I need to get organized - considering schooling only 4 days per week

[Greta]

I would like to hear from anyone who schools 4 days a week and likes it, or who tried it and didn't like it, or anyone who would have some advice for me about getting my act together.

 

I only have one child, and just a nice, average home (3 bedrooms, 2 baths, not a sprawling mansion by any means). So you'd think I'd be on top of things, right? I used to be! But as she gets older, and more and more of our day is devoted to school, plus more time gets devoted to outside activities (taekwondo, Girl Scouts, etc.) everything else seems to be slipping away. We do six hours of school per day. I manage to fit in a workout during that time when she's doing independent work. I can usually manage a load of dishes and a load of laundry and a shower somewhere in there too. But then it's time for taekwondo (daily), and then dinner (I used to plan nice meals, now I'm resorting to packaged stuff and take-out). And in the evenings I seem to have no energy left, and I just want to read or otherwise chill.

 

My house is always teetering just on the edge of that point where it will drive my dh batty. I don't want to live this way! He needs a clean, organized, peaceful house for his sanity, and I respect that. I just don't seem to be able to accomplish it any more.

 

I want to have time to plan out nice meals, and to actually shop for the food needed to make them. I don't want to see piles of dog hair in every corner and a layer of dust a quarter inch thick on every surface. HELP!

 

I thought I could devote Saturdays to housekeeping, but it just doesn't seem to work. Weekends are family time - we do something fun when we can, and we see my dh so little during the week because of his long workdays that this time is really valuable. A *big* chunk of Sunday is devoted to church, and this would be my dh's last choice for a cleaning day, because he wants to enjoy the clean house on the weekends, not have me cleaning it up just in time for him to go back to work.

 

So I'm thinking my best option might be to do school Monday through Thursday (45 weeks instead of 36 per year, so that it's still 180 days), and devote Fridays to housekeeping, meal planning, and errands.

 

I guess the only way to know for sure if it will work for us is to try it for a few weeks and see. But I also know that these boards are a great place for feedback, and that you ladies might see something obvious here that I'm missing. So, please advise me!

[Suzanne in ABQ]

Four day weeks is the only way I keep my sanity. I plan it out at the beginning of the year to determine how much we need to get done each day to finish in less than 36 weeks. We use Friday as a make-up day, if we need it. Otherwise, I use it for catching up on domestic stuff, or we go on field trips, or go visit my mom, or whatever. If we have a doctor appointment or something else comes up, we switch our off-day to that day, and do school on Friday.

 

Before, I always felt behind, like I would never catch up. I don't feel like that anymore.

 

I would highly recommend it!

[cin]

We do 4 days a week, but it's because my kids are at co-op on Wed. All Day! >happy dance< That way though, I can count that as a school day, because they are still learning. If we did that without the co-op, I would go crazy, cuz I can't do 45 weeks a year! BUT, I do enjoy my Wed. off :) Honestly, most of the time I spend watching TV and playing computer games. I do get a couple loads of laundry done and 2 crockpot meals for the freezer.

 

I wonder if I could do 4 homeschool days a week and then 2 afternoon co-ops and count that as 5 days a week? The 2 afternoon co-ops would be cheaper (the all day co-op IS expensive). I would like a day off to do some other stuff, whether it be errands, cooking or >gasp< cleaning! But I know I could not keep them going for 45 weeks. Heck, *I* don't want to go 45 weeks!

Edited January 27, 2011 by cin

[Greta]

Four day weeks is the only way I keep my sanity. I plan it out at the beginning of the year to determine how much we need to get done each day to finish in less than 36 weeks. We use Friday as a make-up day, if we need it. Otherwise, I use it for catching up on domestic stuff, or we go on field trips, or go visit my mom, or whatever. If we have a doctor appointment or something else comes up, we switch our off-day to that day, and do school on Friday.

 

Before, I always felt behind, like I would never catch up. I don't feel like that anymore.

