Those that school 4 days. Please share your schedule.

[Excelsior! Academy]

I am curious how you get it ALL in. I would love to have a light day.

[Elinor Everywhere]

How old are your kids? I did 4 days in the early years (1-4) but switched to 5-day this year.

For grades 1&2 history: I used SOTW. Read the book and narrated on Mon & Tues, completed mapwork & read library books on Wed, and did a project, game, or other activity on Thursday.

If you use Sonlight history, they have a 4-day schedule.

I just did all other subjects 4 days a week--math, spelling, grammar, Latin, etc. I school year-round, and even taking off a month at Christmas, a month in the fall, and one in the spring we still finished all subjects on time or even ahead. We do travel a lot, but they school in the car/on a plane, and oftentimes even while we're at our destination.

Having one day off a week to play, have outside classes, extracurriculars, or simply for errand running and chores was great. Our academic schedule is too busy now, but it was good while it lasted!

[momtolgd]

We school 4 days a week and have CO-OP on the other day. Here's a basic schedule for us for how many days each subject is done:

4 days: ETC, OPGTR, Horizons
3 days: GWG, Getty-Dubay, Recorder, Read Aloud
1-2 days: SOTW 1, Apologia Astronomy, Themes to Remember

Now, everything doesn't always get done every week...but we are getting better. What suffered the first couple months this year was History and Science since we were concentrating mostly on reading and math...we are making a conscious effort to change that! :)

We school year round...we take off the month of august, 2 weeks at Christmas, a week at Thanksgiving, a week at Easter, and various days throughout the year. It all work out just fine in the end. My kids are young though. I'm guessing it won't always be this way!

[Trivium Academy]

This is for 2nd grade and I do feel the age/workload make a huge difference. It's not our daily schedule that makes 4 days doable, it's our workload and there are times I let stuff go.

Dd7's usual workload for the week in each subject

Bible: read Mon-Thurs and answer questions of each day's lesson
Math: complete 5 lessons, this gets done on Friday too. Only use supplement worksheets or extra work if dd7 shows she needs it.
Reading: reading level/age appropriate reading- a chapter a day independently, discuss with me daily- 1 weekly book report
Phonics: 2 ETC lessons a week (Mon/Tues=1st, Wed/Thurs=2nd)
History: Completion of narration (oral or written), mapwork and copywork. Other activities optional.
Science: Ask questions, be observant and have fun. (we follow lesson plans but really I don't require much from her)
Poetry: Recite your poem to memorize 3x daily, discuss poem 1x
Spelling: complete 1 lesson a week, recite your spelling words 1x daily
French: listen, sing along, recite each day
Memory: listen to your memory CD everyday (M-Thur)
Piano: practice piano 15 min at least everyday

Friday is only ETC, Math and reading aloud. We have lessons for 4 hours a day, 4 days a week. We're also done by lunchtime unless she wants to continue with a project or a book. There are days I quit at lunch time no matter what subjects we haven't finished for the day, all except math b/c I'm a stickler about that. We also have "homework" for when she's not doing her work. She's to finish her homework before she can play but after all our lessons. We talked in detail about both of us having a job to do and what her tasks are and what mine are. If she wants to waste 'my' time, I'm going to take some of her time. Grin.

:) Hth

[Karen in CO]

Here is our basic schedule right now:
DD17:
MW

British Lit with me for about an hour
Philosophy at the CC
Italian I at the CCTTh

British Lit readings and working on his assignments how ever long it takes
Japanese III at the CC
art for about an hour or more
DD7
MWTh

Math
Copywork
Reading
memory work
Read aloud
one of - Latin, History, ScienceT - co-op day

Math
Reading
co-op science
co-op art
co-op music
co-op Spanish
BrowniesThat's all. We have always done 4 days a week. We school 35 or so weeks a year. I work on Fridays and my kids play, do art projects, and read together on Fridays. We call that school too, but it is their fun day.

[Cadam]

Because of our family/ custody situation I have to run a 4 day week. Ds is in 5th grade now and I really wish I could have that 5th day. As it stands we do this:

Daily

Latin
Math
Writing

weekly

day one - Bible day
day two - Geography day (we are doing this instead of history this year)
day 3 - science day
day 4 - literature day

[Ellie]

I am curious how you get it ALL in. I would love to have a light day.

We'd just take more days out of the 365 in a year to finish.

[King Alfred Academy]

Here's what we do:

Monday...errands, library, cleaning, chess club ect.

