Anyone trade off homeschooling days?

[ElizabethB]

Anyone trade off homeschooling days? By this, I mean homeschooling a friend's children for a day and they homeschool yours in return another day.

 

How often do you do this? Pros? Cons? Things to think about?

 

I tried to do a search for old threads and couldn't find anything, links would be good. (I ended up with bizarre things about wife swapping, etc!)

 

Thanks!

[....]

We don't "trade" days, but...one day a week, we meet with another hsing family and we break the kids into groups (by ages). I teach one group for a couple of hours and she teaches the other group. Then, we have the little ones play while both of us work with the older kids. We've had P.E. together and we're exploring the field trip option (but we have 7 kids combined, so I think we're both worried :tongue_smilie:).

 

I guess this is the opposite of trading...divide and conquer? :glare:

 

I can't rave enough about this family. This is really the highlight of our week. As a mom, you have "another mom" who can speak your language - lol and knows exactly what we've got to work through in a day. Then, the kids are all best friends, which is cute and that definitely counts as socialization, right? :lol: Lol.

 

We have been homeschooling together for about a year and a half.

[NanceXToo]

I never have. It sounds like it might be a "this would be a fun thing to do for a day" kind of thing. But on an ongoing basis? I don't think I'd want the responsibility, and I would think that it would be hard to make sure you were covering whatever the other parent would have covered. Or is that the point, to just do something totally different from what you otherwise might have learned or something? Like I said, I think it would be fun to try (maybe) but not ongoing.

[ElizabethB]

We don't "trade" days, but...one day a week, we meet with another hsing family and we break the kids into groups (by ages). I teach one group for a couple of hours and she teaches the other group. Then, we have the little ones play while both of us work with the older kids. We've had P.E. together and we're exploring the field trip option (but we have 7 kids combined, so I think we're both worried :tongue_smilie:).

 

I guess this is the opposite of trading...divide and conquer? :glare:

 

I can't rave enough about this family. This is really the highlight of our week. As a mom, you have "another mom" who can speak your language - lol and knows exactly what we've got to work through in a day. Then, the kids are all best friends, which is cute and that definitely counts as socialization, right? :lol: Lol.

 

We have been homeschooling together for about a year and a half.

 

That sounds fun! A very, very tiny, exclusive co-op!

 

Thanks for sharing your experience.

[abbeyej]

What we've done is more similar to what Starrbuck describes. We meet with another family and divide the kids up and I teach one "class" while the other mom teaches the other. So I do Greek with the Bigs while she does literature discussion with the Littles, then she does logic with the Bigs while I do Latin with the Littles... Some things we do all together like art or memory. We take turns with other tasks as well -- last year we alternated making lunch (since it's easier to make a big pot of soup and some bread for all once a week than packing lunches for our own kids twice a week), and this year since I shuttle the bigs to some outside classes, she makes lunch for us...

 

I think a situation like you describe might work, but it would certainly take planning. I probably would *not* do it for basic *skill* subjects, but for content and enrichment. So, I would plan for 3 days a week to be basic arithmetic instruction, phonics, writing, etc. And more or less figure out how to do a week's worth of work in those three days. (With phonics and math, I'd still want to touch base with my own kids and do short lessons on the "off" days as well -- assuming you're talking about younger grades, based on your kids' ages.) But I'd have those be the "at home" / "always with Mom" subjects. Then on the other days, I'd divide additional work up between the moms. Say on Tuesday MomA does a science lab, an art appreciation/project lesson, geography, and everyone works on their memory work as a group. On Thursday MomB could do a history project, a music lesson, PE, and everyone works on memory work. Or math games or cooking or whatever you choose... But divide things up. You could coordinate your history at home (so, say, everyone is doing the same chapter of SOTW on the same week), then the history project reinforces what you're doing at home. Or do the same with science readings to support the lab experiment you'll be doing that week. Or maybe you do a Latin "lesson" one day a week, but work on flashcards and drill and worksheets during the week at home...

 

But you have to decide if you can get the basics done in three days a week and have time for two days a week that are largely enrichment. If your kids are in the earlier grades and are solid with the Three R-type basics, that can work just fine. (With older kids, you can think of things more like "university model" where they have a class once or twice a week and then work on their own outside of class...)

 

And, of course, you have to find another mom who shares your commitment and your educational philosophy *and* your discipline philosophy. You have to be able to tolerate each others' little idiosyncrasies. And you have to have children that mesh well in terms of both personality and level (which is not guaranteed by age or gender -- the best pairing in our little private co-op is among the "Bigs" who are 16 months apart and girl/boy). And you have to be willing to reevaluate periodically, "Is this working for everyone?" and know that neither of you will be hurt if, for some reason, it stops working. That either one of you can walk away without losing the friendship.