 

I would highly recommend it!

 

Oh, yay, I appreciate this encouragement so much! A ray of hope - that perhaps sanity really is just around the corner. :D

 

But, 36 weeks? Wow, you manage to get your entire year's worth of school in 36 weeks of 4 days each? Now I'm really in awe. I don't think I could do that. And I don't think dh would consider it sufficient.

[Haiku]

We do four days a week. I don't generally get anything done on the day off because my kids want to play with me and go places. Maybe with an older, only child that would be different. I love doing four days a week, but it certainly hasn't helped my house out at all.

 

We live in an area where we have to certify that we spend 900 hours a year on instruction, not a certain number of days. Nine hundred hours a year on academics alone is ridiculous when you have young kids because homeschooling is so much more efficient. I count sports and homeschool group and classes we take and anything else remotely educational. Ok, I don't really count anything, because I don't care. As long as my kids get educated, I don't care how long it takes us, and imo it's none of the school district's nevermind as long as my kids are meeting minimum standards. Sorry, that was a rant. Anyway, what I am getting at is that I would schedule my school year to make sure we get what I consider to be a year's worth of work done and not worry how many days, weeks, hours, months, nanoseconds, or anything else it takes. Done is done, and there's no need to drag it out just to meet someone else's arbitrary standards. Btw, we school year-round and take every 5th week off.

 

Tara

[Pretty in Pink]

When you school year-round a 4-day school week is quite sufficient. This is what I aim for.

[Greta]

We do 4 days a week, but it's because my kids are at co-op on Wed. All Day! >happy dance< That way though, I can count that as a school day, because they are still learning. If we did that without the co-op, I would go crazy, cuz I can't do 45 weeks a year! BUT, I do enjoy my Wed. off :) Honestly, most of the time I spend watching TV and playing computer games. I do get a couple loads of laundry done and 2 crockpot meals for the freezer.

 

I wonder if I could do 4 homeschool days a week and then 2 afternoon co-ops and count that as 5 days a week? The 2 afternoon co-ops would be cheaper (the all day co-op IS expensive). I would like a day off to do some other stuff, whether it be errands, cooking or >gasp< cleaning! But I know I could not keep them going for 45 weeks. Heck, *I* don't want to go 45 weeks!

 

Yes, it was a local one-day-a-week co-op that got me thinking about this. I was so darn excited about the thought of someone else taking over history and science, leaving me with a day to do housework! Unfortunately, however, dh said no way, no how to the co-op because of . . . let's say a philosophical difference in the teaching of science. :crying: So I'm still going to have to teach those subjects and those days myself. But 4 days a week still sounds really nice.

[TXMomof4]

We do 4 days of hard-hitting school and on Fridays we have art class and choir. Fridays are half-day, so if we missed something during the week we can make it up, otherwise it is used for cleaning, laundry, etc.

 

The other thing that has really helped my house is we stop school at 4:00 period. The kids do a clean up and I get dinner started. That way we have plenty of time to have the house back to dh's standard of not chaotic so he can relax and have a pleasant evening with his family, I don't feel guilty about his having to clean after he's been at work 9 or 10 hours and the kids are less likely to make beserk, insane messes if they know they have to clean it up.

[SailorMom]

I think you can manage 5th grade at 4 days a week. From my experience, up until 7th grade we could get it in in 4 moderate days. Now - we could still do 4 days, but there is a limit to the amount of school DS can do effectively in 24 hours, so we're 5 days now.

[Hedgehog]

We do 4.5 days of school a week. On Monday we clean the house; I'm cleaning all day, and DD11 and DD9 are partly helping me clean and partly doing independent schoolwork. Tuesday through Friday we focus on schoolwork, and I aim to vacuum on Thursday and Saturday - otherwise the dog hair clumps float around like feathers :D

[Mom in High Heels]

We do regular school M-Th and then he has a spelling test on Friday and we're done for the day. If we haven't finished up what we're supposed to get done during the week, we finish on Fri, but we try really hard NOT to have any extra work on Fri after the spelling test.

