School inthe afternoon?

[Amy loves Bud]

I'm only half kidding in my Extreme Homeschool Makeover thread. I think we could get the core of our school done in about two hours if we worked hard and were efficient with our time and curricula selection. I'd like to get out and about a lot more than we do to museums, libraries, parks, hikingtrails,etc.

 

But then there is that all important two-year-old nap in the afternoon.

 

So what if we were to get up in the a.m., eat breakfast, do a quick sweep of the house ala Flylady, then do what we want till lunch?

 

After lunch we could take a quick walk, put Romy down, and do our official schoolwork.

 

It sounds wonderful to me because A) we get out and about a lot more without competing with naptime, B) we can get the bookwork done without interruptions from the 2 year old, and C) I could actually spend more time reading and playing with said two-year-old on the mornings we keep our "unschooling" at home.

 

My concern is that the two big kids will not be fresh enough to tackle work in the afternoon in a manner that will be efficient enough to get it done in 2 hours.

 

Plus I won't get to take a nap.

 

Thoughts?

[Wyndie]

I think it's worth a try! I prefer to do my schooling after lunch but I do have one child who isn't quite "fresh" enough mentally, to do well that late in the day. Schooling does take longer with her if we wait until the afternoon. BUT my son is fine doing afternoon school so you could try, see if your kids can handle it and hopefully have a new, more Romy-friendly schedule. :)

[4kiddies]

I school in the afternoon with my older two (ds6, dd5) while my younger two nap. We spend the morning playing, running errands and doing local activities. It works for us at this point. Give it a try, you might like it.

[Mad Jenny Flint]

You won't regret trying it out. If it bombs, try something else. Nothing works forever, I am finding. I have recently tweaked our schedule, as well- although nothing like what I could do with younger kids since my oldest is in 9th. We are likely going to be finished relatively early each day and have light days on Fridays. We work long hours compared to most, though... you just have to find what works for your family in this moment.

[Mrs Mungo]

We do sort of the opposite. We do school in the am, activities and cleaning in the afternoon. I'm it could work the other way around. :)

[Tammyla]

Try it and see how it works.

 

I've got a high school student, who is a morning bird. On average she has one or two classes done before my ds is even up. Ds would be a night owl, by nature and sleeping in a bit and running off much of his boy energy before lessons works for him.

[Amber in AUS]

I know it wouldn't work for us, but that doesn't mean it wont work for you. I have a 2yo myself, the only thing to consider is how much longer do you think your DS will nap? I know my DD's nap is on it's last legs and she is only 27m.

[Carol in Cal.]

Skills aquisition never was possible for DD in the afternoon until she was about 11 years old. If we did 100 EZ lessons at 9, we would be done by 9:20. If we did it at 3, we would not be done until 5:30, and many, many unpleasant scenes would have been part of the process. The same was true for math until the last few years.

 

If that is not true for your children, then it's worth a try!

[lionfamily1999]

We've done that on some days and as long as the morning activity isn't too fun, then schooling in the afternoon works out better than any other day. The only problem comes if we have too much fun in a.m. :p, then ds just wants to go over all the fun we had and 'forget' to get to work ;) I will say this, though. Younger ds takes some good naps those afternoons :)

[Colleen in NS]

I'm only half kidding in my Extreme Homeschool Makeover thread. I think we could get the core of our school done in about two hours if we worked hard and were efficient with our time and curricula selection. I'd like to get out and about a lot more than we do to museums, libraries, parks, hikingtrails,etc.

 

But then there is that all important two-year-old nap in the afternoon.

 

So what if we were to get up in the a.m., eat breakfast, do a quick sweep of the house ala Flylady, then do what we want till lunch?

 

After lunch we could take a quick walk, put Romy down, and do our official schoolwork.

 

It sounds wonderful to me because A) we get out and about a lot more without competing with naptime, B) we can get the bookwork done without interruptions from the 2 year old, and C) I could actually spend more time reading and playing with said two-year-old on the mornings we keep our "unschooling" at home.

 

My concern is that the two big kids will not be fresh enough to tackle work in the afternoon in a manner that will be efficient enough to get it done in 2 hours.

 

Plus I won't get to take a nap.

 

Thoughts?

 

Your threads today are timely for me! I loved reading the Makeover one - I'll have to go have a look again to read updates.

 

Afternoon school - I'd love to hear how others have done this, too. I have thought many times of switching, for several reasons. My dh works afternoons and evenings, leaving us with no vehicle to use. No public transportation in our area, either. So I've always tried to cram schoolwork into mostly four days so we could have a bit of breathing space to go out Friday mornings if we want - we go to a pool and the library a lot then. But it's tricky to schedule the week, esp. as ds has gotten older. I have tried switching schoolwork to the afternoons so we could get out on more mornings if we wanted to, but it bombed. I didn't give it much of a chance, though, because I'd be tired in the afternoon (I'm talking about 3 p.m. and onwards - I won't give up their two hour rest time 1-3 p.m.). But I'm feeling VERY cooped up again, and I know my kids are antsy and it just drives me nuts to HAVE to stay home most of the time - I feel like we miss out on so much, like you mentioned - the hiking trails, museums, parks, lakes, different libraries, etc. etc. etc.. I kept thinking that "oh, we'll do those things on the weekends" but it doesn't happen much - weekends I spend catching up on baking and big cooking projects (allergies and necessary frugality - must cook from scratch here), dh does house projects, and then when there is a chunk of empty time all we want to do is laze around or watch a movie. So, I say this is timely because I have been thinking AGAIN of doing this very thing you are talking about, for the same reasons.

