How many days a week do you do school?

[RainbowSprinkles]

We are doing a 5 day week with most subjects right now. I'd like to try to switch to a 4 day week, using day 5 as the "fun" day. We would do Art and Home Economics that day and other more fun activities that we don't get to. Also, I would increase school weeks to 42 weeks instead of the traditional 36 weeks.

 

Just curious to know how many days a week you do school? And if you do 4 day weeks, how does that work out for you?

[moonlight]

we do 5 days and use weekends for fun activities. we do take some time off, but try to maintain some sort of routine for summer months and winter break too. i find that when we take too much time off completely, it takes way too long to get back into the swing of things.

[Mom in High Heels]

Here's our schedule:

 

M,W

History

Geog (M only)

Math

Latin

Spelling/Grammar

 

 

T, TH

Math

Spelling/Grammar

Science

German

 

F

Spelling Test

 

If we have any left over work from the week, we finish it on Friday, but usually it's just a free day after the spelling test.

 

We usually start school around 9am and are finished by noon. Sometimes we do some reading after lunch, but the formal day is done before lunch.

[dm379]

I schedule for 4 days and use day 5 for catch up. This way if something comes up during the week I don't stress about being behind or having to do 2 days in 1. We always wind up with work for that last day and if it doesn't take long we have a fun day. Or if I'm feeling mean we start the next week to get ahead a little.

[Laura Corin]

I used to do five days with Calvin (because he was older) and four days with Hobbes. We did a 40-week school year anyway, as that's roughly the UK norm. We also tried to take one day a month for school trips. It worked fine and the boys were well prepared when they returned to school. We did do long days though: last year it was 9-5 for both of them.

 

Laura

[KristineinKS]

In most subjects we work four days a week, though I sometimes schedule math on the fifth day and we do religion and grammar daily. Fridays are then our fun day - for art and music appreciation and special projects, plus any catch up work that needs to be done. It works out very well for us most of the time.

[nono]

We've quickly gravitated to doing or schedule along the lines of Mom in High Heels. I realized with my dd, she doesn't need drill and kill 5 days a week, so I'm approaching her schedule more like a college schedule, including lunch "off-campus" sometimes. ;)

 

I have started adding in a few things after lunch, just to prepare her for the future years where the school year is longer. Mostly we do our non-fiction reading, esp. science, then.

[mom31257]

We do school 5 days a week, but we do more work 3 days a week. We attend an enrichment co-op one day a week (not the whole semester, though), and a couple of other outside classes another day. I always have them assigned something on those 2 days out, but it is much less.

 

I figured my dd was going to have the biggest load, so I had her start Math, LA, and Science over the summer so the pressure was off some during the year. She did 2-3 lessons a week in each. It has helped a lot. I could see stretching your weeks out as sort of the same thing.

[MaMa2005]

We do 5 days, but the majority of the work is done on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Tuesday and Friday, DS is in enrichment classes from 9AM-1PM. We come home from those and do a couple hours of work, but far, far less than our MWTH schedule. DS knows that if everything is not complete by Friday night, it will be on his desk Saturday morning. So far this year, we have had only one Saturday morning school day :D.

[Closeacademy]

We do 4-day weeks. Monday through Thursday is for seatwork, Friday is playgroup and I count 1 of those a month as school because it is physical education/socialization/social skills and my dds would have classes in that anyway.

 

We school year round and have to count 180 days. We take off most of May, Labor Day week, Thanksgiving week, and 2-3 weeks at Christmas. After Thanksgiving we only do math and Christmas school.

 

:001_smile:

[TheCoffeeChick]

We do 5 days a week - more like 4 1/2 because one day is only a few things because Tuesdays we get together with some other homeschooling families to play. We try to be done by noon, but it seems lately to be creeping past lunch more often than not.

[robsiew]

We do 4 days a week with a "fun day". All of us LOVE it! A lot of the curriculum I chose has a 4 day schedule or is easily adapted so that aspect fits nicely. My kids work hard for the 4 days. I won't kid you. We are pretty serious those 4 days, but because we are I can look forward to and enjoy (not feel guilty at all) about a "fun day" every week. My oldest now looks at Thursday as his "last day of school" for the week.