[Tabrett]

I just started 4 days a week about 3 weeks ago. I double up on one subject a day. I try to double up on the subject that has the least workload each day. That way, I am doing a full school year in 4 day week/36 weeks a year.

[TammyinTN]

We start 8th grade on Monday and I'm going back to a 4-day school week. We are doing A Beka DVD's from here on in and with ortho appointments, sports and library days we just need a day to get all that done without the stress of having to hurry through our classes.

[Dayle in Guatemala]

We have done this for the past 6 years and LOVE it!

 

We really hit it hard M-W with Th being a co-op day. We use Friday for finishing up things. Now, all that to say that my oldest does do some school on Friday because she's really hitting math and Spanish hard so that she can be ready for her entrance exams in about 18 months. But, we also have internships with all of that during the week as well.

 

Fridays are pretty relaxed though. Much nicer!

[MaMa2005]

You sound exactly like me! I actually plan for a 5 day week and then double up on some things as they seem fit. It always works into a 4 day week with perhaps a spelling test and handwriting on Friday. (Too bad about the co-op. DS takes classes on Friday from 9-1 and that is my heavy cleaning/errand time. It is also why I try to work everything into 4 days as I don't want to get home at 1:45, do school and leave for TaeKwonDo at 3:00 :willy_nilly:)

 

If it helps, I ALWAYS get my shower and make the beds before I ever go downstairs in the morning. Just gets the day off to a good start. I also have a cordless vacuum that I swing around in the morning while DS is eating breakfast. Throw in a load of laundry before school starts, switch it to the dryer sometime during the day, and fold it before bed. Just doing those few things really helps me keep a handle on myself and the household things.

[Chris in VA]

Greta, just noticing your siggy--are you doing 3 math programs and 2 intensive LA programs? Could you cut something and still have all you need, and shorten your days by an hour or so, then use that hour to clean?

 

Or,

Could you cut two afternoons during the week instead of taking a whole day, and do something about the house those days? Once a week cleaning is not enough around here (not saying I do even that...:glare::D)--if you spread out the time over two days, perhaps you would have a clean house more often? 2 hours of cleaning twice a week leaves me less tired than 4 hours one day, iykwim.

 

One thing we did do when the boys were younger is have an hour and a half on Sat morning when EVERYONE did chores, often to very loud Beatle's music!! Just in that concentrated burst, we accomplished several things--not only did the house get clean, but my husband modeled great helping behaviors to my boys, and we experienced the joy of doing things together--it actually was painless, and fun. We could get vacuuming, sweeping, bathrooms, 2 loads of bed linens, bed changing, and dusting done, amidst the horrible singing and dancing that ensued!! LOL

[Ellie]

Sounds good to me. We always cleaned house (including all the laundry) on Fridays. I didn't want to spend the weekend cleaning, and I didn't want to have to go into the new week facing laundry, KWIM?

 

I say go for it.:)

[Tullia]

It worked easily until high school, but even then my son tended to use the 5th day for studying for exams, re-writing papers; things I assigned during Thursday afternoon conference time. Doing that gave me time to focus on housework or errands. Ds is an only child and I think in some ways life was easier for the moms with several children because there were more people to do necessary chores. My son did better academically w/o long breaks, too.

[ElizabethB]

You need to add in home ec.:)

 

My days go smoother when my children do some home ec daily!!

[Night Elf]

We've been doing 4 days a week for quite some time but never had official breaks until this year. We took 4 weeks over the holidays and I hope to take another 4 weeks in the summer between grade levels. What I did was create a weekly schedule and fit what I consider to be 5 days of work into 4 days. It's working well for us.

