planning to afterschool next year, How to do it?

[mom2tbcnm]

Due to some circumstances, we will have to send our 3 oldest to ps next year for 3 semesters. I really like the idea of doing some afterschooling, and I would love to see what everyone is doing. Do you use your own curric or just elaborate on what they bring home? Any suggestions?
Thanks
Katty

[LibrarianMom]

Welcome to the afterschooling crowd! You will find that some do their own curriculum and others do more enrichment based on what the school is doing. The beauty is that you can do whatever makes the most sense to you.

Since you are planning on a short time span in public school, you could keep moving through whatever curriculum you are using now but plan that it will most likely take the entire three semesters to work through or at least longer than you would normally allow.

Keep in mind that homework may take up some after school time depending on the ages of your children and the requirements of your school. Also make sure to build in plenty of play and just hanging out time as they will be in a more confined environment for a good portion of the day.

Blessings on your journey!

[BabyBre]

We beforeschool. Dc are spent after a 6-hour school day, and then they still have homework to do. School starts at 9:00 here, so we get up at 6:30, work from 7:00-8:30 or so, and then they get the remaining time to goof off before we leave. Asking an hour and a half of them after school would really not go over very well!

Dc are both advanced, so I don't supplement the school's curriculum. It actually supplements our work. We homeschooled before we went to public school and have just continued with our curriculum.

[wapiti]

I'm still strugglling with how best to afterschool. For us, it would make sense to do it in the morning if I could get my act together! The kids are usually up at 6:30 or so and we leave around 8:15, so maybe we could squeeze an hour in there. In the meantime, I have to get the little ones dressed and fed and make some lunches, and I'm finding it too hard to fit in (plus corralling the kids to sit down to work). Maybe Breann's post will inspire me - I could probably make it work if I get up a little earlier. I need to commit :). I'm so lazy...

In our case, I'm teaching the kids Latin and trying to supplement their math (their strength) but I haven't gotten organized about the math part yet. I have some LOF books that at least two of the three older ones are ready for, and I have random Singapore workbooks, and we view videos at Khan Academy occasionally. I'm hoping to get a lot accomplished over the summer. However, I've had dreams of doing so in past summers that didn't quite work out (to be fair to myself, this will be the second summer in five years that I'm not having a baby). Thus far, I'm kind of treating Latin like piano, as in, no playing Wii until piano has been practiced and a Latin lesson is done. Currently, we're using GSWL so each lesson is fairly short, and I'm teaching the three of them individually.

I agree that it can be very hard to get work done after school, between homework, other activities, and the kids' need to unwind and just play. Sometimes we'll get some Latin done that last hour before they go to bed (between 7 and 8 pm), after my little ones are in bed. But that only works if their homework and reading for school are already finished. We seem to get the most done on the weekend.