Taking unscheduled days off?

[soonermomma]

Let me see if I can word this where it will make sense. If your lesson plan are done by the week (36 weeks) and you take a random day off, do you make up the work for that day, or do you shift your entire lesson plan and become behind a day?

 

My example is we took off an unplanned day on Friday, so I'm having the girls make up the work so we will be on track for next week. DH though I should just have them do Friday's work on Monday and do Mondays work on Tuesday and so forth. My problem with that is I have everything scheduled by the week and broken down in to four 9 week periods. If I did it his way it would throw off my whole lesson plan.

 

How do you handle this situation?

[Elizabeth in WA]

I plan by the week and we use weekends if necessary to stay on track. I know others that are more flexible with their planning. One reason I am inflexible is that I plan backwards from year end, and have my teens take SAT II and, this year, AP exams. The exam dates can't be shifted, so we'd have to make up eventually and would rather do it right away when its just one day rather than later when it could be several days and more difficult to make up. I do, however, plan less work for weeks I know will be four day weeks in advance.

 

When my older children were younger, I was more inclined to be flexible, and also did not plan out whole years in advance as I do now.

[Dobela]

First, I only do lesson plans at most 2 weeks in advance. I do have goals (like reach page 120 in math by Christmas) but that is about it. If we have an unplanned day out of school, I just move it to the next school day. THe last thing I want to do is school work on a weekend afternoon.

[texasmama]

We make up the work. I plan one week at a time, which gives us an entire seven days (theoretically) to complete five days of work (and only four days of most subjects). I typically don't move work from one week to the next, but it does happen sometimes. Clear as mud?:tongue_smilie:

[abbeyej]

With very little ones, we'd just shift, 'cause I can be a little more flexible about what gets covered when. With late elementary and beyond, we make up the work. I don't want anything hanging over us making use feel "behind" and I want to have all of our *scheduled* breaks too. :)

[kalanamak]

I break up the missed lessons and fill in one here and there over the next week or two.

[KrissiK]

I just shift and then remind myself not to plan so far ahead next time because it messes me up. Generally, when I plan out the number of days I will have school, I plan for those unplanned days off so I do get all the work done by the end of the school year. Just not necessarily on the day I planned to do it.

[NorCalMom]

This is why I schedule in pencil...erase & shift!

[Guest]

We try to make it up on the weekend. If not, then it's pushed of until the next week, and one day tacked onto the end of the year.

[chepyl]

I generally make up on the weekend. We do 5 days a week. My schedule is for m-f, but we might skip Thursday and do it on Sunday afternoon. If we miss a few from sickness, I can bump my full year schedule by a few days. Just highlight and hit the plus key :)

[Tap]

Let me see if I can word this where it will make sense. If your lesson plan are done by the week (36 weeks) and you take a random day off, do you make up the work for that day, or do you shift your entire lesson plan and become behind a day?

 

My example is we took off an unplanned day on Friday, so I'm having the girls make up the work so we will be on track for next week. DH though I should just have them do Friday's work on Monday and do Mondays work on Tuesday and so forth. My problem with that is I have everything scheduled by the week and broken down in to four 9 week periods. If I did it his way it would throw off my whole lesson plan.

 

How do you handle this situation?

 

I add a day every month that is not planned. (and a half day, field trip/excursion on the other weeks) I never tell the kids about excursions, so if we need make up time we just use that. If we need a whole day, we use the make up day built in to each month. If we haven't used the day, we take it off and do something else.

[ednkirstin]

We usually make up the work. In the past I haven't always done this. There was a time or two that I found my summer virtually disappeared OR we didn't finish what I wanted to. I find it a lot easier to just stay on top of it.

[TheReader]

I do like you do, make up the work throughout the next week.

 

For ex, we had a crazy week this past week. Monday, the math discs wouldn't work, so no math. Tuesday, one child who had a doctor's appt. wound up being the whole family running crazy errands all day - no school at all on Tuesday. So, that gave us Weds - Friday to get 5 days of math done, catch up on the day of history we missed and the day of grammar/vocab we missed.

 

How we caught up -- I had the boys do double vocabulary one day to catch that up. We have days without grammar, so they did grammar on an off day to catch that up. They also had that week a day w/no history so they read history on the off day too. If they'd not had an off day for history that week, I'd have had them double up on one day or do one & a half one day, one & a half the next day so they caught up.

 

Math I adapted their assignments (shortened each one) so that they were covering the material from all 5 lessons but fewer problems from each.

