Math on co-op days? (poll)

[Calizzy]

My kids are starting a new co-op this year that is all day on Friday. We have never done an all day co-op before. I am fine not doing our schoolwork on Fridays- except for math. My kids are 3rd, 6th, and 8th grade. I feel like they should have 5 days of math. Co-op is 9am-3pm. Should I have them do math before we go? I feel like that would be pretty tight to squeeze in. Realistically I don't think it's going to happen after co-op, who is going to do math 4:00 on Friday? Should we do Saturday math? OR just stick with 4 days of math? My kids are all decent at math- right at grade level, not ahead or behind. 

[lmrich]

We discovered that doing a bit of work on Sunday evening set us up for success for the week. It was quiet and focused. 

[Momof4sweetkids]

I voted four days of math but my DD does math really well in the car. I think because she doesn't feel like she's missing out on doing anything else. So maybe they do a review page on the way if you feel like they need something.

[desertflower]

Can you double up on Thursday?  
 

Or Perhaps do a lesson on Thursday and also teach another lesson, but they do problems in the car on Friday?  

or choose one of the weekends to do the fifth day.

I agree with you that math won’t get done after co-op. I don’t think it will get done before co-op either. My kids are always excited on co-op days. Well, at least two out of three kids are. 

[freesia]

I didn’t vote bc it changed for us depending on the child and the year. If we had a co-op that ended at 3 on a Friday, I know it wouldn’t have been so it at 4:00. What I tended to do with kids your kids age was to do it 4 days a week on co-op weeks. If there was still lessons left at the end of the year, we either kept going with math until it was done or I split the lessons into 2-3 parts and we did  about 20 min of math most summer days ( not on vacations, camp weeks or other full summer days.) This method helped with math retention over the summer. 

My high schoolers, though, would likely have done a Saturday lesson bc they work in the summer usually. 
 

Also count your lessons. Some curriculum have fewer than 180. You may have some days “free.” You can also do just math at times you might take off from other subjects ( Mon-Weds of Thanksgiving, February break, etc)

[Miss Tick]

Can they start doing math before the rest of school starts? So math every morning for 2 weeks means no math to worry about for Co-op days in the fall.

This kind of topic, and at those ages, I would being up with my dc and get some input. Their buy-in made things go so much more smoothly.

[HomeAgain]

It depends.  I would not double up, but I would do 4 days a week and either do a slower pace or do more orally.  Or, I would invest in some card games and play something on the weekend.

Oldest ds did 4 days of math in his normal program, and then the co-op day he did an entirely different kind of math.  The balance was very good for him.

[Clarita]

My kids have a thing they go to one day a week during the school year (and even when that's not in session the program schedules field trips on that day).  During their activities though math happens, it just doesn't isn't textbook math. (My kids are young though so I don't know if I should have different thoughts for 6th grade and above.)

We also do work on "vacation" days especially when there isn't really anything going on. For example technically schools here have a week for Thanksgiving and two weeks for winter break etc. we do school through some of those so its possible to still have 180 days even if school weeks are mostly 4 days a week. 

[8filltheheart]

We don't do co-ops, but we have lots of outside lessons that interfere with our just relaxing at home and going at our own pace.  My kids, going all the way to my oldest, have gotten up early to get things done so they stay on track and don't have to do work on the weekends or over breaks.  I am a firm believer in routine and not permitting anything outside of our home take over our homeschool.   I would probably see if I could get them used to getting up early and doing math first thing in the morning as part of your daily routine.  (FWIW, my kids have always loved how much free time it ends up giving them over all.)  The decisions my 9th grader has made for this school yr means that her days are going to start at 6 every day and 2 days/wk we won't be home until 930.  One day per week her days will go until 5.  She knew the hrs when she made the choices, but in order for her to accomplish all of her personal goals, 6 is the latest she can start every day.

[Lori D.]

Two "other" ideas:

1. Do the math at co-op, during a gap in their classes. If they are not solidly taking classes from 9am-3pm, and each has a gap somewhere in there (other than a lunch break), find a quiet spot at co-op and sit with each one during their gap and do math then.

2. Math 4x/week, and just keep going with math into the summer -- 3x/week for most of the weeks of summer would easily finish whatever program they are doing and it would keep them fresh, so no loss and need for review when you start the new level of math the following fall.

Enjoy co-op!

ETA -- oops! heh-heh, I missed your response @freesia, and repeated you. 😉 

Edited July 31 by Lori D.

