MrsBanjoClown Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 Do any of you follow a 4-day school week? My dh suggested this because he thinks it would give me a day to get things done around the house or that we could use to do something fun. How does it work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edeemarie Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 We have unintentionally fallen into a 4 day schedule for both of our first weeks of school. We are using MFW, which is light on Friday anyway, so if I know we need a day off that week I just add anything scheduled on Friday into another day. For example, if I know we have geography, history, and science on Friday, I may do the extra geography on Tuesday, extra history on Wednesday, and extra science on Thursday. I just try to spread it out evenly throughout the week so we aren't ever doing 2 full days of work in one day. If you are going to school year round (or atleast most of the year) you probably don't have to do anything differently. Just continue on Monday where you left off on Thursday (or whatever day you choose to take off from school). As we get into more of a routine, my "plan" is to take Fridays off and use it as a library/ field trip/ take care of the house/ finish school projects that need to be done day:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
................... Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 I do. I just school four days, and then take Friday off for fun. I go grocery shopping and run errands on Saturday morning. I school year round so that means doing a four day week doesn't really make us behind at all. I take about 3 weeks in the summer each year to rest and recoup, and a week at Christmas, and I also usually take off another two weeks (whenever my dh is on vacation) and we still get all of our school work finished. Last Friday, for instance I took my kids to a large park worth a splash pad, came home and rested, and then enjoyed a leisurely library visit. The restful day was a blessing for all of us, and having the extra exercise and fresh air is great. (PS- for two years, I used Friday as my errand day and it was very stressful. This way is much better!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duckens Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 Background: We have not done a 4 day week before. My children are young. Officially, this is our Kindergarten year for my oldest. Technically, we did a 2-day week last year. Dd5 went to preschool MWF mornings, and we homeschooled T-R. This year, I am planning a 4 day week. We will knock off late afternoon for swimming or gymnastics. Fridays will be our day for: --finishing any schoolwork that didn't get done during the week --Legos (pre-lego league building, exploration, and discussion) --weekly K class at the coop (socialization for dd5 with other homeschoolers) --extra reading, game playing, art projects, science experiments --going to the park, nature center, Reiman Gardens, etc --making cookies --cleaning house before the weekend How will this work out? Who knows? I'll probably change the schedule six times again between now and then! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SFM Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 I do four days (basically) we still do Math drills on Fridays. We use Fridays for Nature Study, Art, Walks, just readings, catching up or going to run errands or play with friends. I school ALMOST year round we only take about a month off during the Summer so it allows for some flexibility within the year. My kids call it, fun, fun, Friday! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kristi26 Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 We are sort of doing a 4-day week this year. I say "sort of" because we will be doing the bulk of our work M-Th and then have a co-op day on Friday. Anything we haven't finished M-Th, we'll finish on Friday afternoon, but the plan is to be done and only doing co-op that day. I have a 7th grader, a 4th grader, a 1st grader, and a Preschooler this year AND we have been doing school (science unit studies) over the summer to keep us going. We are finishing up a unit study on creeks. We did a field trip to a creek, studied the water cycle, watched videos and read books about it...you get the idea. I've also had the kids reading daily on their own (though DD is in 1st grade and reads to me). And I've been working on letter recognition and patterns with YDS who is 3 and absorbs everything you do with him! :lol: I just find it keeps them fresher and they fight less when we are working on schoolwork together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Closeacademy Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 We've always done a 4-day week. We do school Mon-Thurs. And Fridays are for running errands and playgroup. This year though we have co-op on Tuesdays so we will do some math on Fridays.:001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fourisenough Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 We school M-Th and Friday is always something else. When my bigs were little it was strictly a fun day: ice skating, parks, museums, plays, library, etc. Now that they are older, Friday will be a work day for them (1 is in school and 1 has an online class), but the little one will have co-op on Fridays (which is fun for both of us). I think to truly enjoy that day, you have to use it well, for really fun things or it just becomes a slosh day and you will end up doing a bunch of catch-up work then (or worse yet - threatening to do so :tongue_smilie:). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabrett Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 I do 4 days a week, but I do not always take the same day off each week. I have found that naturally there is always something to take up one day a week that prevents us from doing school. Holidays, trips, sickness, fieldtrips, ect... If I need to make up for missing more than too days in a week, I will school 5 days the next week. I used to teach public school and having 5 solid days a week of instruction was very rare. There were always assemblies, parties, fire drills, field trips, kids out sick, teacher workdays, half-days; there may be 180 days of public school scheduled, but that doesn't mean that all the days were instructional or that dc were there the entire 180 days. At my former job, grades had to be turned in a week before school was out, so the entire last week of school was non-instructional. Where I live, kids can miss 10 days of school (mainly for being sick) before action is taken. Take all the non-instructional days a dc has at public school and add them up and you easily get 4 days a week of real instructional time.:D So, I don't worry about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lillehei Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 We school 4 days a week. It started a a couple years ago when I joined a co-op and tried a Sonlight 4 day schedule. We have stuck to it and I love it. I do pack 5 day curricula that I have into 4 days by just randomly adding one day to our schedule. I use Homeschool Tracker Online and just use the "spread evenly" button. We school M,W,R,F. Tuesday is co-op and then schedule a bunch of kids to come over and play. In the summer, the kids either take Tues or Thurs off and go to the water park and have friends over again. I really love my 4 day schedule :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabrett Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 I forgot to add how I make my curriculum work with only 4 days a week. ~ I don't do unit or chapter test in the curriculum. I feel that test are for p-school teachers to access how a dc is doing. I know how my dc is doing and can adjust accordingly. I don't need that type of assessment, so to me it is a waste. ~Sometimes the first chapter in a curriculum is a review and may not be necessary.