 

I also build off days into the schedule so that if we do get behind, there are natural catch-up days here and there. For instance, if a math quiz falls on a Thursday, I give them Friday as an off day rather than start a new chapter before the weekend. We do science only 3 days a week anyway, so if we miss it's easy to catch up. Grammar, 2x/week. This helps us catch up when we need to.

[abdesigns]

I don't go by the calendar day of the week, I go with Day 1-5, so if day 1 ends up being wednesday, by the end of the year, I'm okay with that. Sometimes we will double up on certain subjects if we've missed just a few subjects, but that's basically how it works. Also, I'm going to try to use Homeschoolskedtracker this year, I think it shifts it for you, doesn't it?

[Jenny in Florida]

We make it up a little at a time over the next week or so.

 

I plan by the week for the full year before we start. If we take off a day in the middle of the week, we just do a little more over the next couple of days to compensate. I we take off a Friday, or if we just don't manage to make up the work before the end of the week, anything that isn't done gets noted on the next week's page so we can finish it.

[Berta]

I don't go by the calendar day of the week, I go with Day 1-5, so if day 1 ends up being wednesday, by the end of the year, I'm okay with that. Sometimes we will double up on certain subjects if we've missed just a few subjects, but that's basically how it works. Also, I'm going to try to use Homeschoolskedtracker this year, I think it shifts it for you, doesn't it?

 

 

This is how I do it too. I have days 1-5, with a planned schedule of what subjects we do on those days. We also school year round, and weekends. I have a total of 180 in my planner. Each day I put the date next to the number day and write in what we accomplished. Saves me from having to stress over an unexpected day off and no more erasing.

[Ellie]

I don't go by the calendar day of the week, I go with Day 1-5, so if day 1 ends up being wednesday, by the end of the year, I'm okay with that. Sometimes we will double up on certain subjects if we've missed just a few subjects, but that's basically how it works. Also, I'm going to try to use Homeschoolskedtracker this year, I think it shifts it for you, doesn't it?

:iagree:

 

This is one of the things that bothered me about the Prairie Primer. Couldn't have brought myself to use it. :lol:

[Parrothead]

Since we are just as likely to miss another day within the next week, I'll have dd make up the work as soon as possible. It is generally split up over the next two days.

[TammyinTN]

I actually add several days into each nine weeks for just this reason. I don't use the day of the week when planning, but just lesson number. If we miss, we just pick up and keep going.

[abacus2]

I have my plans divided by weeks. If we took an unexpected whole week off I would shift plans, but for our routine life, which might involve a messed up day, or even two, during a week, I prioritize and do what we can by the end of the week and drop things as necessary to start the next week fresh and according to plan.

[NanceXToo]

We make up most of the work, but some things we just skip/consolidate. Like if I have spelling review on my "list" for the week, we won't do an extra spelling assignment. To me, that's just no big deal.

 

If the grammar assignment was something we've already been reviewing and have a good grasp of it, we skip it.

 

But we make up the math, writing assignments, and so on. The important stuff. Either by doing a bit of extra work each day over the rest of the week, or by finishing up some stuff over a weekend, or whatever.

 

I definitely don't let it put me behind each time and extent my school year.

[higginszoo]

That's why I stopped scheduling 5 day weeks, and don't often use curriculum that's scheduled this way. Our life just rarely happens in 5 day blocks. It's rare for us to have two weeks in a row that are very much the same. So I go through and figure out what a reasonable chunk of work is, and as we go through the year, they just take the next chunk to work on. Some weeks, we may do 3 days, other weeks, six. Some days, we might do 5 or 6 subjects, others we only get to one or two. I like being able to fit school around life and not constantly trying to re-order my life (which never works no matter how I try) to fit around some artificial schedule called 'school'.

[Running the race]

Let me see if I can word this where it will make sense. If your lesson plan are done by the week (36 weeks) and you take a random day off, do you make up the work for that day, or do you shift your entire lesson plan and become behind a day?

 

My example is we took off an unplanned day on Friday, so I'm having the girls make up the work so we will be on track for next week. DH though I should just have them do Friday's work on Monday and do Mondays work on Tuesday and so forth. My problem with that is I have everything scheduled by the week and broken down in to four 9 week periods. If I did it his way it would throw off my whole lesson plan.

 

How do you handle this situation?

 

With young kids, I'd just shift over a day. I'd try to drop non-essential things missed on that day. Then I'd try to double-up on any essential concepts and drop most of the review.