Do you think schooling all week is a good idea?

[LuvingLife]

Tomorrow I am officially starting school, and when I started planning out my schedule, I couldn't seem to fit all the subjects that I wanted to within 5 hours of doing school. But if I extended things to Saturday and maybe even Sunday, then everything fit perfectly and not only could I complete school on time, I might even be able to take a few days off or lighten my load a couple days a week. Some of my curriculum still won't be in due to certain financial issues so I won't have any science curriculum until next month and a few other minor subjects, but that's ok! But I am not sure if doing 7 day school weeks would be a good idea, is there a possibility of burning out? Would I finally crash?

 

I don't want this to happen, has anyone had any success doing this? Even six day school weeks would be fine, doing 5 days a week for 4-5 hours a day doesn't seem to do it though.

 

(And no I can't extend the time, I do other things throughout the day that consume this time.)

[Abbeygirlsouth]

Schooling 6 days a week (and 1 1/2 hrs on Sunday) has worked well for one of my children. Honestly, I don't think that we could manage it any other way as she has dyslexia and needs frequent breaks, so she actually enjoys this type of scheduling.

 

Unfortunately, in the past, I have been the one who became a little burned out, so I began to plan more to where DD could be "self guided" during the weekend. Mainly this meant that I would not schedule labs or discussions on the weekend and Sundays only included electives, such as Art or Economics.

 

HTH :)

[2J'sMom]

Whenever I think of doing school through the summer of longer hours/days, I always come back to the fact that I need a break as much or more than the kids do. There has to be downtime for all of us. There are going to be lots of different opinions about that & things that work differently for everyone, but I like a summer break for lots of reasons including a large property that needs more care during the summer, a huge garden & lots of canning, plus a more carefree sort of lifestyle that happens for those 3 short months.

[Ame E.]

I am in the less is more category of homeschooling... everytime I joined the more is better school, I had complete burnout by April... and always took 3 weeks off around Easter...and getting through June just about killed me.. and the kids.. However, doing one subject during the summer has worked well for us. If you are sticking to the 4 to 5 hours a day of school.. then maybe doing half day on Saturday will work. What does not work (I think) is 6 (8 to 9 hour) days of school.

 

Ame

[regentrude]

But I am not sure if doing 7 day school weeks would be a good idea, is there a possibility of burning out? Would I finally crash?

 

It depends on how you find time and opportunities to really recharge during the week. When would you pursue extracurricular activities, hobbies, just relax?

As much as I am in favor of rigorous school, I do not have my children school on weekends - because we need time as a family, to go on outings, to pursue our interests.

I am working and I love my job - and I am really grateful to have weekends off to come back with a fresh mind, a new perspective and renewed enthusiasm on Mondays.

I found that, when I was a college student and was working extremely hard to keep up with my courses, devoting one day a week to something other than studying, even in the most stressful times before exams, helped me keep my sanity and improved my performance in the long term.

I do not think schooling EVERY day is a good idea. Schooling 6 days a week - OK. When I was a kid, we went to school on Saturdays, too. But I believe that keeping one day free from work is very important - even God rested on the seventh day.

[lewelma]

I put the fun classes on the weekends. My ds does logic and philosophy with dh on the weekend for 2 hours. He also watches his TTC science lectures on the weekend. This adds up to 4 hours I don't have to find time for during the week.

 

Ruth

[Starr]

I don't think you can get everything in with only 4 or 5 hours so 6 days a week might work well for you. If you were doing long days of school 6 days a week I think it would be too much. Is it possible with some of your subjects to put them on a 6 or 7 day rotation like they do in some of the schools? You know so you don't do them as often.

[choirfarm]

I am in the less is more category of homeschooling... everytime I joined the more is better school, I had complete burnout by April... and always took 3 weeks off around Easter...and getting through June just about killed me.. and the kids.. However, doing one subject during the summer has worked well for us. If you are sticking to the 4 to 5 hours a day of school.. then maybe doing half day on Saturday will work. What does not work (I think) is 6 (8 to 9 hour) days of school.

 

Ame

Ame,

 

She is the student not the mom. She homeschools herself. Tigersgrowl is another one who is a kid not a parent.

 

Christine

[Candid]

Can you make it work so that the funner stuff you are doing (for me that would be photography) are on the weekend so that you can feel like you are taking a break at some point during the week?

 

And do you have a back up plan to drop things if you find you are just too stressed by the load you are carrying? What goes first? Since you have a clear goal you don't wan to reach whatever your own snapping point is and then be unable to move forward with the things you must have for the goal.

[LuvingLife]

Thank you all for your opinions, and I am starting to realize that schooling 7 days a week is not a good idea!:tongue_smilie: There would be no way possible that I could do this, I would burn right out and end up hating school, like regentrude said, even God rested on the seventh day! I think I could tweak my schedule and put the most important days first, then continue with some electives on Saturday and take a break on Sunday that way I won't burn out and I can relax.

 

I thought that this would be a good idea but from what you all are telling me I think I would like to keep it to 6 days a week. I can only do a maximum of 5 hours a day during the week or I will just crash!

 

Thank you all!:)

[Mom22ns]

I do agree that 7 days/week would probably be too much to expect of yourself. However, high school here takes 7+ hours/day 5 days per week (he is getting 7 credit hours). That is 35+ hours of work. If you are doing that even in 6 days, that comes to almost 6 hours/day. I don't know how many credits you are trying to achieve this year, but it sounds like you are creating an impossible situation for yourself.

 

I think you need to evaluate how many credits you are trying to achieve and what is taking priority over school in your schedule.

[Elizabeth in WA]

I do agree that 7 days/week would probably be too much to expect of yourself. However, high school here takes 7+ hours/day 5 days per week (he is getting 7 credit hours). That is 35+ hours of work. If you are doing that even in 6 days, that comes to almost 6 hours/day. I don't know how many credits you are trying to achieve this year, but it sounds like you are creating an impossible situation for yourself.

 

I think you need to evaluate how many credits you are trying to achieve and what is taking priority over school in your schedule.

 

:iagree:

 

Actually, I assume 8+ hours/5 days/week for seven credits here plus reading time (lit reading is essentially homework) because chemistry is expected to take 1.5 hours daily with another extra half hour being eaten up by math or English daily. School s my kids' full-time job at the high school level. In practice, we tend to quit early on Friday afternoon and finish up Saturday morning though. Ds13 does 20 hours/week of gymnastics and still finds time for minecraft and personal programming projects on top of this. We only ever watch TV for a couple hours on Saturday, when we use on-demand to watch whatever we are currently following as a family. (Dr Who, Torchwood, Alphas ...yes, we are geeks :p )

 

How much is too much depends in a large part on whether the work is seen as enjoyable or torturous or somewhere in between, imo.

[katilac]

I think 6 days a week is fine. I frequently had schoolwork to do over the weekend back in the day; that's not unusual.

 

You just have to figure out what works for you. I think one of my friends is nuts for rarely taking any time off throughout the year; she thinks I'm nuts for not taking a 3-month summer! I do think most people quickly have problems with NO days off, but 6 5-hour days sounds very reasonable to me.

[LuvingLife]

Ok well I will definitely be schooling only six days a week for 5 hours a day, and 2-3hours on saturday, Sunday will be my day of R&R. I am really glad you all helped me figure this out, now all I need to do is change my schedule around and everything should be complete!

 

Thank you!