(CLE's first LU is all review) ~Many times the last chapter in a curriculum is "extra" in case you finish early. (R&S's last chapters are "extras") ~Many curriculums written directly to homeschoolers only have 34 weeks of instruction and lite Fridays. MFW is like this and I can easily work the Friday work in to the 4 days of instruction. I look through the curriculums with these things in mind and select which pages to do then schedule away! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duckens Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 Tabrett says:~ I don't do unit or chapter test in the curriculum. I feel that test are for p-school teachers to access how a dc is doing. I know how my dc is doing and can adjust accordingly. I don't need that type of assessment, so to me it is a waste. ~Sometimes the first chapter in a curriculum is a review and may not be necessary.(CLE's first LU is all review) ~Many times the last chapter in a curriculum is "extra" in case you finish early. (R&S's last chapters are "extras") ~Many curriculums written directly to homeschoolers only have 34 weeks of instruction and lite Fridays. MFW is like this and I can easily work the Friday work in to the 4 days of instruction. I attended one convention workshop where the speaker spoke of her child taking the "end of the week evaluations" of Saxon Math at the beginning of the year. Her daughter stopped when she scored less than 90% on an evaluation. This was lesson 75, so they started on lesson 71 the next day. By pre-testing her daughter at the beginning of the year, she eliminated half a year (70 out of 140 lessons) of their math classes. Even if your child only tests out of 1 or 2 weeks of Math, that buys you a lot of Fridays that you don't have to worry about Math. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommy22alyns Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 We've followed a 4 day week for a couple of years because of co-op. We're not doing co-op this year, but MFW is light on Fridays anyway and we finished every other subject on time despite a 4-day week, so our Fridays will be for light Bible, geography pages, art, and fun cooking projects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 It works just like 5 days, except you pick one day to NOT do school.:-) For us it was Friday. All the laundry and housecleaning, and one Friday a month, park day (I don't do play groups). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bttrflyvld Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 I attended one convention workshop where the speaker spoke of her child taking the "end of the week evaluations" of Saxon Math at the beginning of the year. Her daughter stopped when she scored less than 90% on an evaluation. This was lesson 75, so they started on lesson 71 the next day. By pre-testing her daughter at the beginning of the year, she eliminated half a year (70 out of 140 lessons) of their math classes. Even if your child only tests out of 1 or 2 weeks of Math, that buys you a lot of Fridays that you don't have to worry about Math. I love this idea. My daughter is a bit ahead of where others her age are and we are using Saxon math K this year, but I know that she already know a lot. This would help us lighten our load for the year. We will definitely use this idea in future years too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shan.non Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 I do a light day on Friday instead of no school. Basically we do math, writing, a journal entry, a handwriting page, and 15 minutes of Dreambox (or more if she desires). We can get that done in a hour if all goes as according to plan. If we can squeeze the math in another day then I'd just take Friday off. I like having a down day to prepare for the weekend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrsBanjoClown Posted July 22, 2012 Author Share Posted July 22, 2012 Thank you all for your responses! I think I am going to try this week to do a 4-day week with just our history project on Friday. This week we will be making a model of the Nile River. History is the only thing I worried about because I didn't want to cram it all in on the other days (We do science Tuesdays and Thursdays). I think I like the idea of saving the project for Fridays. That will give us a fun activity to look forward to on Fridays that will get us up and moving. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kebo Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 Some charter schools use a 4 day week -- 2 of my children attended one last year. It makes for long days on the 4 days they do attend (7:30 to 4:00), but works pretty well overall. The 3 day weekend is very popular with them :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom2OandE Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 We are doing a 4 day week this year. On Fridays we will finish up anything left over and the kids will attend their tech classes (Lego Robotics, Jr Scientist lab and Computer Programming). Then we will do something fun in the afternoon. My dh travels so I'm going to try and do all of my errands/shopping when he is home so I can go by myself and have some piece (I usually sneak to a chick flick too on these days). It takes a little extra planning but shopping for two weeks or even a month isn't really too hard, just exhausting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arstephia Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 4 day school week here too! We have done it for 4 years now and I won't give that day off up for anything. Thankfully we are doing Heart of Dakota which is 4 day program, but before we did HOD, I still did a 4 day week. We usually took Fridays off, but if we had a full weekend and needed to catch up from it with rest or laundry, we took Monday off instead. It allows me to do field trips, visit elderly family, serve in our church or community, etc. without it disrupting my school flow. My family enjoys serving in the kitchen for funerals at our church, and having that flex-day gives us that opportunity. Before the 4-day week I would feel rushed and push the kids to finish stuff on the weekends, etc. and that isn't what I wanted my homeschool to be. Also, I use Fridays to clean the house, run errands, buy groceries, etc. so we can just relax on Saturday. The kids now know that Fridays are work days but once the work is done, we have fun, so it is amazing how fast things get done Friday morning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godsaggie Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 We use Sonlight which has a 4-day week schedule. I love it! We use that 5th day (which varies from week to week) for play dates, field trips, and just plain old fun. Once a month, we use that day as a service day...helping at church or a shelter. I'm hoping to actually plan a service day once per week...we'll see. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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