[Mejane]

We always schooled four days, except for a science experiment on Friday. It gave the kids some incentive to get their work done by Friday, or a catch-up day if they didn't. ;)

[dhudson]

We do 5 days of school work in 4 and keep Fridays for cleaning and chores. It helps that our main curriculum ( MFW) is scheduled for four days so then we just double up on math and LA on one day. I also make sure mine still do piano, Latin vocab and reading on Fri so I can count it as school. We always finish in 36 weeks.

 

I generally don't do any field trips on M-Th though. I save them for Fri or Sat with my dh.

 

My 5th graders finish school in 4-5 hours and my 8th grader 6-7 hours.

[Veritaserum]

Four day weeks is the only way I keep my sanity. I plan it out at the beginning of the year to determine how much we need to get done each day to finish in less than 36 weeks. We use Friday as a make-up day, if we need it. Otherwise, I use it for catching up on domestic stuff, or we go on field trips, or go visit my mom, or whatever. If we have a doctor appointment or something else comes up, we switch our off-day to that day, and do school on Friday.

 

Before, I always felt behind, like I would never catch up. I don't feel like that anymore.

 

I would highly recommend it!

:iagree: We've been doing a 4-day week since August and I lot it. We have a day for errands, cleaning, or just relaxing. We are on track to get through 36 weeks worth of material by the end of May. I plan on doing a 4-day week next year as well. :)

[Tess in the Burbs]

we did 4 days from the start but this year I decided to do 5 days. Oh my gosh, it's just not working. we are only doing school 4 days anyway due to life and such, and now my planning is all off!

 

next year will be a planned 4 day again and if we get a 5th day in good, but now I won't stress so much.

[workingmom]

We do four days a week.

 

We live in an area where we have to certify that we spend 900 hours a year on instruction, not a certain number of days. Nine hundred hours a year on academics alone is ridiculous when you have young kids because homeschooling is so much more efficient. I count sports and homeschool group and classes we take and anything else remotely educational. Ok, I don't really count anything, because I don't care. As long as my kids get educated, I don't care how long it takes us, and imo it's none of the school district's nevermind as long as my kids are meeting minimum standards. Sorry, that was a rant. Anyway, what I am getting at is that I would schedule my school year to make sure we get what I consider to be a year's worth of work done and not worry how many days, weeks, hours, months, nanoseconds, or anything else it takes. Done is done, and there's no need to drag it out just to meet someone else's arbitrary standards. Btw, we school year-round and take every 5th week off.

 

Tara

:iagree:

 

same hear. it really works. sometimes on the other days that aren't scheduled we may even work ahead.

[Greta]

This is great - thanks for all the encouragement and ideas!!!

 

I'm going to be rather lazy and just give one short reply instead of all the separate replies that I probably should. But I stupidly slammed two fingers in the car door this afternoon :crying: and it is really hurting me to type. I'm 37 years old (as of this weekend) and I cried like a baby!

 

Anyway, my signature was rather misleading. We aren't doing three whole math programs, but primarily one, with a little supplementing from the other two. So I changed that. I do use two English programs, because one is focused on writing/composition, and the other is a general spelling, grammar, vocab, etc. program. But, really, I'm not as hard on her as you might have thought from my signature. Sorry about that! My dd is very bright, but definitely has some focus/attention issues. It takes us longer than it should to do school, and I spend much of our time bringing her attention back to the task at hand.

 

And I also understand what you're saying about not worrying to much about an arbitrary law saying I have to school 180 days. It's not so much the law I'm worried about as it is the hubby. :D He considers the requirements of the law and the standards of the public schools to be the bare minimum, and wants us to do more. I'm making him sound like a really demanding person, but he just wants to give his daughter the best start in life that we reasonably can. He's a very good husband and father. :001_wub: But he's never been a really gung-ho pro-homeschooling type, so I have to keep things pretty rigorous for him to be satisfied that this is the right thing.

 

I'm sure there's more I wanted to say that I'm forgetting, but it's been a long, tiring (and painful) day. I'm heading to bed!

