Snow Days!

[myfunnybunch]

In the spirit of helping clean up the board, let's talk about snow days!

 

Do you ever take snow days?

 

Does it snow a lot where you live?

 

On days so bad the public school cancels, do you let your kids skip school too? (To play with the neighbor kids or enjoy a rare snowfall?)

 

And, the question I've been pondering as our city and schools have come to a screeching halt, how do people in snowy and icy places get around in winter? Our city just doesn't have the resources to invest in snow equipment, and snow and ice don't usually hang around for more than a morning or a day, so when we do get a rare freeze and snow everything stops. School has been out all week here.

 

Cat

[Ali in OR]

Are you in Oregon by chance?

 

We've been snowed in since last Friday--that has never happened in our 20 years living here. Most years we get snow at some point--enough to do a little sledding in the neighborhood, but you better do it in the morning because it melts away in the afternoon! Now we've been in a freeze most of December, so the town's usual strategy of "wait for the snow to melt" isn't working so well. They say they do own 3 plows/sanders, but dh has been driving to work this week and says he hasn't ever seen them! Not enough sand is getting laid down, apparently. Roads are still pretty bad and there has been no public school for 5 days now. I think in a city with regular winter weather they have the equipment to handle it. Roads would have been plowed within the first day or two.

 

To answer your question, usually whenever it snows we take some time off for snow play. We took off all of last Friday. But we're schooling this week. We do usually take a good long break midday for some sledding. My kids are still enjoying it, but we don't see so many neighborhood kids out anymore--by day 7 I guess it's getting old.

[73349]

We don't take the whole day off, but if it snows--usually a couple of times a year--I definitely make time for that. We're not equipped for sledding, but we have mittens, etc. So far we've had cold rain instead, ick.

 

In warm, rainy weather, I set aside time for splashing in the puddle at the bottom of the driveway.

[Rachel]

Our county cancels school all the time, we wouldn't get anything done if we took all the snow days that they do. The rural areas are quite hilly with narrow winding roads so it really would be unsafe for buses most of the time they cancel, but our neighborhood stays clear. So no we don't take the snow days.

 

Where I grew up it was so cold ice was rare and the city had heavy snow plows for cleaning.

[Rachel]

Oh and most people have snow tires where I grew up, they grip the roads better than standard tires.

[Saddlemomma]

We live in northern, ME, so we do get snow. Before that, we lived in VT and actually got more snow than here. My DD (5th grade) had her very first snow day last year.  I took pity on her and allowed it that once because she had not taken any sick days.  Our state requires 175 days of school; I build 180 into her school year to accommodate any sick days (not that she ever has too many).  If she doesn't use them (for sickness or whatever) I deduct them from the end of the year.  DD would rather finish her year earlier.

 

As far as how why other states that don't get as much snow come to a screeching halt when they do get it; the only thing I can think of is they are not prepared because it's unusual for them to get it in the first place.  It's actually pretty funny here, because as soon as you see a few snow flurries, the town and state trucks are out plowing and salting.  Being in the country, we also have plenty of places to put the accumulating snow drifts (fields, pastures and such).  In town, they will fill dump trucks if needed and haul it a few miles down the road to dump in a field. 

 

We're just not surprised when we get it.  We have the equipment, resources and knowledge to deal with it.  Par for the course.

 

BTW, it was -3 at 7:30 AM this morning, warmed up to 7 by noon, and now it's 6 at 4PM with a wind chill of -2.  The wood stove is cranking, and I'm wearing long johns, jeans, tank top, turtleneck, wool sweater, and wool socks!  We have to go out at 6 PM to take DD to her music recital in town.  By that time, we'll be in negative digits again....nice....please send warm thoughts!

[Ottakee]

We rarely took SNOW days but in the spring we would take a SUN day---the first nice sunny spring day we would head off to the park, zoo, etc. for a field trip.

 

We are in West Michigan where the temps are in the teens, windchills near or below zero, and 2-6 inches of snow a day for the past............seems like forever, but likely only a week or 2. Schools here don't cancel too often but when they do it is usually due to very poor visability from blowing and drifting snow or lots of ice. We though have the snow plows to handle it and after the first week or so of winter weather people remember how to drive in it.

[MysteryJen]

No snow days here.  They are a perfect day to catch up and get ahead.

 

My kids groan, but really there are few and far between here (Front Range in CO).

 

If it is so bad that swimming is cancelled, then they can enjoy that extra time.  But it hasn't been that bad in years.

[ladydusk]

We usually have a snow-delay.  The kids don't want to be cold very long, so we can get some lessons in even on snow days.

[AK_Mom4]

Definitely.

 

We had one "Ice Day" so far this year.  When the public school closes, DD12 only does her music practice and gets the day off.  DS18 has to keep up with his online classes.  Regardless, they can both sleep in since the first things they do each morning are go to their band classes at the public schools.

 

 

[Sherry in OH]

If the snow is expected to melt before noon, I’ll allow my children to go outside before morning lessons.  Otherwise, they do their morning lessons before playing in the snow.  It is warmer mid-day, plus time to play in the snow is an added incentive not to dally over lessons.

 

We so seldom see neighborhood children playing outdoors that we often don’t know they were off from school.   The only way school cancellations affect us is that if the public schools close our evening activities (scouts and karate) are also cancelled. 

[Alice]

We don’t get a lot of snow here so usually if there is a snow day, we’ll take the first day off for them to play and just have one of those nice slow,lying around reading, playing games, etc. kind of days. Then if there are more days when ps is out, we’ll get back to school. If ps is out usually most activities are canceled so they still end up having more free time. 