 

On Fridays we do art (or music), draw our geography maps, do a history project if there's one that strikes my fancy and usually watch a science or history video. Depending on the projects we usually finish before lunch, but sometimes not. I also try and teach the kids a new board game every few weeks so we have "game" time, either with me teaching a new game or just playing a game together. The kids LOVE this and it makes me intentional about teaching them new games. I'd like to also get field trips in there and will probably look more into that over the winter when we don't get out of the house as much.

 

We do school year round so I don't worry much about number of weeks. We are on a 6(ish) week on/one week off schedule year round (with a couple bigger breaks) and it's working very nicely. Dovetails nicely with the 4 day week!:D

[Haiku]

We do four days a week, 42 weeks a year. We take every 5th week off.

 

Tara

[Veritaserum]

I switched to a 4-day school week this year and I love it! Friday is our make-up day or a day for errands/projects. We started with a light schedule at the beginning of August and got up to a full load by the last two weeks. We are on track to finish all I'd planned by the end of May.

[HootyTooty]

we work 4 days a week at home, then on another day we do co-op. When we are not in co-op we do a light day and go on outings. We start in mid-August and end at the beginning of June. Then we take a month off and do summer enrichment things on 3 days a week.

[JenC3]

We do a 4 day week as well, year round, and we use Friday as a field trip co-op day with 2 other homeschooling families.

[Jenny Piaaree]

We do four days a week, 42 weeks a year. We take every 5th week off.

 

Tara

 

Ditto for us last year, except we took off every 7th or 8th week. Plus, every third week or so I scheduled a free day that could be used for catch-up if needed. Fridays are for our volunteer work. This year we'll do something similar, but with fewer days off because we got a late start. Actually, I'm thinking of converting to year-round schooling. The kids have mixed feelings about that!

[alegnab]

do school five days per week, but we don't do every subject every day. I'm not a strict schedule person, so we may go a whole week without doing science, for example. We're the most consistent with math, which is done almost every day.

 

My high schooler does online classes and has classes five days per week this year. My high schoolers have always done school five days per week, even if there's no class scheduled.

[DragonFaerie]

We do 4-day weeks with Friday being our make up/ catch up/ field trip day. The kids work for about 4-5 hours each day, give or take. I always "count" Fridays (we have to turn in attendance for 180 school days per year) because, even if they don't do any "real" schoolwork, they have done sports (P.E.), church (discussion, art, etc) and children's choir (music) during the week in addition to all their schoolwork.

[Karen in CO]

We do school 5 days a week from 9-5, BUT it isn't what you would think.

 

I work full-time from home with some flexibility to my days. The girls each also go to a ps enrichment school one day a week. Each gets 4 days here of core subjects. The rest of their day is spent with art, craft or science projects, physical activity or reading.

 

 

I count school by the days not the weeks - when we hit 180 we are done. I did the same when I schooled 4 days a week. The year that I did a real 4 day week, our 5th day was unscheduled not scheduled with fun things. I didn't count it as school and I didn't try to make it "productive" it was just a non school day.

Edited October 27, 2010 by Karen in CO

[FO4UR]

5 days a week, but Fridays are generally very short on seatwork (less than an hour), we clean up our school area and go to the zoo or a museum or the park.

[nmoira]

We school year round, five days per week during the traditional school year. Though since we sign up for every kids' production/school performance we can, we effectively school four days per week about half the time. During the summer we usually drop down to four, but much of this past summer spent three days per week (except of course on camp weeks).

[Mom22ns]

We do most subjects in 4 days/week. On Fridays we have orchestra (instrument classes and music theory). We are there for a little over 3 hours, plus the drive time means we are away from home 9:30-2:00. We do math before we go and the kids read their sonlight books during the drive.

 

Most subjects work very well in 4 days/week. I insist on 5 days of math and as they get older, I'm finding other classes that need at least some attention on Friday (ds usually reads a section in science for example). We enjoy having a day that is different.

[mama25angels]

We are switching to a 4-day week here, except for my highschoolers. Monday will be our game day, we'll do educational games, add timeline dates, art and history projects. We school year round with a lighter schedule in summer, but there are some things I do want completed by a certain date. We also have 6 wks. on and 1 wk. off. We do a loop schedule as well, but most days we get everything completed.

[Whereneverever]

We do 5, but they may or may not be 5 days in a row.

[VBoulden]

i find that when we take too much time off completely, it takes way too long to get back into the swing of things.

