Appointments and errands in the middle of the school day

[Night Elf]

:banghead: I hate this. Every single time we have an appointment or some errand to run, my school day gets ruined. This month has been absolutely crazy. Crazy! Between my 3 children and myself, we've had an appointment of some kind nearly every single day. I try, try, try to get all of the schoolwork done anyway. We end up working way past dinner. And most of the time we end up leaving out something to add to the next day, which then makes our schedule even more full and we usually end up leaving something out and yada yada.

 

I've heard the suggestion to make all appointments on one day but I honestly don't see how people do that. We take appointments as we can get them. And dd14 is taking music lessons with a friend and takes a weekly drama class.

 

And Monday I am having the second oral surgery to put in my implant. That means at least 2 days off school because last time I hurt the day after. I was also sore for 2 weeks but at least Tylenol helped a little bit.

 

I'm almost wishing we had just taken all of June off. We school year round and the idea of taking so much time off at one time just didn't work for me. But instead, we have been stressed. I'm pretty good at getting in over my head though.

[Tap]

When I had a chaotic schedule, I would set one day aside each week either as a half day or as a non-scheduled school day. Using this idea, I only planned for 4 lessons a week, so we were never behind. When I made an appointment, I would just tell them I needed a Wednesday appointment. Sometimes I needed to wait an extra week or so, but was never too much longer. If for some reason the doctor didn't work on that day, we took another day but moved our school schedule around that week to accommodate.. By having a set day that wasn't scheduled with school, it greatly reduced the stress.

 

It was also nice because sometimes we took those days for impromptu field trips, learning opportunities like walking a stream, getting together with friends for projects or lazy reading days.

 

There were times that my kids used that time to get ahead on independent subjects so they could have their own 'skip days' for those subjects at a future time.

 

4 day weeks were a great beauty of year round schooling for us.

[love2read]

Time for a temporal attitude adjustment. We needed it too.

When the kids are young, work that isn't finished can usually be eliminated or moved ahead a day without too much strain. This can't be easily done in high school.

 

Two types of temporal attitude adjustment

1-The work isn't always going to be done by 3pm, but when we have to do it in the late afternoon or evening that's ok because we'll have something special for dinner. When we have mid-day appointments they eat fruit and cheese and then get back to work while I make a meal they love but rarely get (in our house it's usually processed foods like pizza pockets or french fries with my bringing out the fryer.)

2-In a few subjects, work is doubled up a few times a month or more frequently for just such unexpected days.

 

We used to school year round, but it just didn't work once the kids got older. They do part of a subject of their choice during the summer, so that they can take days or even weeks off of that subject during the school year. This greatly reduces the workload during the school year, especially when it's a tough subject like chemistry.

[Veritaserum]

4-day schedule helped us a lot, too. If I couldn't get an appointment on our off day, I'd at least try to get it in the late afternoon so that we could hopefully be done with school first.

[Kelly1730]

Our schedule includes "light Fridays". EOW is co-op so the "off" week we can catch up if needed. In going over our new schedule for fall, we've added more and it's going to be a longer day. I'm considering moving our piano lessons to a late afternoon/early evening time slot in order to not interrupt our day. I know how it goes around here, once we get back from lessons/errands we've lost our focus and tbh by then, I'm tired!

[Lizzie in Ma]

That is one of my pet peeves too. :grouphug::grouphug:

[Tammi K]

I don't have any good advice. I just wanted to add that I totally understand. It happens to me all the time and I can't figure out how to fix it.

[gabbymom]

Me too!

[Mom-ninja.]

I've heard of the idea of schooling 3 weeks in every month and taking 1 off and during that week to schedule all appointments.

 

I haven't tried it yet, but I think I should.

[TravelingChris]

I had a few of these mid day appointments this year turn into all afternoon appointments since dd three times ended up with anaphalactic reactions in the allergists office. That means a blown day since once we do get home, she is sleeping off the Benadryl.

 

Since this is my third kid and 18th year of homeschooling, I have definitely relaxed.

[AuntieM]

When I had a chaotic schedule, I would set one day aside each week either as a half day or as a non-scheduled school day. Using this idea, I only planned for 4 lessons a week, so we were never behind. When I made an appointment, I would just tell them I needed a Wednesday appointment. Sometimes I needed to wait an extra week or so, but was never too much longer. If for some reason the doctor didn't work on that day, we took another day but moved our school schedule around that week to accommodate.. By having a set day that wasn't scheduled with school, it greatly reduced the stress.