Tuesday...History, Language Arts, Math, Biology Club

Wednesday...History, Language Arts, Math, Awana

Thursday...History, Language Arts, Math, Book Club

Friday...Language Arts, Math, Science

DS7 is also reading constantly and we read aloud during lunch and dinner most days. During quiet time (2hrs. everyday/DS4 is napping and frankly, I need that time for myself!) he is reading, doing copywork, drawing, playing games (logic ones), doing puzzles, listening to books on tape, resting, crafts, ect.

Somewhere I am hoping to fit in Minimus Latin for the remainder of the year.

[DIY-DY]

DS9 and DS7 follow roughly the same schedule, each working at his own level and pace:

Daily:
Latin
Math
Reading

M/W:
History

T/Th:
Science

DH is off every other Friday, and it was easier for us to go to a straight 4-day week, than an alternating schedule that mirrored DH's. So, the Fridays Dad's off are family days. The ones he works are our errand/outing days.

We go year round, taking breaks as needed/desired. We tie quite a few things into the basic subjects - so what you see above is an outline. Spelling and writing tie into reading. Grammar goes with Latin and reading. Sometimes they'll write for History, sometimes they'll write for Science. We blend quite a bit.

We have the little guy (DS4) who "does school" alongside the boys. And the little girl (DD2) who roams about making dinosaur noises and pretending to eat her brothers' heads while they work. And then, the baby due in the spring (we'll take time off, then, to adjust and wallow in the new dynamic a bit). But they both (the current youngest two) seem to have the hang of our rhythm, and folding them into the program as they get older should be fairly easy. (Relatively easy? I mean, I still get twitchy, just thinking about it, but if I remember it's all relative... it should be okay, right? :eek: LOL!)

HTH!

[Closeacademy]

We do 4-day weeks and go year round. We take time off in December and May.

I schedule things so that Mon to Thurs we do 4 days of work in Math, language arts (phonics, grammar, composition, Latin) and creative expression (science, history or art).

On Fridays, we have an enrichment group and a play group that we attend. Actually, I co-run both groups. And we go to the library so it really counts as another school day but we are doing fun things.

But I am also doing 2nd and K. I think once my children are older they will be doing a lot more on their own and pacing it throughout the week.

[Wendy in ME]

Because I work F, S, + S we don't have any choice. To be honest, I would rather have that 5th day so that I didn't feel so pressured to get everything done. I always feel like I don't have any wiggle room. This is one reason that we changed over to a more LCC type schedule and curriculum.

Here's our schedule:
Daily (M-Th for 1hr)
9-10 Latin
10-11 Math
11-12 Writing (this includes our program as well as across the curriculum)
12-1 Lunch

1-3 Once a week for about 2hrs or until done
M Literature/Classical
T World History
W Bible
Th Science

We fit in fine arts with Harmony Fine arts after dinner once a week and the boys read before bed for their independent reading.

They do use Friday to finish up any loose ends from the week.

[KarenC]

We usually end up doing school for about 190-195 days a year. We rarely take more than one week off at a time because they start forgetting things.

Karen

[Beth in TN]

Well, our week is kind of 4 days, but it's split over 5 days. Sounds confusing, but here it is:


Mondays - 1/2 day with Literature Group weekly and Keepers at Home twice month
Tuesday - 1/2 day with Physical Science co-op weekly
Wednesday - full day
Thursday - 1/2 day with IEW co-op weekly
Friday - full day


Having a schedule like this means that my dd has a least an hour to 90 minutes each evening for reading and to finish a few things plus she works 4 hours on the weekends. The best part of our schedule is that all the classes are at my house and I teach all of the except Lit Group.

We have the same basic schedule each morning:

8:30 - Bible, Christian Studies or Biblical Womanhood, and Finance.
9:30 - Science
10:30 - Math
11:30 - Grammar, Poetry, and Writing.


At 12:30 it's lunch time and then we move to our afternoon activities. If we have no activities that my dd works on her school work independently. We too school year round.

[Jenny in Florida]

Basically, I wrote lesson plans for the whole year over last summer by adding up everyting I wanted to finish during the year and spreading it out over the number of weeks we have available. We school on a pretty traditional academic calendar, mid-August through mid-June.

My son is 9 and pretty much sets his own daily agenda, touching base with me when he decides how much he'll do that day and letting me know as he finishes each task.