 

Thank you all again so much. This four day per week thing sounds imminently do-able now that I've heard so many success stories. Thanks, ladies!

[alpidarkomama]

We do 4-1/2 days per week. Friday morning is just for finishing up whatever wasn't finished yet from the week. We don't do lots of other outside activities to keep our week simple. DD7 goes to choir on Monday afternoon, and I teach a music class for her and her friends on Thursday afternoon.

 

And 180 days per year? Phooey! We're learning 365 days per year. :lol:

[Haiku]

He considers the requirements of the law and the standards of the public schools to be the bare minimum, and wants us to do more.

 

That's completely understandable. I have a child in public school, and I still consider the public school requirements to be the barest of bare minimums. We definitely want to (and do!!) accomplish more.

 

You might try pointing out to your dh that working with one student vs. working with 20-25 students (or more) means that much, much more is accomplished in a shorter amount of time in your home than would be accomplished in a school and that mimicking at home a system designed to educate groups of children at the barest of minimums is not necessary for your one child to get a good education.

 

Good luck to you! I love our four-day week. As I type, my dh is getting the kids ready to go to a stick-and-puck session at the local ice rink. I am going to "do the laundry" while they are gone. ;)

 

Tara

[Greta]

You might try pointing out to your dh that working with one student vs. working with 20-25 students (or more) means that much, much more is accomplished in a shorter amount of time in your home than would be accomplished in a school and that mimicking at home a system designed to educate groups of children at the barest of minimums is not necessary for your one child to get a good education.

 

Yes, that is a good point. Six hours in a typical classroom really cannot be compared to six hours of one-on-one tutoring! It's a whole different ball game. Thanks for reminding me of that.

 

Good luck to you! I love our four-day week. As I type, my dh is getting the kids ready to go to a stick-and-puck session at the local ice rink. I am going to "do the laundry" while they are gone. ;)

 

Tara

I wish that laundry was all that needed to get done at my house! That's just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Enjoy your day to yourself! I had one of those once. It was nice. :lol:

[lllll]

..

[Ravin]

We do 4 days a week, DD is in an enrichment program on Fridays. I also work 32 hrs/wk. Our schoolwork only takes an hour or two a day, though (DD is only in 2nd).

 

Next year we'll be going to 3 days/wk of lessons at home and 2 days/wk of enrichment program so that I can go back to school.

 

DH does a good chunk of the cleaning and cooking. That helps a lot.

[Greta]

But I was thinking that about 3 hours a day would suffice for most of elementary school, and as more hours were needed that would be more hours of HER time, not me standing over her.

 

Well, don't let my situation scare you too much. My dd is more dependent on my presence and my keeping her focused than most kids her age. She had an educational evaluation done a couple of years ago and they told me she has a processing disorder (basically ADD, though that's a medical diagnosis, so they told me to ask our family doctor if I wanted to pursue a diagnosis - I didn't). I am gradually working on getting her more and more independent, but this is a slower process than with many kids. At this point, she still doesn't work well on her own, so I am with her 90% of the time. My goal is to decrease that bit by bit so that by the time she's in high school, she can work as independently as any kid.

[Greta]

FWIW, I remember the days of having one kid and feeling like I never got anything done. :)

 

Thank you! :001_smile: It's kind of embarrassing when one of your closest friends has five kids, whom she home schools and who are working well above grade level, a lovely, immaculate home, and a beautifully prepared, healthy meal on the table every night. I think I could hate her if I didn't love her so much. :D. She tells me that she wasn't at all organized when she had only one child, but having a big family forced her to get that way. I think she's just trying to make me feel better. ;)

[alpidarkomama]

I think she's right. With four, I definitely do a much better job managing the house than I did with one. :)

[MomOfOneFunOne]

One is hard.

 

I'd love to have school 4 days/week but mostly, we have school 6 days. Yep, 6.

