Katie Jean Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 How do you manage scheduling a 4 day school week when some courses have exactly or approximately 180 lessons? I have always done 5 day weeks but am thinking of using Fridays more for field trips/errands etc and I'm not sure how it would work-mostly concerned about Math for high school. Any tips or ideas? Besides doubling up on a day that is LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 So, your Official School year will be a couple of weeks longer for those subjects, right? So... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katie Jean Posted February 23, 2013 Author Share Posted February 23, 2013 So, your Official School year will be a couple of weeks longer for those subjects, right? So... Ohhh yes of course! LOL ok I feel silly now.... ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katie Jean Posted February 23, 2013 Author Share Posted February 23, 2013 My friend and I only school 4 days a week - it's wonderful!! As far as lessons go...we end when we end. Like Ellie said, you can just go a few extra weeks at the end (which is totally fine seeing as how you get one day off every week). Or, if that bothers you, you can double up on one subject (or two, whatever) on one day. Like 2 math on Monday, 2 English on Tuesday, etc. Yes thank you! Definitely will need to set up a lesson plan to accommodate it them depending on courses. We've been with a homeschool charter that sets forth all our lesson plans, until yesterday...so now we are venturing on our own. I noticed that the teacher assigned work randomly throughout a book-meaning, she didn't assign it front to back bam bam bam must do every page. Although I know that's not always the best way-I imagine some things can be shaved off that way without feeling like a major portion of materials aren't being covered. (Not with math though) Also, when we enrolled in the school, we signe up for enrichment classes that filled our Tuesday every week. When I spoke with her regarding the fact Tuesday was a wash and could we please have a lighter work load on that day, she informed me I should not have taken so many classes. (Four kids each with 2-3 classes such as art, language arts lab, science, robotics, guitar, Spanish and upper math) So we basically plowed through the semester doubling up on other days to make up for it. By the end of the semester we were exhausted and the kids were begging to stop the classes-and the school told me we could not drop them! (-$$$ for them of course) But we didn't anyway as they are not going to tell me to stay with "enrichment" classes of we are overwhelmed and quantity over quality is happening. Anyway, I feel good about my decision, although the kids will miss some if their classes-I will find ways to fill that void. And I think we can manage a 4 day week if I plan it right without being swamped like before. Thanks ladies....sorry for the long reply post-just thought a little more background might help. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katie Jean Posted February 23, 2013 Author Share Posted February 23, 2013 And sorry for the typos! iPhone autocorrect messes me up every time! 😠Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elizabeth rose Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 We have always done four main days, M-Th with friday being the day we schedule activities like ice skating, field trips if possible, projects that need lots of time to complete etc. this is the day we do extra stuff like weekly reader, watching videos for school, you get the idea. yes, I guess it puts us a bit behind in our math and LA books (I can do science and history on a 4 day schedule easily), but we just roll over to the next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
athena1277 Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 I went to college at a school that did not have classes on Fridays. I loved the 4 day week! I have been thinking of doing it with my kids and add on the extra few weeks. If you do 4 day weeks already, about how many weeks of school do you do each year? How much time do you take for holidays? Do you still get a small summer break? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UrbanSue Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 We do math six days a week whenever possible and get to everything else four days a week. We don't have a day off each week, necessarily (although I can schedule it that way if we need to) but everything just averages out. We school year-round, though and just bump to each new level as we finish the last. I do keep records of at least 36 weeks worth of material beginning each fall just in case I ever need to be accountable for our school year and I use what number week we are on as a rough benchmark. But if you like to take the whole summer off, yeah, just do a bit extra of what ever subjects need time. It will really only work out two an extra couple weeks of relatively light school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elizabeth rose Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 We stop when the school stops. I figure they are already doing way more than public school does, so I am not worried about it. We take a full summer break. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happypamama Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 We do sort of a four-day week. The fifth day is for science, projects, art, music, stuff like that, or co-op, or errands. It almost always counts as a school day, in terms of our necessary 180 days, because even if it's errands, we still listen to music or literature in the car (and our drives are substantial). We do log over 180 days every year. At this point, none of our curricula have more than 120 lessons plus tests (DD's math), so it's pretty easy to get them in. But I would just double-up a bit, or skip some less important portions (or do them quickly -- maybe orally instead of a lot of writing, or only half of the exercises or something). Or just assign one subject on the fifth day, especially if it's something that can be done in the car or in a waiting room. (Two of my children get speech therapy once a week, so for my DD, I pack schoolwork that can be done easily while she waits for her brothers.) We do take a small summer break, roughly six weeks or so, from about mid-May to the end of June. It's just enough for everyone to have a break and be rejuvenated for the upcoming year, and it's at a time of year when it's generally pleasant to play outside (before it gets super hot in July and August). Then we will have some days over the summer when we do little or no bookwork because of park days with our support group, or swimming with visiting grandparents (though those get included as PE days). This summer, I will probably be cracking down on those days a bit, though, because with a new baby expected in mid-August, I want to pack in a lot of bookwork between July 1 (when our state allows us to start counting days for the portfolio) and the baby's arrival, so that we can take several weeks off after the baby arrives if we need. Starting early also lets me start gently, a couple of subjects a week until we're up to full speed. But by early September, we should have covered quite a bit of our curricula. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anne in CA Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 We have a four day school week. We do two math lessons some days and on the off day we are doing a language arts lesson because dd got sick and got behind. There is usually some doubling up somewhere to make a four day week happen. For many years we did Rod and Staff and it was such a pain to get through those review days, because there was so much review but oh so necessary, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katie Jean Posted February 24, 2013 Author Share Posted February 24, 2013 Thanks for the great responses ladies! Very helpful indeed. I love this forum. 😠Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarah Bailey Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 We are in our 2nd year on a 4 day schedule and our 1st year of year round schooling. I don't look at as getting behind but being ahead :) My children do 4 math lessons a week, 4 days of history, 4 of writing/phonics/etc, 2 of science, 1 of art, etc in 4 days. We began the 2012-2013 in April and have already begun our 2nd science, and will be starting MoH Vol 3, having finished Vol 2 last week. I use Fridays as planning, field trip, errands or just relaxing days depending on what we need. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
claluck Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 We do 4 day school weeks here. My husband works in the public schools locally as do my mother in law and sister in law (who only live a block away) and the public schools do a 4 day week. With all those fun people home and all the neighborhood kids home on Fridays it was impossible to get school done on Fridays. I do absolutely refuse to do a 3 day week so when public school is out Monday we still school. My hubby is way supportive and takes the opportunity to take all the younger kids to work and get some extra paperwork done in the am and I actually get more focused time. Anyways I steer away from any curriculum that is HIGHLY dependent on a 5 day week. For us we are out when public school is out (with DH and inlaws being out it jsut works best that way). We do a number of subjects daily (Math, language arts, reading, music, spanish, etc) and we rotate a few. We do science 2 days and history the other 2 days. I love it. In fact if you made me go to a 5 day week I would be lost. lol. As it works out 4 day weeks come out to 144 days a year. We work math out to do a bit more than a lesson a day. Some lessons are just easier and so its easy to swing into the next lesson. My kids are used to math assignments being by page number rather than lesson number. Same with many other topics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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