Does anyone have an unusual school schedule?

[JumpyTheFrog]

Has anyone tried an unusual school schedule, such as 6 days on, 3 days off? I am trying to figure out if some schedule other than M-F would improve things around here. I don't like feeling like my entire weekend is being used to "tame the chaos" or get projects done, leaving little time to relax.

[Melissa in Australia]

Ds12 does most of his morning schoolwork the evening before. This is because he needs complete quiet to focus plus we have to so much therapy with twins in mornings

[Closeacademy]

We have a pretty busy week because I work part-time and we have other activities so we commit a period of time each day to focus on school-work.

 

Mondays only have 1 1/2 - 2 hours so they focus on subjects that have more work to do.

Tuesdays we have all day so they can focus as much as an hour on each subject.

Wednesdays have a little less so we do all subjects.

Thursdays are fairly busy and one child has music lessons so one child gets to run through all her subjects and the other only does book-work.

Fridays has a little more than Mondays so one child focuses on what she didn't have time for on Mondays and the other does the things she learns on the computer.

 

That's our plan anyway.  I think as long as you do something each day.  Maybe one day you can only get certain subjects done and the next day you do other subjects. 

 

Things that have really helped me is to sit down with a weekly time-table and block out commitments and figure out when and how to fit things in.  I've also learned from Fly-lady and other books how sometimes it's easiest to just focus on a task for 15 to 30 min then take a break for 15 and then go to the next task.  This can work for both homeschooling and housework.  It's hard to balance everything at times but it's not impossible.  You don't have to sit down and do all the school in 1 go each day.  You can alternate with other activities.  When my kids were little, I'd alternate school time stuff with free play.

 

Sometimes our day would look like this:

 

read-aloud 

active learning activity

outdoor play

seat-work

lunch

outdoor play

creative time

quiet play/naptime

 

There are lots of way to balance things.  It just a matter of finding what works best for your family.

[meena]

DH's work schedule is very irregular. Sometimes he is off on the traditional Sat/Sun but is more likely to be Sun/Mon or Tues/Wed. Also, it varies every week of every month--no consistency at all. In order to spend more time with him, a lot of times we will adjust our schedule to do school when he is at work and be off on his days off.

 

To be honest, at times it can be hard to get schoolwork done on weekend days because my kids know the neighborhood kids and many of their homeschooling friends have a traditional schedule so aren't working on the weekends. Having midweek days off is great, though.

[Ellie]

Has anyone tried an unusual school schedule, such as 6 days on, 3 days off? I am trying to figure out if some schedule other than M-F would improve things around here. I don't like feeling like my entire weekend is being used to "tame the chaos" or get projects done, leaving little time to relax.

 

When my dc were younger, our schedule was this:

 

Monday and Tuesday: Official School Days. No errands, no field trips, no involved crafty things for me, no appointments, nothin'. We stayed home (until after Mr. Ellie came home, when there might be ballet class or something). All Official School Stuff set out on the table to be done or not. Since we weren't going anywhere or doing anything, dc mostly did their Official School Stuff. :-)

 

Wednesday: Library. That's it. usually to a larger library than the one near us, and we'd be away from home for a couple of hours. Sometimes we visited friends on the way home, but usually we just came home and read the library books or otherwise goofed off.

 

Thursday: Field trip. Every.single.Thursday we left the house for a field trip. Mostly just the three of us, sometimes invited a handful of friends if I wanted to go somewhere that required a group. Sometimes it had to do with something we were studying, but mostly not.

 

Friday: Clean house, once-a-month park day.

 

We took off a couple of weeks in the Spring around Easter; a couple of weeks off in late August/early September; and Thanksgiving through about the middle of January. We just kept working on Official School Stuff until we were finished or grew tired of it, then moved on to The Next Thing. We "promoted" in the fall, for the sake of Sunday school teachers and grandparents and random people who only know how to talk about children and grade levels instead of age. :-)

[Heart_Mom]

When my dc were younger, our schedule was this:

 

Monday and Tuesday: Official School Days. No errands, no field trips, no involved crafty things for me, no appointments, nothin'. We stayed home (until after Mr. Ellie came home, when there might be ballet class or something). All Official School Stuff set out on the table to be done or not. Since we weren't going anywhere or doing anything, dc mostly did their Official School Stuff. :-)

 

Wednesday: Library. That's it. usually to a larger library than the one near us, and we'd be away from home for a couple of hours. Sometimes we visited friends on the way home, but usually we just came home and read the library books or otherwise goofed off.

 

Thursday: Field trip. Every.single.Thursday we left the house for a field trip. Mostly just the three of us, sometimes invited a handful of friends if I wanted to go somewhere that required a group. Sometimes it had to do with something we were studying, but mostly not.

 

Friday: Clean house, once-a-month park day.

 

We took off a couple of weeks in the Spring around Easter; a couple of weeks off in late August/early September; and Thanksgiving through about the middle of January. We just kept working on Official School Stuff until we were finished or grew tired of it, then moved on to The Next Thing. We "promoted" in the fall, for the sake of Sunday school teachers and grandparents and random people who only know how to talk about children and grade levels instead of age. :-)

Your schedule sounds fun! Did you only do formal math two days per week? And did you continue this schedule through high school? 

[SparklyUnicorn]

We do a four day week.  Have for 10 years.  I plan to continue with this even in high school.  I think my kid will end up doing work on that 5th day and then some, but I'm not!  I like having a three day weekend. 

[Tap]

Probably not what you are looking for but we had an unusual schedule the last year I home schooled dd17. I worked till 8pm and then had a 30 minute drive home.

