How to schedule a 4 day week?

[My4arrows]

I've always wanted to keep our school work to a 4 days week, but never seem to to be able to fit it all in. Any suggestions of how to plan it and get everything done wit overloading those 4 days?

[silver]

To fit everything in we do more weeks each year. So if I would normally do 36 weeks at five days a week, I would instead do 45 weeks to have the same total number of school days. And then (and this is important) you have to stretch out the curriculum to fit the longer school year. So, for example, ELTL has 108 lessons. Instead of three days a week every week we sometimes do it twice a week and sometimes three times a week.

[mama mills]

We do math, spelling, grammar, and reading everyday and then add in science on Monday and Wednesday and history on Tuesday and Thursday.

[Hobbes]

We do a 4-day week, with Wednesday as our group morning where they do some history/geography, Bible, and physical activity.

 

Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri we do math, LA, handwriting, journals, etc. Mon/Tues we do history, Thurs we do science, Fri we do art.

 

I just divide the pages/lessons of each subject into the number of school days we are planning and do the amount needed through the year. This hasn't been onerous and we still have a shorter school year than average. I just have early grades, though, so they don't have subjects with a huge workload.

[HS Mom in NC]

I do a 4 day week because PE is at 10:30-11:30 in Thursdays and then the kids stay and have lunch and play for another 1-2 hours depending on the weather.  It's a huge struggle to get a kid focused on academics after that, so I don't even try most of the time.  There have been a few exceptions when we did it anyway, but those are rough days.

 

I do the 36 week file folder system, so everything is planned out and physically divided up for each week by the first day of school for each kid.  Math and Phonics are done as a "do the next thing" approach and are not in the file folders in the arithmetic years until the basics have been completely mastered.  Having all the week's work right in front of us in a file folder makes it easier to see how much progress we've already made and how much we still need to get done by the end of the week. 

My older two liked it for high school because they knew if they got it all done by dinner Thursday evening, then they could go to a midnight movie premier and come home at 3ish am on Friday morning and sleep in.  Not done? No midnight movie.

I have another friend who bought for each kid 36 of a kind of accordion file that has 5 sections in it.  She has each day's assignments in each section and if her kids want to stay after PE on Thursday, they have to have all the assignments in 4 of the sections done by 10:00 on Thursday morning.  Sometimes they stay and sometimes they have to go home because they don't have enough done yet. When they do, they usually did one day's worth of assignments in every subject, then they picked one subject to do two day's worth of assignments. So it's something like Mondays they do 2 days worth of Language Arts, Tuesdays day they do 2 days worth of math, Wednesdays they do 2 days worth of science, 2 days worth of history, Thursdays they finish up whatever they need to before they go to PE and Fridays they do 2 days worth of foreign language.

[abacus2]

There is nothing essential about a 180 day curriculum. Personally, I think it's ridiculous that curriculum providers assume that you will do regular lessons 100% of the school year anyway. Just be realistic, either do a little more each day and/or plan to drop part of the scheduled work so that you do what makes sense for your homeschool. Personally, I plan about 140 regular lessons each year, leaving time for sick days, field days, lessons that take longer than expected, rabbit trails, etc.

[OneStepAtATime]

Great advice so far.  Also, some programs are designed specifically for a 4 day week.  Fix-It Grammar, the IEW introductory writing program, Trail Guides to Learning World Geography, and others are specifically set up so they could be used 4 days a week instead of 5 if the instructor prefers.  If you don't want to deal with planning things out, you could try selecting programs with a 4 day school week already set up.  Or have one or two programs that are already set up that way so you only have to adjust a few courses.  

 

Some programs, even though they are not set up to be done 4 days a week, could be easily adjusted.   For instance, CLE could be set up that way.  Just skip the quizzes.   Each light unit has the same pacing so it would be easy to plan out.

Lesson 1-4 M-Th (skip Friday quiz)

Lesson 6-9 M-Th (skip Friday quiz)

Lesson 11-15 (Combine new material from 14 and 15 but only do review material from one lesson and skip the test.  Or on this week only they do the test on Friday but no other math.)

[Ellie]

I've always wanted to keep our school work to a 4 days week, but never seem to to be able to fit it all in. Any suggestions of how to plan it and get everything done wit overloading those 4 days?

 

Are you trying to fit five days' worth of work into four? Well, that isn't going to work. :-) Just do the things you would do if you were scheduling five days, but only work for four. There are 365 days in a year; surely, even if you're doing four days instead of five, you can finish your materials in that year. :-)

[My4arrows]

Thanks for all the thoughts.  Still trying to think this through and see how it can work for us. I'd love a day to just sit back, run a few errands and enjoy time together.  Considering yesterday was the first time in months I found the time to go grocery shopping at the actual store  (been doing delivery service), I know we need to change things up.

 

Are you trying to fit five days' worth of work into four? Well, that isn't going to work. :-) Just do the things you would do if you were scheduling five days, but only work for four. There are 365 days in a year; surely, even if you're doing four days instead of five, you can finish your materials in that year. :-)

 

Yes and No.  Typically we have 2 days of Science and 2 days of history, followed by the core subjects which I feel need to be completed daily (math, writing, grammar, spelling, foreign language, etc), but then there doesn't always seem to be enough time to complete those things as well as any extras (projects, art, music, etc) we'd like to do. I'm also trying to juggling planning all the needs for my upper elementary kids and my just beginning school kids, making sure everyone gets their needed work done and the individual interests.  So maybe I am trying to do too much and either need to cut back or spread it out more.  That's why I'm asking.

