Is anyone homeschooling on a somewhat irregular schedule?

[mommylawyer]

I know the beauty of homeschooling is that you can teach your kids anytime at any place, but I'm just curious to know if anyone does something other than standard Monday through Friday.

 

I ask because our home school "week" is Friday through Monday, with light duty on Wednesday nights. (I work Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.)

 

Thanks for the input!

[Kathleen in VA]

My husband has rotating days off. Week one it is Monday, week two it is Tuesday, etc. until at the six weeks point he gets Friday and Saturday back to back. I do not do school when he is home so that we can do family activities.

 

Also, on Wednesdays, my daughter has a piano lesson in a town one hour away. I tote all the kids and their school supplies and we do school in the car while we wait.

 

On Tuesdays she teaches piano lessons in the morning so we do school in the afternoon.

 

We often play catch up in the early evenings after dinner.

 

I guess you'd call that irregular, wouldn't you?

[Mandy in TN]

Well, sort of.

 

We go to an enrichment/ tutorial on M, so we hs T-F with a light Sa. My husband only has Su off work, so this doesn't interfere with our family time. Also, my husband doesn’t leave for work until 8:30 AM and I don’t wake the kids until after he leaves. My high schoolers may still be doing schoolwork at 5. We often don’t eat until 8 or 9 or even later. The first person to sleep is usually dh around 11 or so. Even my 5yo is hardly ever in bed until midnight.

 

Actually, I sort of get a kick out of hearing people say that M-F they get up before the sun, finish schooling at noon, and put their kids to bed at 7. LOL My husband isn’t even home at 7.

 

Mandy

[RebeccaC]

My dh works second shift and right now days off are Mon/Tue, so we hs Wed-Sat 1 pm to 6pm. His day off will change in a few weeks to Fri/Sat and then we will hs Mon/Thur 12 noon to 5 pm. We shool year round. Dh gets 4 weeks of vacation and those are set weeks otherwise we take off when we need to . Once we hit 176 days a new school year starts.

 

HTH

[Ravin]

We go through cycles of actually "doing school" alternating with a more haphazard unschoolish approach. This is largely due to DD's age. As we get into K, I plan on just taking a week off when things get stale. Also, because I work 3rd shift 4 nights a week, and DH and I both work on the weekends, Saturday and Sunday are usually school mornings. During our last organized period, DD had an art class on Monday morning at the art center by the library, so we did that and the library Mondays, then school Tuesday-Wed-Thurs, some outing (zoo, science center, park) on Friday, then school Sat-Sun.

 

Currently Monday is DH's only day off, so we spend the day with him mostly, hit the library on Tuesday's, and still do outings on Friday. We've been playing around with Hooked on Phonics Letters Names and Sounds checked out from the library and DD does random workbook pages in the mornings (or, today, while I'm sleeping), paints, draws, etc.

 

In the fall she'll be doing a K homeschool enrichment program on Mondays, then we'll hit the library Tuesday, and still probably do outings on Friday. I won't be working third shift any more, so we'll do school around whatever my work schedule IS, but probably still do school on the weekends, because DH (who works in a restaurant) is unlikely to have weekends off...ever.

[Peela]

Sort of, since we are out of the house on Mondays and Fridays- all school related, but really cuts into our sit down work time. So basically we work on a 3 day academic week, with Maths and something for language arts only on the other two days, plus some reading at the end of the day. (Science is covered mostly on Fridays while out, and French class, drama and sport on Mondays).

We can't work over the weekends usually because of Scouting commitments....so I make the best of 3 solid days, and we still don't work late. It's enough.

[Pam Wilhelm]

My husband got laid off from work 5 months ago......... our whole life is on a different (weird) schedule. :lol:

[lwilliams1922]

I have a 1 yr old that likes to be held and a busy 2 year old.

 

I create a lesson plan for the week. Me and dd /7th Grade work on each item in the plan. I create it by the day, as if we were on a normal schedule.

 

We do it mostly when the little ones are asleep or playing together. The plan calls for mon-fri but if there are items that dont get completed we carry over to the weekend.

[St. Theophan Academy]

Definitely! My husband has an irregular schedule, so we often school Saturdays when he is working, and we often have one week day off. I try to look at his schedule for the month (I usually get to see it at least a month in advance thankfully!) and plan around when he is working. He also works some really late nights, so those times we might even carry school later into the day, to make up for being off extra if he is home for more than one day a week. I am so thankful for the flexibility. I know my kids would be miserable if they were in school on daddy's days off!

[plansrme]

Just wanted to say hello to another lawyer mom.

We have a fairly typical school schedule, but we have a teacher (I like to call her our "governess") who teaches on the days that I work in the office. I teach when I'm home. My teaching days are my favorite and (don't tell my clients this) most intense days of the week.

 

Terri

[lori in tx]

We have an irregular schedule, dh only has one day off per week and it is a Wednesday and we have co-op on Friday. We only have one car so Wed. mornings is for running errands, don't feel bad for me one car has actually kept us on schedule for the first time in 9 years :). We try to only school 4 days per week and then we have co-op another day (lab sciences). So on regular non-coop weeks we do school M, T, Th, and Friday. On co-op weeks we do school on Sunday, M, T, and Th. It is hard but that is what we do I need to have Saturday off after co-op because I am so tired I teach 3 classes and I just need that day to re-group :)

 

blessings

lori

[Narnian]

Hubby's days off are Sun/Mon, so last year our school week ran Tuesday - Friday. Four days a week was plenty to cover 1st grade material; for 2nd grade we may do school on Saturday, too. (I'd really hate to part with the 4-day school week though, so we'll see!)

[bairnmama]

DH is an active duty marine so he's sometimes gone before light, sometimes still home at 9 am. Sometimes he's home before lunch, sometimes he's gone for 6 months. We never really know till that day so we take things as they come and do most of our school while he's gone for long stretches. When he comes home on leave, we normally take at least 2 weeks off to celebrate daddy being home and supplement with computer learning games so we don't lose anything we've worked on, but dd was only in 1st grade so this approach works pretty well for us. We go year round trying to make the learning as much a part of everyday life as possible.

 

Mom to:

dd 7: SOTW 1, Singapore 1A, FLL, R&S Reading, Headsprout, HWT

ds 3: Singapore Earlybird, Headsprout, HWT (so he can be like dd)

[summer]

I have never experienced a regular schedule. My children are doing just fine.

[AudreyTN]

I don't have set days... I just make sure that we get 15 days per month, year round. We could "do school" mon - sat one week and wed/fri, the next.