 

Really, it would be ideal for us, because I could also get the major cooking done for lunch instead of supper, and just cook enough for leftovers each evening. And since dh is home in the mornings (doing some prep work for his business, but there is flexibility), I *could* get out by myself every so often in the mornings and the kids could have more time with him (they currently officially are *his* for the first two hours of the morning - breakfast, chores, piano, and play time with him). I could maybe also talk him into doing the middday cooking every so often ;).

 

My biggest fears are 1. me or kids being tired/inattentive in the afternoon and 2. wondering if I could do it in three hours. Currently I do three hours of tutoring them/them working independently in the mornings, with them finishing up independent work in their rest time after lunch (plus reading and playing then). But then I also wonder if having the opportunity to be out and about in the morning or getting outside in the mornings would actually help them (esp. my restless ds) to not balk and even enjoy the skills work in the afternoons, after having a chance to read and play at rest time...

 

I had a quick look at your blog and it looks like our kids do similar things, and they are similar ages, so I'd love to hear what you decide and how it goes! Not knowing you and just reading your post I say you should "go for it," but of course that sounds so easy, doesn't it? :D About the you not being able to take a nap - I need that after lunch down time - I could not give that up. Any chance you could move your school forward to after the baby's nap, or would that be too late?

 

:lurk5:

[elegantlion]

We did that last year, we started school at 11:30. Neither of us are morning people and it worked out great.

 

This year we start at 10am as our workload is more. We are usually done by 3pm. I'd love to start later but I tend to wear out by 2:30 and need a break. Also ds gets involved in other things and its harder to tear him away to do school if we start much later, not that we done that this year, not that you could prove anyway. :001_rolleyes:

[prairiegirl]

Due to some health issues and the aftermath of said issues, we have started doing school in the afternoon and it has really worked well for us.

 

The kids play first thing in the morning, then I ask them what they would like to do for that day. Depending on what it is, we try to fit it in in the morning, if not then we do it later on in the day. Usually their suggestions are baking cakes, painting, walks, playing games, etc. We then read for about an hour and then it's lunch time.

 

We start school at 1:00 and we go until 4 or 5. We get all of the basics in but some days we do not get history or science in. Right now, this is not a big deal to me because we are still dealing with the health issues. I don't know what will happen when we start to doing those subjects full time. I will let you know in Jan. ;)

 

I love doing school this way. It is soothing and more relaxing for us. After the last few months that we have had, relaxing is a good thing.

[2squared]

We switched to afternoon school this year, and we LOVE it. We have a relaxing morning and I get some housework done. After lunch the kids know it's naptime for the youngest and schoolwork for them. My 3yo just stopped napping, but he hasn't been an issue at all. He plays near me while we do schoolwork.

 

I find that I have more time in my day this way. Seems like I'm utilizing my time better since I know we have to get done within that 2 hour window. Somehow I have time to do basic household chores, read aloud, and still hit everything I want to in school. That never happened while we doing schoolwork in the morning while battling a 1yo and 3yo.

[Night Elf]

It will vary by family. We never work in the mornings. We don't really get started until at least 3:00pm. It suits our schedule because we only have 1 day with a late afternoon activity and we usually don't do school on that day. Choosing school time is one of the perks of homeschooling. :D

 

I suppose morning people with early bedtimes (again, varies by family), may feel that afternoons are too late in the day.

[coralloyd]

We do school in the afternoon. And we love it!

 

After reading "Discover Your Child's Learning Style"; I talked to the girls and asked them when they would like to start school. "After lunch!" was the responce. This works best for us for many reasons:

 

1. Ds takes a nap after lunch.

2. We are not morning people!

3. I don't have to interupt the girls play time. We used to start school at 10 (since we like to take things slow in the morning ;)). Everyday, I would have to interupt their elaborate play, to start school. The responce was "Awww ,do we have to? We were just going to....".

3. Lunch is is a perfect breaking point to the day (no more whining about starting school work :D).

4. It gets me to do what needs to be done around here, earlier instead of later.

5. My kids eat a huge lunch, and not a very big breakfast. They used to always get hungry in the middle of school time. Now they never ask for a snack. I think this probably helps their brain function, to not be hungry while working.

 

We school from 1:00 to 3:30 (sometimes 4:00). I wish I would have done it this way sooner!

 

Edited to add: 6. All of the things we are involved in are usually in the mornings. There are days we have to do school in the mornings. It is not hard to adjust the schedule.

Edited December 18, 2009 by coralloyd

[Nestof3]

We school after lunch for the most part.

 

They get play time in the morning and work on some things on their own (spelling, daily grams, math test, educational film). While they do this, I drink my coffee, we eat breakfast, I take care of paperwork, and I ride my bike for an hour. After my shower, we do school. We break for lunch (or eat lunch after my shower depending on the time) and do school.

[hsmom3tn]

We're night owls and late sleepers, so we usually don't get started until afternoon. We've always done school that way and it works out fine for us. If we need to get out during the day, we school into the evening or make it up on the weekend.