 

We just had an ice storm on Monday and then an overly-hyped snow “storm†on Tuesday. I had them do school both days because we are taking off a day next week to go to Great Wolf Lodge, it’s almost Christmas break anyway and we are trying to be done very early this year in early May for several family vacations so they know we need to be a bit more diligent this winter. We did a normal day of school on Monday and they played outside in the ice for about an hour in the morning for recess. And Tuesday we did all the basics and then they got to play outside as much as they wanted. They played for about 5 hours outside so they didn’t feel deprived and we got some work in so I felt like it was a good compromise. 

 

One of my favorite parts of homeschooling is that we can make our policies to fit our family and then it can change as our needs change. 

[Bootsie]

We've taken a few snow days--for us that means traveling somewhere that it has snowed.  Because DS enjoys skiing, we call those days "PE"

[myfunnybunch]

Are you in Oregon by chance?

 

Yes! :)

 

Cat

[Staceyshoe]

We only skip homeschool for weather if there is enough snow for sledding.  The past two years, we've had zero "snow days" for homeschool.  This winter, we've already had two! 

[lewelma]

Given that my kids have never seen snow, if it snowed here we would definitely take the day off!

 

Ruth in NZ (where it does snow, just not where I am)

[Cosmos]

If it's a lovely sunny day and nice snow, then we might take the morning off. Shoveling first and then playing/sledding.I don't like to drive in weather like that so we wouldn't go to a big sledding hill or skiing or anything. It's great when the neighborhood kids are out playing too.

 

Now that ds is older, we would probably make up for it by working in the afternoon over some hot chocolate.  It hasn't happened this year, but last year I think we did a day or two like that.

 

If it's icy or bitterly cold, then there's no reason to take off. We throw on an extra sweater and work harder.

[Pen]

Are you in Oregon by chance?

 

We've been snowed in since last Friday--that has never happened in our 20 years living here. Most years we get snow at some point--enough to do a little sledding in the neighborhood, but you better do it in the morning because it melts away in the afternoon! Now we've been in a freeze most of December, so the town's usual strategy of "wait for the snow to melt" isn't working so well. They say they do own 3 plows/sanders, but dh has been driving to work this week and says he hasn't ever seen them! Not enough sand is getting laid down, apparently. Roads are still pretty bad and there has been no public school for 5 days now. I think in a city with regular winter weather they have the equipment to handle it. Roads would have been plowed within the first day or two.

 

To answer your question, usually whenever it snows we take some time off for snow play. We took off all of last Friday. But we're schooling this week. We do usually take a good long break midday for some sledding. My kids are still enjoying it, but we don't see so many neighborhood kids out anymore--by day 7 I guess it's getting old.

 

Same here! 

 

Near which city are you and OP?

 

We took the first week day of the snow completely off, and then have had just a limited bit of school the other weekdays--though until our DVD drive stopped working, also a lot of educational video time, cooking and baking, and learning about weather and weather safety.

 

We have a combo of snow and some underlying black ice, or overlying freezing fog, which is worse than just snow. Plain snow can be reasonably okay, for example I went out to the sled area with my son and discovered that the bridge is actually far easier to cross --less slippery--in powder snow than in rain. But the ice is what is really slippery, and I expect it is going to get worse tonight and tomorrow and then maybe it will rain and the snow will be gone. I hope it does not break a lot of branches and snap electric lines first.

 

A neighbor who is a volunteer fire fighter in this area put a plow on his tractor (we are out in a rural area) and plowed his road and ours possibly all the way to the county highway or to where someone else with a tractor and plow had done another part.  It is still snow covered but flat with the excess at the sides, so we could get out now if I had thought to leave my car facing forward at the bottom of our driveway--but I didn't do that. Next time I will.

 

I had a hard call late on Saturday because our dog got a cut that I would have liked to get stitched up at emergency vet (regular ones all closed), but did not want to risk worse than a cut leg for all of us by trying to drive out at that point, especially since apparently no roads were plowed by then between us and the emergency vet. I am not even sure I could have gotten down our own driveway which is narrow with a drop off at that point even if I had been facing forward. The neighbor who plowed, piled up snow where cars tend to slip off road and down toward the creek, making it look much safer as the piled snow looks like a guard rail now. The mail came today though very late and our mail carrier said it was better today but hard going even with snow tires (which I do not have). Literally tons of de-icer were put on city roads even though plows are few and far between--don't know if it did a lot of good though since I am not there, but I expect so, since I have not been hearing on radio about the black ice under and on the snow issue that we have on the roads here.

[AmandaVT]

I'm in VT and we get a lot of snow here. Our weather was similar to Saddlemomma's today - snow to start, didn't get much warmer than single digits, hovering around 10 right now and it's only that "warm" because it's going to snow another few inches tonight. 

 

I try to get DS outside to play at least once or twice a day and we go out to run errands or hit up the library every day as well. If we stopped school for snow, we'd be out of commission from nov-april. 

 

 

[Saddlemomma]

I'm in VT and we get a lot of snow here. Our weather was similar to Saddlemomma's today - snow to start, didn't get much warmer than single digits, hovering around 10 right now and it's only that "warm" because it's going to snow another few inches tonight. 

 

I try to get DS outside to play at least once or twice a day and we go out to run errands or hit up the library every day as well. If we stopped school for snow, we'd be out of commission from nov-april. 

 

What part of VT?  I lived there for 20 years.  My dh is a 5th generation Vermonter.  We were in central VT. We still have lots of family there.