 

On some Mondays we go to drop in PE but it's late afternoon. We have online classes from early morning to about 11 T/R. We have fiddle lessons Tuesday afternoons and Writing Club Thrusday afternoons. We have Catholic girls' club 1st and 3rd Friday mornings and riding lessons 2nd and 4th Friday afternoons.

 

Plus, my girl has friends in both writing club and girls' club who live out in the country. The moms bring them in to meet and then sometime they get to come over to our house to spend the afternoon until their dads get off work in the evening and take them back home OR we end up hanging around to visit afterward.

 

So, we have a full day of school on Monday. We have a full day of school on Tuesday, too, but there's some transport time and b/c it's a lot of going or being present online, less gets done. Wednesday is a full day. Thursday is two online classes and writing club but we visit so long after ward that nothing gets done afterward. 2 Fridays per month are good school days but 2 are not.

 

So, we end up having school on Saturdays very often. Today, if fact, my daughter took a Science test, practiced fiddle, played at a pub, worked on a history project, and took a Latin vocab quiz. However, after writing club on Thursday we visited till very late and then had to hurry home to fix supper so we only completed Latin class, Math class, and Writing club for the whole day. Friday she only did Math homework, Latin vocab study, Science, and a couple of domestic arts projects.

 

My belabored point is that somewhere over the course of our school experience we've decided that spreading it out over 6 days works for us instead of packing it into 4 or even 5. 4 sounds so lovely but they'd be packed full to bursting and I'm not sure how long we could sustain that. Then again, I can imagine a time when we get tired of the way we do it and the pendulum will swing the other way. Maybe we'd do 4 days for a while but, like I said, I'm not sure we could sustain such a schedule.

 

and I'm still not on top of anything!

[Greta]

I think she's right. With four, I definitely do a much better job managing the house than I did with one. :)

 

Really? I never cease to be amazed at you mothers of bigger families who have it all together, whereas I'm barely staying afloat with one kid. My Mom says that you simply learn to adjust - maybe she's right. Anyway, you are very kind to say this. :001_smile:

 

I'd love to have school 4 days/week but mostly, we have school 6 days. Yep, 6.

 

I think you must be a MUCH more patient person than I am! :D

[Rosy]

We do full days MTW and Thurs is our finish it up day. Friday is co-op, which is mostly enrichment but we do use it for science. DD10 can get her schoolwork done in 4 hours a day if she doesn't get distracted. When I'm on my game, we do a half hour of chores before we start school and a 5 min. pick-up in the afternoon, and that's enough to get the worst of the mess.

 

You all are scaring me a bit :glare: I am working with my soon-to-be 5 yo on pre-K stuff, and she holds out for about a half hour or so, and we read aloud do science projects, work outside (learn 365 days a year as someone said :) But I was thinking that about 3 hours a day would suffice for most of elementary school, and as more hours were needed that would be more hours of HER time, not me standing over her. I do have plans to do Latin, logic, and things like that when the time comes. She goes to a co-op that's one day a week (for history) for about 6 months out of the year. I'm planning to do 4 days a week year-round, for the most part. Thoughts on this? My state requires 180 days, nothing on the hours.

 

3 hours a day will definitely suffice for most of elementary school. Around 4th or 5th you may need an extra hour, but like you said, she'll be more independent so she shouldn't need your undivided attention that whole time, assuming she doesn't have any high-maintenance learning or behavior issues.

 

She tells me that she wasn't at all organized when she had only one child, but having a big family forced her to get that way. I think she's just trying to make me feel better. ;)

 

It's true. Also, my friends that have only children seem to spend a lot more time meeting their kids' needs for companionship than I do. My kids like me, but they have each other for playmates, which frees me up considerably. So don't feel bad! :)

[texasmama]

We have always schooled four days a week. The boys now attend a co op on one day, but I work a 10-12 hour day away from the house one day a week so we do no school on that day. Our schooling schedule has had to be flexible around our other activities/my part time jobs.