Could those who school 4 days year-round share your schedules please?

[Rebecca77]

I'm wondering how many full weeks your able to take off, and when you take them. Thanks

[Ellie]

Mine might not be specific enough for you.:)

 

Our school year began around the middle of January.

 

We took off a couple of weeks around Easter, a couple of weeks in late August/early September, Thanksgiving through the middle of January, and any other random time as necessary (e.g., Disneyland in the middle of the week in March:D). Othewise, we kept to our regular schedule.

[KIN]

I'm planning to start in July with a "light" month of music, art, literature. Then, we will start our core subjects in August. We will take a week off at Thanksgiving, two weeks over Christmas, a week for spring break, and the entire month of June. The month of December and one week next to spring break (to make a longer feel to our spring break) will also be lightly scheduled.

[King Alfred Academy]

We school the 3 R's 4 days a week, leaving Friday as more of a "fun day". We school year round, but summers are a lot lighter...mainly math, reading, and fun projects. As far as when we take off, I can't really say. We take off whenever we feel we need a break...like this week! :001_smile: My dh is in grad school, so we kind of follow his break schedule. We don't take off lots of time all at once, but more like a few days here and there. We really need the routine, but are able to be flexible...make sense?

 

For instance...We traveled to WA for Christmas so we took two weeks off. We didn't go anywhere for Thanksgiving, so we just took off that Th and F. Didn't take a week for spring break, only a few days. This summer we will be visiting my family in IA for a month, but we'll still do math and phonics. This week we have family coming and it's my ds's birthday, so we are taking the whole week off. We just take breaks when we need to!:001_smile:

[2_girls_mommy]

We do 4 day weeks semi yr round. We start first Mon. in Aug. and finish up last day of May in most things. We do 4 day weeks. This year fri. was co-op. In past years we just had one day a week for field trips or whatever.

 

Now if we have a field trip, we try to do lessons at home if we have time after, or we have 3 at home school days. Technically speaking of course, the co-op day counts as a legal school day so we go way over the 180 days.

 

We generally do not take a lot of full days off. We take a couple of days at Thanksgiving. We did take a full spring break for the first time this year. We usually take a couple of days in fall for a fall break to the pumpkin patch and to visit relatives.

 

We school light in the summer, finishing what needs finished and doing summer reading programs. Last summer we finished SOTW and did a summer long science unit. HTH.

 

We generally have about 8 weeks break in summer. Compared to reg. P.S., this is a yr round schedule.

We also take a week off from our regular lessons in L.A. to do a unit study or a big project at some point in the year. Last year we did this in March and did one on St. Patrick. This year we took off a week to work on the PBS Young Writers and Illustrators Contest. In that case, it is still a school week, but we only do math and the unit study.

[mycalling]

We school 4 days a week, usually taking off Wednesday so we only have 2 days on at a time and I can schedule repeating things easily M/Th and T/F.

 

We start in mid-July, this year will be on the 12th, and we start strong with all subjects. During holidays we do the opposite of most people and slow down our core subjects to 2x a week. Then in early Spring the less strenuous subjects and extras are finished and we lighten core stuff back to 2x a week again. This way core subjects drag out longer during the year.

 

We count weeks, not days...well, actually I don't count weeks either. I have a plan for each subject and when that plan's done, that subject's dropped.

[Jen in PA]

We school 4 days a week year-round with an additional day for co-op 24 weeks a year. We also do the equivalent of a half day each Saturday, which is when we fit in music lessons, art projects, chess instruction, and programming. Those are all things that would be extras in a school, so I don't tend to think of that as a school day. June is our month off for me to decompress (is it June yet?). Here's what our schedule looks like for the 2010/2011 school year.

 

8 weeks on in July and August doing the basics

1 week off when ps starts back up just because it's sort of fun to take that week off and all of our favorite field trip places are suddenly deserted

5 weeks on in Sept./Oct.

1 week fall break

5 weeks on in Oct./Nov.

1 week Thanksgiving break

3 weeks on in Nov./Dec.

2 weeks Winter Break

7 weeks on in Jan./Feb.

1 week Spring Break

7 weeks on in March/April

1 week break for Passover

5 weeks on in April and May

 

That makes 40 weeks of school, although plenty of field trips are taken during those weeks "off." With school days, co-op days, and field trips, it comes out to quite a lot of days but still feels like tons of time off.

[iwjeanie]

I am going to try something new this year - School 15 days of every month - that way we won't feel rushed and our off days can be used for fun projects or field trips or we can school on weekends if we want. I am planning on starting August 1. We will see how it goes. This year I stuck to a traditional public school schedule but we are done already and bored :-)

[dovrar]

I am going to try something new this year - School 15 days of every month - that way we won't feel rushed and our off days can be used for fun projects or field trips or we can school on weekends if we want. I am planning on starting August 1. We will see how it goes. This year I stuck to a traditional public school schedule but we are done already and bored :-)

 

That sounds like a wonderful idea. Thanks ;)

[2_girls_mommy]

We generally do 15-16 days a month not counting co-op, and we still get an 8 week summer, with minimal breaks during the year. It works well for us.

[coralloyd]

We start our year in Jan. I devide the year into 3 terms.

 

Term 1: Jan.- April

14 weeks on 2 weeks off

This is our "heavy" term, because it is the time of year we have the least going on.

 

Term 2: May-August

11 weeks on 5 weeks off

Summer time fun.

 

Term 3: Sept.- Dec.

11 week on 5 weeks off

Holidays!

 

 

Our weeks off are taken whenever the need arises. We sometimes still do "light/relaxed" school these weeks also. In the summer we take off for things like VBS, camping, or a beautiful day. In the winter months it is things like baking cookie, Christmas parties, or play in the snow. As long as we get the 36 weeks in it's all good ;).

[alpidarkomama]

We pretty much have learning time whenever my husband has a work day. Our year officially starts July 1. May and June tend to be a bit lighter (maybe 2/3 of normal) since we've finished up a lot of subjects. I usually wait until July 1 to go on to the next level. (Reading, math, and Hebrew never stop, though.)

 

We take off all the Jewish holidays (plus a little before and after!), or good-weather days if we want/need to get out for a day, or days when we have visitors. We probably end up doing a good 40-42 weeks per year. That doesn't mean we have "more" school, though. For example, I just take our math curriculum, divide it up by 12 months and figure out about how far we should get each month. Sometimes we get a little behind, sometimes we're ahead, and sometimes I see we need to make an adjustment.

 

We love the year-round schedule. With a dual secular/Jewish curriculum, it's nice not jamming it all into 35 weeks. Makes our days a little shorter than they would be otherwise and keeps the more relaxed feeling in our day.

[Cindyg]

I'm wondering how many full weeks your able to take off, and when you take them. Thanks

 

We just take time off whenever we need to or whenever we can. Examples:

 

Camp

VBS

Grandma visit

Christmas vacation

Business trip with Daddy

Holidays

Occasional sick days

 

Other than that, we do school as many days of the year as we can. (DS goes to an enrichment program one day a week. That's why we do 4 days a week.)

 

Most years we get most of our curriculum done (165 days). We truncate in September and start the next year.