[Tanager]

When we did outdoor school 2x a week we got up early to not get behind on homeschool. I made the mistake one day of saying that we had gotten a lot of school done before coming and everyone looked at me weird. It worked great for us, but I learned to never mention it.

[freesia]

1 hour ago, Lori D. said:

Two "other" ideas:

1. Do the math at co-op, during a gap in their classes. If they are not solidly taking classes from 9am-3pm, and each has a gap somewhere in there (other than a lunch break), find a quiet spot at co-op and sit with each one during their gap and do math then.

2. Math 4x/week, and just keep going with math into the summer -- 3x/week for most of the weeks of summer would easily finish whatever program they are doing and it would keep them fresh, so no loss and need for review when you start the new level of math the following fall.

Enjoy co-op!

ETA -- oops! heh-heh, I missed your response @freesia, and repeated you. 😉 

No problem—it’s very possible I got the idea from you years ago 😂 

[Clemsondana]

We have done all of the above, depending on the needs that year.  When my kids were in elementary, we could easily get through Singapore Math in 4 days/week, so that's what we did.  We occasionally doubled up if a lesson was short, but it worked fine for us to skip the day.  It might have continued a bit into middle school, depending on the kid and curriculum.  

Sometime in middle school, we move to more of a 'this is how much you need to do each week' model and the kids have more flexibility to space it out.  One kid was doing everything at home, and the other had an outsourced Algebra class in 8th grade so there were deadlines.  Our co-op meets on Thursday, and sometimes the kids worked on Thursday night, sometimes on the weekend - it depended on their extracurricular schedule.  

In high school, my older had some years where co-op classes didn't start until 10, or there was a break for an hour.  In those cases, work got done before co-op or during the break.  Kid also commonly worked in the evening.  My younger often prefers to work in bursts so does most of the math on 2 days.  It isn't my preferred schedule, but this kid really struggles to switch gears so that seems to be what works best for now.  My kids have rarely had the habit of taking weekends off in high school.  It does happen, and there are times when weekends are busy with extracurriculars (sports tournaments or Science Olympiad or Science Bowl) but even then they often did some work in the car or planned to do some in a hotel room because they knew they'd have downtime.  My older often took Saturday off but would do schoolwork Sunday evening.  

[luuknam]

On 7/31/2024 at 8:15 AM, Calizzy said:

who is going to do math 4:00 on Friday? 

🖐️ (but our school days usually start late and run to about 6)

That said, I don't know that I'd want to schedule it that way with a co-op. We've never done full-day co-ops, and my kids would probably be exhausted after one.

I voted other because it completely depends on the kids. I also just have the kids get their work done whenever they schedule it (and there's a decent chance they'd opt to do some (though maybe only half a lesson) on Friday at 4pm in this scenario - and realistically, back when I was in secondary school we got math homework we were expected to do in the evenings (and some on the weekends too), since we normally didn't get home until 3:30 or later). For the 3rd grader I might just quiz them on math facts in the car on the way there/back. 

[luuknam]

On 8/1/2024 at 11:33 AM, luuknam said:

🖐️ (but our school days usually start late and run to about 6)

Guess what subject my 11th grader is doing right now (5:15pm) on a Friday? My 9th grader has spent the past hour doing physics, followed by piano and now astronomy, so I guess no post-4pm on a Friday math for her this week (though doing physics problems should probably count as math, and she has some discrete math problems left to finish this week - not sure whether she'll elect to do those tonight or on the weekend). 

Did your co-op start yet, Calizzy, or is that next week or beyond? If it did, what did you choose and did it work out?

[AnneGG]

On 7/31/2024 at 3:23 PM, Tanager said:

When we did outdoor school 2x a week we got up early to not get behind on homeschool. I made the mistake one day of saying that we had gotten a lot of school done before coming and everyone looked at me weird. It worked great for us, but I learned to never mention it.

Same! 

[AnneGG]

For me, I think it would depend on how many weeks the coop runs. 

If the curric is 170 lessons and the coop is only 30 weeks, I would probably try to whittle the math lessons down to 160 (I’d probably cut out a few quizzes) so we only need to start 3 weeks early, work for two weeks during holiday break, and the week of spring break.

Or I might decide to rest during breaks and just keep going 3 weeks after coop. Coop was a lot for me. 😁

Or I would still do the soft start and rotate kids the morning before coop. Kid 1 on week 1, kid 2 on week 2, etc. That way you don’t have get up at 6:30 am to teach everybody math, just one kid.