A typical week might include:


4 - 5 online math lessons
150-175 pages of history and literature reading
3-4 pages of his English text (the exercises of which we do orally)
10 pages of science reading spread across three books
Half a chapter of Minimus Secundus or 1 lesson from Learning Latin Through Mythology, including 1 or 2 activity sheets
2-3 pages of The Learnables Spanish
1-2 educational DVDs to watch and/or a chapter of CHOW on CD-ROM
A few pages to read about a composer
A piece to work on singing/memorizing from Themes to Remember
Suggestions for a science or history-related projectSo, on Monday, he'll do 1 or 2 math lessons (depending on how many are assigned that week and how long each one is), read one of his science assignments, do a chunk of Latin (read and translate the picture story, add words to his glossary, go through the grammar or vocabulary exercises with me, read the Roman Report or do an activity sheet), do a page of Spanish execises, take a break for some piano practice, watch a DVD over lunch, go sit in the backyard to read his history/literature assignments, then finish up by going over the week's Themes to Remember selection.

He'll do more or less the same thing Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Two Wednesdays a month, he goes to a class for homeschoolers at the local science musuem in the afternoon. On off weeks, I usually encourage (but don't require) him to choose some kind of project to do at some point during the day. Otherwise, as long as he has half of the week's work done by Tuesday afternoon, he has Wednesdays off.

We just started this approach this year, but it's working really, really well. Knowing he has that free day coming up as long as he is on track has virtually dissolved all of the tension we had last year regarding getting his work done in a reasonable amount of time. We absolutely plan to continue the same thing next year.

--Jenny

[mcconnellboys]

Well, LOL, you might not really want to know....

Monday through Thursday are pretty much 8-3. We do continuously add in outside activities, and do still manage to get our work mostly done in spite of this. We do take about an hour for lunch every day.

This is for a fourth grader, this year:

Bible 8-8:30
Literature 8:30-9
Math 9-9:30
Spelling 9:30-10
Grammar 10-10:30
Writing 10:30-11
Geography 11-11:30
Spanish and Latin, alternating 11:30-12

Lunch 12-1

Reading 1-1:30
History, 3 days and Science, 2 days 1:30-3

On Fridays, we often have field trips or other things scheduled. We do have a couple of things that we try to get done, which generally only take about 30 minutes or less, but we can work them in the following Monday if we don't get to them.

So, typically, for a Friday, we have one page of MUS math to work, which takes about 5 minutes. Oral language work from Abeka's OLL, which takes about 2 minutes. A spelling lesson, which takes about 5-10 minutes. And geography, which takes about 10 minutes. If we're going to/from a field trip, etc., then he will read in the car, generally. If we don't have any field trip or have a short one, near home, and get back early, then I may do some additional reading of history/literature.

Regena

[Excelsior! Academy]

Thank you all. I didn't realize that many did 4 day weeks. I like the idea of going year round and just taking off December and May. I still would like to get to a point where our year starts in January versus August. Maybe this would be a way to transition into that.

[workingmom]

Wanted to bring this up as I hope to do this for my first year of formal hs starting in June! If anyone else is doing 4 day schedules for 1-3rd grades please share your weekly subjects/schedules. Actual examples of tables are a plus.

Thanks

[Michelle T]

I lean towards short lessons with DS, who is almost 12. He has raging LD's and ADHD, and does better this way.

We do the following four days per week:
reading
spelling
grammar
writing
math
history

Three days per week:
science

Two days per week:
logic
Judaism

One day per week:
geography
art appreciation
poetry appreciation

Our school day is much shorter than so many others here, usually around 3-4 hours.
Michelle T

[lv2sing]

I am really enjoying these helpful posts. I didn't even realize it until now, but my My Father's World curriculum really has a bent toward a 4 day week. We do extra fun stuff on that 5th day. I also have done it where we do school for 6 weeks and take a week of break instead of the traditional all summer break. I need more of a reprieve than they do sometimes.

Blessings,
Ronda

[Jenny in Florida]

The rule here this year, which seems to be working really well, is that he must accomplish the equivalent of 1/4 of his work for the week each day. As long as he is half-way done by Tuesday afternoon, he doesn't have to do desk work on Wednesdays. Twice a month, he goes to a science class on Wednesday afternoons, but that's more fun than anything.

He's 10, by the way.

He just looks over the lesson plan for the week, figures out how much there is to do of each subject, divides it by four, and does that much per day.