 

I am still trying to get back into the swing of things. Right now, we only do two-three days a week. We took time off because I had surgery and as I have been recovering, we have been doing a lot more activities and field trips than ever before, reading library books galore, which is great and much more effective and fun than I ever imagined it could be... But, it's hard to get back into the swing of things. We usually do two days worth of work every single day of winter because we are so often stuck inside, so that helps at times like this, when we are moving slower. :001_smile:

[MissKNG]

3-4 days a week of "morning school" and probably 5-6 days of "night school" during our school year (Sept - May).

Edited October 27, 2010 by MissKNG

[Mandy in TN]

Just curious to know how many days a week you do school? And if you do 4 day weeks, how does that work out for you?

With my little guy (2nd grade/ just turned 8yo) we do full scholastic days M-Th. On Friday he goes to art and theater classes from 9:30 to 12:30. The number of days each week depends on the subject.

 

Kumon math and violin- 6 days (M-Sa)

SL reading- 5 days (M-F)

Saxon math- currently 4 days (M-Th)

MCT Island Practice Island- 4 days (M-Th)

SSL- 3 days (M, W, F)

MCT Island Vocabulary- 2 days (M, W)

MCT LA Island Poetry- 2 days (T, Th)

MCT LA Island Sentence Island- 2 days (T, Th)

Handwriting- 2 days (T, Th)

GSA Science- 2 days (T, Th)

Eclectic History- 2 days (T, Th)

Eclectic Spanish- 2 days (T, Th)

 

M I work half day and ds has cub scouts. T, Th are our heavy days at home. W the little guy has violin lessons, the 16yo goes to a math tutor and we go to the library, so we are gone all afternoon. F the little man is in class in the morning, so we just do Kumon math, SL reading, SSL and violin in the afternoon. Sa he does Kumon math and violin.

 

As always, I started the year with more, but this is what we are now completing.

 

We do a 36 week/ 180 day scheduled school year and then we do light school in the summer.

 

HTH-

Mandy

[Tammyla]

We did 4 when mine younger, but now have a regular 5 day lesson week. I still miss those Friday-Free days at the park, museum, lunch or library.

[twoxcell]

We do 5 days a week! Our Friday is slightly lighter than the rest of the week.

[nukeswife]

I recently switched to 4 days a week of seatwork involved schooling and Tuesdays are PE days where we go to the park, or bowling, or the bounce house place.

[angela in ohio]

6 days, year round

 

That allows us to take long luxurious days off in April, May, September, and October to travel and enjoy the outdoors, as well as to have plenty of time for dc's own interests each day.

[Joyofsixreboot]

We do school 5 days/week for 44 weeks/year, the extra days keep us from forgetting things or from feeling guilty if something really interesting comes along.

Edited October 27, 2010 by joyofsix

[Sherri in MI]

Our co-op meets 2x/month for 7 months-a total of 14 meetings. So on co-op Fridays, we don't do school. We either do the work earlier in the week or just skip it and end up catching up later in the year, after co-op ends in April.

[alpidarkomama]

We do full days Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Tuesdays after learning we go play at a park, ride bikes, etc. Thursdays we do 2/3rds of a day and have a longer outing (hike, museum, etc.). Sometimes we leave earlier and take a picnic and do some of our learning at the picnic table. Fridays we do half days, usually just religious studies and possibly anything that was left unfinished during the week. We finish by 1:00, then we get ready for shabbos (Friday night/Saturday). We often do history and science reading over the weekend so we don't have to use up as much weekday time for it. :)

[Ellie]

How does it work out for us? Well, we keep doing stuff until we finish, same as if we were doing 5 days a week.

[mazakaal]

When the kids were younger, I did 4 days of school per week, then we bumped it up to 4 1/2 days per week. I'm trying something different this year to give us the freedom to take a day off when we need it. I didn't want to commit myself to a 4 day week because we don't always have something to do instead of school (ie fieldtrip, etc).

 

I've planned out our school 'week' as a 5-day week where we do math, writing, phonics every day. Most other subjects we do 4 out of 5 days, but we take off of a different subject each day and we just rotate through the days. So on day one, we don't do grammar. On day 2, we don't do history. On day 3, we don't do Latin. On day 4, we don't do geography. On day 5, we don't do science. Music is on days 1,3,5 and art on days 2,4. Ds does logic on days 1,3,5, dd on days 2,4. So each day last from around 9-3 with an hour for lunch and we can take a day off when we need.