 

It was also nice because sometimes we took those days for impromptu field trips, learning opportunities like walking a stream, getting together with friends for projects or lazy reading days.

 

There were times that my kids used that time to get ahead on independent subjects so they could have their own 'skip days' for those subjects at a future time.

 

4 day weeks were a great beauty of year round schooling for us.

 

This is what we did, too. However, there is a challenge when the appointment is for something complicated (thus long) or for something that a provider only does at certain times of the day/week.

 

This pleads a good case for the several weeks on followed by a full week off schooling cycle, doesn't it? Seems it would be easier to get all the appointments into a less disruptive time frame.

[Tap]

This is what we did, too. However, there is a challenge when the appointment is for something complicated (thus long) or for something that a provider only does at certain times of the day/week.

 

This pleads a good case for the several weeks on followed by a full week off schooling cycle, doesn't it? Seems it would be easier to get all the appointments into a less disruptive time frame.

 

In the case where a dr needs an appointment on a different day, then just bump everything off one day. You still only have 4 days of work scheduled, so if you have 4 days to complete it, you are golden!

[MariannNOVA]

No advice -- but I totally agree. The least little thing will totally disrupt our entire week - :grouphug:

[Impish]

:grouphug:

[Guest]

I've heard of the idea of schooling 3 weeks in every month and taking 1 off and during that week to schedule all appointments.

 

I haven't tried it yet, but I think I should.

 

I was just looking at my calendar and thinking if I want to do this this year. I also figure that fourth week can be a "makeup" week if we got off track in anything. Pondering this....

[happypamama]

I did take the month of June off, even though we do school year-round. I generally try to schedule most things for the early afternoon, and that works well for doing schoolwork without also getting us home too late. I also am only scheduling four days of schoolwork for next year; Fridays will be for co-op some weeks, and other weeks, we'll do music and science on Fridays. That will also let us move work to Fridays (skipping music and science one week, which doesn't bother me as much as skipping our other subjects) if we need to schedule something unexpected during the week.

 

I also bought clipboards for each of the kids, and if we need to be out unexpectedly, or if someone hasn't finished work, I can bring a fair amount of subjects with us in the car.

[Parrothead]

:banghead: I hate this. Every single time we have an appointment or some errand to run, my school day gets ruined. This month has been absolutely crazy. Crazy! Between my 3 children and myself, we've had an appointment of some kind nearly every single day. I try, try, try to get all of the schoolwork done anyway. We end up working way past dinner. And most of the time we end up leaving out something to add to the next day, which then makes our schedule even more full and we usually end up leaving something out and yada yada.

 

I've heard the suggestion to make all appointments on one day but I honestly don't see how people do that. We take appointments as we can get them. And dd14 is taking music lessons with a friend and takes a weekly drama class.

 

And Monday I am having the second oral surgery to put in my implant. That means at least 2 days off school because last time I hurt the day after. I was also sore for 2 weeks but at least Tylenol helped a little bit.

 

I'm almost wishing we had just taken all of June off. We school year round and the idea of taking so much time off at one time just didn't work for me. But instead, we have been stressed. I'm pretty good at getting in over my head though.

:grouphug: I thought if one schooled year round, one could take off more time as needed.

[Ellie]

Even though we "schooled" year-round, there were longer breaks. Year-round doesn't necessarily mean 52 weeks. A month off in June and a month off in December seem like a good idea to me. :-)

 

I would not have liked any sort of outside lessons or classes before 1 in the afternoon. I know there are gymns and music teachers and others that think it's a great use of *their* time if they can get homeschooled children in during the day, but for us, that was a bad thing. We needed several uninterrupted days a week together, even if that "together" was at the library or on a field trip--it was still just us, still together, still doing what *I* had planned for *us.*

[Veritaserum]

Even though we "schooled" year-round, there were longer breaks. Year-round doesn't necessarily mean 52 weeks. A month off in June and a month off in December seem like a good idea to me. :-)

 

I would not have liked any sort of outside lessons or classes before 1 in the afternoon. I know there are gymns and music teachers and others that think it's a great use of *their* time if they can get homeschooled children in during the day, but for us, that was a bad thing. We needed several uninterrupted days a week together, even if that "together" was at the library or on a field trip--it was still just us, still together, still doing what *I* had planned for *us.*

 

:iagree: If we don't start off with getting our school work done, we have a hard time finishing all we had planned to. I prefer to have things like piano lessons after our regular school day. I suppose it could be different if I had a teacher that came to my house. I do all I can to avoid having to leave the house before afternoon during the school year.