[OneStepAtATime]

Are you using a lot of teacher intensive materials?  How many days a year do you school?  How long are you spending on each subject?  Are you combining your kids for a lot of subjects?  Do you plan out your lessons with a calendar and have goals for when to finish?

[HS Mom in NC]

  Also, some programs are designed specifically for a 4 day week.

 

Writing With Skill is a 4 day a week curriculum too.

 

Greenleaf Guides are designed for 30 weeks a year with an alternative 36 week suggested schedule, so that may be something that's easy to tweak too.

 

Story of the World has been easy to divide into 36 weeks.  I just count up the readings (there are several readings in each chapter) and I divide them by 36.  It works out to 2-3 per week.  Looking at my year long schedule I can see when weeks are shorter due to vacation days and holidays and I schedule 2 readings in the shorter or crazier weeks and 3 in the less eventful weeks. Then I put in the folders all the assignments from the Activity Book for the week.

 

[My4arrows]

Are you using a lot of teacher intensive materials?  How many days a year do you school?  How long are you spending on each subject?  Are you combining your kids for a lot of subjects?  Do you plan out your lessons with a calendar and have goals for when to finish?

 

I don't feel as if we are using teacher intensive materials, but I think that I need to really think about if this is true.  We do combine a lot for my older two, but my younger are doing something completely different from them (and theirs is FIAR which is teacher intensive, but they are young- pre-k still K next year).  I do plan everything out at the beginning of the year of how many lessons per week need to be completed so we end by our end of the year and then weekly plan it out for them with a checklist of what they need to complete by Friday.  One DS won't do more work than "required" for the day, so maybe I need to stop writing assignments for them per day and focus on weekly lists.  Typing all this out is helping me think this through!  Plus it reminds me of the wacky year we have had with getting our house ready to be on the market, being on the market and preparing for a move, so maybe that's where some of this is coming from!

[Targhee]

I guess it depends on how you schedule a 5 day week.

 

I'm not one for lesson plans that cover 180 days - there's no wiggle room! I don't like 36 week plans either. I prefer "do the next thing" or curriculum with 3-day and 4-day versions already scheduled in.

 

We use WWS 1/2 which have daily (4 day) and weekly plans, but I rewrote a condensed schedule to do both books over the course of a year. I gave myself a buffer too - about 120 days of plans, and we just schedule on the weekend for the upcoming week.

[HomeAgain]

I love 4-day schedules!  I discovered them with Noeo and haven't looked back.

 

I think weekly checklists for older children are awesome.  We used some in various forms (Creek Edge Press, homemade..) and it allowed just the right amount of flexibility and choice for the child.  YES, the items have to be done. NO, I'm not going to tell you when to do them.

 

We create a semi-4 day schedule here. 4 days a week we have one plan, and the 5th we have another that compliments the other, but doesn't follow it.  It's our day of being much more active and relaxed about learning, applying what we've done or introducing a new concept in a fun way.

[Ellie]

 

I'm not one for lesson plans that cover 180 days - there's no wiggle room! I don't like 36 week plans either. I prefer "do the next thing" or curriculum with 3-day and 4-day versions already scheduled in.

 

:iagree: :iagree: :iagree:

 

I don't even know if any of the materials I used back in the day were "supposed" to be done five days a week or 180 days a year. I just did the next thing until we were finished (although one of the reasons that the Prairie Primer weirded me out was that the activities were specifically labeled Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. Wait...what? Suppose I don't do Official School Stuff on Fridays??? #thestruggleisreal)

[AnniePoo]

I do math & LA 4 days per week following a typical school year and we've had no problems finishing our programs on time.  I don't ever lesson plan, I just have them do the next lesson in the book.  If the lesson insanely easy, then we double up or skip them.  This has worked for FLL, WWE, MUS, TT, and Singapore.  

 

This year we are doing Spelling U See (it's fantastic!) and it assumes a 5-day week.  I had my daughter do 2 lessons per day starting around Christmas and we'll be caught up in a few months.  I would also consider skipping the 5th day if the workload had seemed to be too much for her.  Good enough.  

 

[Momto6inIN]

We do all of our normal subjects M-Th and Fri is our "easy" day. On Fri we all do math but it's "fun" math, like online games or Hands-On Geometry or Math on the Menu or Drive-Thru Math or stuff like that. We might grade some Analytical Grammar for the middles and type some spelling words for the youngers. If they have any math or science tests we try to have them on Fridays. Then we do art and we go to a PE class in the afternoon. Easy peasy!

 

Even my high schooler has an easier day on Fridays. He does math, then works on some geography with an online game, and does either vocab or grammar review. Then he goes to PE class with us in the afternoon.

 

We have no problem getting a "year's worth" of stuff done, even if some of the curriculum is designed for a certain number of days. It takes a little bit of scheduling work on my part to see what we need to cover in those 144 days (36 weeks x 4 "normal" days/week - because we are required to do 180 days in Indiana) but so far it's never been a problem to get it all done. And it's totally worth it to have Fridays be an easy start to the weekend! :)