 

Our first week of school, on Monday we did day 1 work, Tuesday day 2, Wednesday day 3, Thursday day 4, and took Friday off. So the second week started with us doing day 5 work on Monday, Tuesday was day 1 work again, Wednesday was day 2, Thursday was off, Friday was day 3 work. The following Monday was day 4 work, etc. This way we could take a day off as needed without being a day behind in the spelling lesson or whatever. This is the first year I've tried school this way, but so far it's working really well.

[ShutterBug]

We aim for 5 days...sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't ;) .

 

I have a friend who is doing a 3 week on, 1 week off type schedule and it's working out great for them!

[anneofalamo]

monday thru thursday...the regular subjects on:toetap05: regular schedule

 

friday, fun day:party:...my brain needs it

we have people over, go to parks, or do field trips

once the rain starts, art is top on the lists for things to do...

 

that being said, it is a make up day for a day missed in the week (dr. appointments, or a trip :auto:that had to be on that day instead of Friday)

[Ester Maria]

6 days a week (Sundays through Fridays, with lighter Fridays), 35 weeks.

 

That way, we can have entire summers off (more than two full months in a row, for travel, being abroad, etc.), take off about 3 weeks in the winter (kids go abroad, skiing, friends, etc.), and about a week somewhere in early spring, usually about Pesach.

[crazymom4]

We switched to four days this year with Friday being a light day...usually math and LA only...LOVE IT!!!!!

[jengjohnson]

5 days a week - math, CLE reading, history reading, phonics(k), Latin, writing, Bible

 

4 days a week - spelling, grammar, read-aloud, history

 

3 days a week - science

 

2 days a week - logic (5th)

 

That's basically it. Often, the girls automatically do the 4x subjects daily and then realize they didn't have to. They would love to do science daily, but we have too many extra-curriculars. This is the first year in a while that we haven't belonged to a co-op, so we actually have 5 days to work. In the past I've squeezed 5 days' work into 4. I knew I couldn't do that with a new K'er this year. I plan for 36 weeks, but it usually comes closer to 40 b/c of days needed here and there for appointments, field trips, etc.

[justamouse]

5, sometimes 6 others 4.

[Paintedlady]

We try for 5, usually end up doing 4, but we also school through most of the summer. That way there's less pressure and I don't feel bad if life gets in the way now and then.

[mcconnellboys]

We do school every day, but we have outside activities most days and field trips most weeks; sometimes two per week. So we're constantly shifting work around our outings. Really, time-wise, we probably do school closer to 4 or 4 1/2 days per week.

[AmyinMD]

We do 4 days mainly because we do a homeschool co-op on Wednesdays. I am just too exhausted by the time we get home Wed afternoon to do any schoolwork.

 

However I only plan to take 1 week off around Christmas so we can finish our current program by middle June. If we were doing 5 days we'd probably do more breaks.

[Paige]

We do 4 regular days a week and Friday is our fun day. On Fridays, my son takes his spelling test, we do art, music, and play games or deliver Meals on Wheels, and have lots of free time. We really like the 4 day schedule and it helps that if something comes up during the week, then we can easily rearrange our schedule and not get behind.

[Tree House Academy]

We do 4 full days a week and then 5th is a light day with co-op in the afternoon.

[Kirch]

We do 4 days/week. The fifth day is usually a field trip/activity or the library. We also school year-round, though, so I'm not worried about fitting everything in.

[katilac]

In the past, we've done 4 days of seatwork and 1 day of art, projects, field trips, etc. We've also done 3 weeks on, 1 week off.

 

I've always taken care to use phrase them project days or project weeks, as opposed to 'fun' days. There's so much prejudice (in society in general) against anyone liking school/schoolwork that I hate to add to it in any way. I never wanted to present it as "we will suffer through our schoolwork and then be rewarded with a fun day," y'know? It's just easier to schlepp out all the stuff for projects on specified days, rather than randomly throughout the week.

 

Personal peeve of mine! My poor kids are surrounded by relatives who shriek in horror every time we do something school-ish at "odd" times. They think it's awful that I have them do schoolwork in the car when we drive to Disney or something, because the poor things are supposed to be on vacation, no learning allowed, lol! Because there are so many BETTER things to do for ten hours in the car, that it's awful to spend an hour of that time listening to a history chapter and some Latin vocab :001_rolleyes:

 

End digression.