the only things I am counting here are Math, Language Arts, Memory Work/Poetry, History, Science, and Spanish. Art, Music, Phys Ed., Literature, etc., are all done with no strict schedule.

 

Tara

[Mom22ns]

We do 4 solid days and one light day. On Fridays we spend the morning at orchestra. Each child has an hour of instrument instruction and an hour of music theory. They overlap an hour, but we are there 3 hours total. They take something along to work on during their "off" hour. They also read on the drive as it is over 30 minutes each way. We always do math 5 days a week, so we still get that in and there is usually at least one other subject that needs to be finished. Science for my oldest is 5 days - other subjects vary.

 

A first grader should be easy to do in 4 days, no matter what your year around schedule is. The 6th grader depends a lot more on your total days of instruction. We like a good summer break - you like a lot of time off throughout the year. Work has to get done sometime:001_smile:

[Pongo]

We are doing a 4 day SOLID week. I am talking till 3:00 with my 6th grader, and she gets homework assigned for math and writing that she normally does on Friday or the weekends. It's only about 2 hours worth. We love it, and I must admit it gives me a day during the week to prepare for the following week so I have virtually zero planning on weekends.

[Aurelia]

We do five-day weeks because of outside activities on Monday & Friday mornings and Thursday afternoons. The Thursday dance class doesn't interfere with school time because most subjects are done in the morning, but the other days we have to end school early to get to piano and dance or our homeschool group activity, so those days are pretty light. Our days would be shorter if Ariel didn't insist on doing everything every day, but I hate to dampen her enthusiasm for school by saying no to all the stuff she considers fun (science, Spanish, music, and art) and just making her do the 3 Rs.