[regentrude]

Why do you have to cancel school if YOU have dental work, but your children do not? Seeing their ages in your signature, they should be able to school for a few days even if you are incapacitated.

 

A few things that help us:

School starts at 8am.

We do not schedule any extracurriculars before 4pm. The one exception is our weekly homeschool playgroup which is Thursdays at noon. I have arranged my work schedule to make time for that. Other than that, no activities until school is completed.

DD has dual enrollment classes and will ride to the university with one of us parents when we have to start work. She will use whatever time she is early or has to stay longer for her school work.

We have nobody with chronic illness, so frequent doctor's appointments are not an issue. I schedule both kids' dental appointments back to back first thing in the morning, and my own in the morning on a separate day. I expect the kids to school while I am gone.

[Night Elf]

Thanks for all the responses. You guys have some great ideas and I wish I could implement some of them. But to be honest, this month has been crazy but it's not representative of all the months. I do try to make appointments during the time of day that works for us but lately the appts. just seem to be at inopportune times.

 

For our schedule, we do school year round. We gave it much thought and tried different ways but what we're doing now works best. Ds15 has Aspergers and OCD which interfere with what some people would define as a "normal" week. We can't take a week at a time. He really needs the year round schedule to keep up with his classes. I figure this way, counting Fridays and vacation, he's taking about 7 weeks off out of the year. Let's push that to 9 weeks to account for the days that are mental health days. OCD and depression can wreck a school day. Also, to do a 'weeks on/week off' schedule, it would be harder for him to visualize. The 'weeks on' would seem to last forever. With every other Friday off, he sees a 3-day weekend coming up. It really does help his attitude and focus. He generally has a better week when he knows it's only 4 days. :)

 

Yes, things were much easier when the kids were younger. I miss those days.

 

Oh, let me add that a 3 weeks on/ 1 week off schedule would mean 12 weeks off during the year and that's without the extra time off for holidays. It just covers 38 weeks, but it takes him longer than 38 weeks to do a program typically scheduled for 36 weeks. He generally takes over 40 weeks because of his struggles. We would feel like we are never progressing if we had so much time off.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Night Elf

[GinaPagnato]

To be honest, that's the reason I stopped schooling year-round. There are so many projects/appointments/needs that I just can't tend to during the school year. I save those for the summer months.

 

Obviously if there are illnesses we have to deal with them as they come up. But routine doctor check-ups, dentist, all in the summer.

[Ottakee]

We used to have tons of appointments and while I tried to keep them all to early afternoon (usually the 1st one after lunch if possible) it wasn't always possible.

 

I ended up going with ACE and Christian Light for many subjects as it was easy to take along in the car with us, do while in the waiting room and in the room waiting for the doctor, etc. Unit studies/literature based programs, etc. just did not work for us due to the large number of outside appointments we had-----3 special needs kiddos.

[Night Elf]

Why do you have to cancel school if YOU have dental work, but your children do not? Seeing their ages in your signature, they should be able to school for a few days even if you are incapacitated.

 

Good point, and let me say that we've been working on this. Dd14 went through her freshman year independently and completed 6 classes. She just decided it was easier to work alone. I didn't always like it but she made good grades so I didn't push it. Since she is starting at public high school in the fall, we aren't putting her in any other classes so she's out for the summer. She's all good.

 

Ds15, OTOH, still needs me to sit with him on most subjects. He lacks organization and study skills. He's gotten so much better since 9th grade though. He's a junior now. He has Aspergers and OCD and those issues really affect his daily functioning. On days when I'm out in the early afternoon, his prime school time, he may do one subject but we generally do his work when I get home. And lately his work is taking over an hour for each subject. That's just a long time for someone with his issues. And yes, I have thought about his future. It is a source of great concern. Aspies can have a really difficult time in the work world. We just don't know what we're going to do yet. We are prepping him for college but he gets emotionally overwhelmed when we try to discuss it. It causes me a great deal of stress to worry about his future. Ugh.