 

But yes, I think it *can* work. It can be a great way to build on each other's strengths. It can give you each support. With your plan, it might even give you each a little break once a week. It can be helpful for kids to have someone other than siblings who is doing similar work. (For the older ones especially, it has been helpful to have someone doing the same level of work -- they were both discouraged that they had So Much compared to all of the little sisters who could still be done by lunchtime each day...)

[Becca211]

I did a variation of this last year for 5 months. My friend was struggling with her older child, and I was struggling with my K'er not wanting to listen to me. 3 days a week, in the afternoon, we swapped. I took her older son, who was the same age as my older son, and we did math, dictation, & grammer. She took my K'er and did phonics, handwriting, & math. It worked out well for us. I wouldn't have wanted to do it in the long run because our sons were different skill levels for math. For the period we did it though it was great, and the kids were motivated by having someone else on their level to "compete" with.

[Plink]

We do similar to the previous posters - meet with another family weekly for an "exclusive co-op" where the kids are divided by ability with each mom teaching. We have been doing this for the past 3 years and it works fine for us but I consider it supplementary rather than a core part of our lessons. When we are apart we are using different curriculum, so even though we try to work together on our plan of attack, it doesn't always gel perfectly. I teach what I think is important for the subjects I'm assigned and she does the same. The kids are certainly learning, but I usually don't count those days officially.

 

What does work really well is our once a month book club with 4 families. At the beginning of the year we share our reading lists and find the books that are common. These books are then divided among the moms. On book club day the assigned mom comes prepared to lead 3+ hours worth of lessons based on the book and she usually will decorate party-style for the theme - it is basically a fun version of lit analysis & unit study. The other moms stay in class to help facilitate, but don't have to do any lesson planning. The kids love it, we get more out of our literature, and it is nice to have days that I can look forward to as a day off from lesson planning. It is also nice, as the teacher, to have the extra incentive and accountability to plan really fun in-depth lessons for the group.

[Amy loves Bud]

Anyone trade off homeschooling days? By this, I mean homeschooling a friend's children for a day and they homeschool yours in return another day.

 

How often do you do this? Pros? Cons? Things to think about?

 

I tried to do a search for old threads and couldn't find anything, links would be good. (I ended up with bizarre things about wife swapping, etc!)

 

Thanks!

 

I would love to do this, but I think it would be very difficult to find the right match. I don't know anyone right now that we would match perfectly with.

 

Off the top of my head -

 

Will they be as rigorous/more rigorous as we would like?

Will they want to use the same curricula as we use?

Will they be flaky? I had one friend I considered this with a while back - but in the end I realized it would drive me crazy because they are flaky!

Are you committed to the schedule? If you are the type to do spontaneous field trips and the like, that could be a problem. Ditto for the other family.

[Tidbits of Learning]

I haven't done it personally, but had a friend who really tried to get people to do this with her. You would really need someone that had your same way of teaching or your same ideology on teaching and home school.

[ElizabethB]

Thanks everyone!

 

I actually have a friend here since we moved who is not flaky and is doing the same history cycle and the same math as us and we have similar educational goals and philosophies. We are using different LA, but could work that out.

[abbeyej]

Thanks everyone!

 

I actually have a friend here since we moved who is not flaky and is doing the same history cycle and the same math as us and we have similar educational goals and philosophies. We are using different LA, but could work that out.

 

My recommendation is that you start off by scheduling a couple of individual project / play dates. Say, "A week from Wed we'll meet at so-and-so's house and we'll do __ project from that week's history and bake __ that will go along with that as well, and we'll play a math game, then after lunch we'll just have a play date." ... See how it goes. Maybe do a few, 4-5, between now and Christmas. If it goes well, you can use the afternoon play-date part of the visit to plan with the other mom, and start up your co-op for real after the holidays.

[Cera]

I don't think I would want to swap a day each week but swapping kids every other week (one day) sounds great. It would give me a day off twice a month to get the little things done and a day twice a month to teach the stuff that is more fun with a group.

[RanchGirl]

I would love to meet another family that would be a good fit for doing this, but so far haven't come across one! I would also love to hire a substitute teacher... I could make a list of everything for her to do and go to the spa and I would come home and it's all done exactly the way I want it. I would definitely have her do the art projects and anything messy, hee hee! :)