 

5th grade was:

 

Start school at 9pm.  I would work with her until midnight and then I would go to bed. She would do her independent work till 3am and go to be sometime after that. She would sleep until about 2pm and get up to play with the neighborhood kids coming home from school.  She was free until 9pm when we started school again.  LOL 

 

This was hands down, the absolute best schedule. We got so much done that year.  The house is quiet at night, and there are no distractions like phone calls, park days or drs appointments.  I wasn't battling baby to keep her out of the school areas. We are both night owls so it worked well with our internal clocks.  I ran on 7 hours of sleep, but there was WAYYYY less stress.

 

 

 

[DawnM]

We only schooled M-Th until high school.  Even then, we often crammed it in M-Th so we didn't have to do school Friday.

 

 

[Critterfixer]

I have a 4.5 day week, with the half day being Sunday. I work Friday and Saturday. So we don't use weekends or any other day to play catch up. I just do what I can for an hour or so five days a week and call it good.

[Ellie]

Your schedule sounds fun! Did you only do formal math two days per week? And did you continue this schedule through high school? 

 

We only sort of did "formal" math, but anything "formal" only happened on Monday and Tuesday. And we did community college instead of high school: both dc began taking classes when they were 14. One dd took the basic math class (not college level), then pre-algebra (also not college level), then Alg. 1, Alg. 2, and Statistics (all college level) and aced them. The other dd tested into the pre-algebra, then she also did the same maths as other dd.

[Joyofsixreboot]

I'm not sure of your kids' ages. It is harder with littles. We did everything that needed mom from 8-11 or so. Handwriting, reading, anything independent was done after lunch. From 3 to whenever everyone chipped in on picking up. Toys to rooms, vacuum, sweep kitchen, etc. I usually crockpot or batch meals so food prep isn't bad but there were plenty of taco nights. 😜

I only do an activity during school time if it really enhances school. If we have a fun day planned we quickly pick up before leaving. All that is pretty traditional I guess. Now that my kids are older and much more independent they tend to either " batch lessons" like read 3 chapters of history or do a week of math at a time or work later in the evening before bed. As long as it's done and they retain it I don't care how they do it.

[Emmalm]

My DH's day off is Monday, so this year we are going to try to not do school on that day. We have a group day every Thursday, which depending on how the year goes we may have to give up, so we will do normal school Tuesday and Wednesday, group day Thursday, then school on Friday and Saturday with library time worked in. We will see how it goes....

[Night Elf]

The time we did curriculum, we only worked 4 days per week. (We unschooled on and off.) We fit everything into those 4 days without a problem. The 5th day was park day. We had special field trip days which replaced a school day, but honestly we only did field trips once or twice a month. Once ds started high school, he did change to 5 days a week, but worked only in the afternoons. He never did morning work.

 

I need to say I never did the full schedules listed in the WTM. I did try a couple of times and it was just too much. I found my kids learned enough just working 3 - 4 hours a day four days a week.

[Farrar]

I think this year will be a little different, but last year we took Monday and Friday off and schooled all the other days. Monday was co-op so we took the morning off. Friday everyone had activities in the afternoon and I usually needed to get ready for DI meeting and drive everyone around. Just seemed to make sense. And then sometimes we'd take Sundays off as well. Just depended.

[Alice]

Mondays- School in morning. I work in afternoon so they only do work if they need to finish something. That is typically only the rising 8th grader at this point. 

Tuesdays- School for a regular day, from about 9:00-2:00. We leave for swimming at 3 and I try and finish by 2 so they can have a little free time before we go. 

Wednesday- School with Dad in the morning. Piano in the afternoon, usually no other school in the afternoon. 

Thursday- Co-Op. Swim in the afternoon. Typically no other school. 

Friday- Usually a full day, but I try and save "fun" things for Friday. That might mean Beast Academy for Math or it's the day we do science or art or extra read aloud or watch a documentary for lunch. 

 

Even though it's not the same schedule every day, having it be consistent helped with expectations. And I think sometimes having it be different helped my more restless school-avoiding child. Tuesdays were a hard day fro him but if he knew it was really the one long day of sitting-down and doing school he was better able to do it. 

 

Because of our schedule I also give them assignments by the week and not the day. That way they can know if they need to do more on a Monday afternoon or bring work to piano on Wed in order to get what they need to get done finished. 

Edited July 31, 2016 by Alice

[lanalouwho]

We do school and speech therapy appts. Monday through Thursday. The boys do their chores (picking up toys, straightening their rooms, etc.) while I cook dinner. Fridays we do something fun (park, pool, splash pad, etc) in the morning, then run errands. Home by 1:30, toddler naps while 5 year old and I clean house. Weekends are reserved for fun, relaxing, or projects around the house.

 

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[mamaraby]

We follow dh's work schedule so while we do school five days a week, our weekend varies. 5/2, 5/3 and repeat. I really like our three day weekends every other week. Dh also works second shift so we tend to start our day later and eat dinner later than most people probably do. It did make dealing with soccer season easier - we eat after practice which is right about on schedule. :D

[LMD]

We take Fridays off for music lessons, art/poetry tea with friends and excursions.

We take a short day on Wednesdays for homeschool group every other week, and just a quieter mid week day to catch up on things the other week.

Dh is on a rotating schedule so we are very flexible with actual start/finish times in our day.

[macmacmoo]

so having tried the follow the school year, the 6 week on one week off, the 4 week on one week off:

 

I now do 15 days a month (could be back to back days, could be every other day days, if i was smart maybe even a few in the month before) but basically it's based on my mood and motivation. With little ones it's sometimes easier to get lessons in when dad is home to lend a hand with the attached to mommy toddler.

 

We also level up individual pace lessons in Aug and group lessons in January.