Time - 4 day a week schedule for K?

[kellybell]

I have a friend who is thinking of using MFWK. She wants to do it 4 days a week. Can someone please share their schedule with me.

After the creation unit (the intro), MFW has six-day lessons (each "lesson" is based on one letter).

With a five-day schedule, I might start a letter on Monday, and the next letter six days after that (Tuesday), and the letter after that on Wednesday of the following week. Does that make sense? So, if you are doing six day lessons, you don't start a new lessons each week.

Following that schedule, the school year is filled up if using five day weeks.

If using a four-day week, you can try compressing the lessons into five days (again, you don't start the lesson on the same day of the week each time) instead of six. That would probably let you have a "normal" school year.

But, I wouldn't start compressing lessons until you've done several (say, through about a-a-apple) lessons normally, without any "squeezing" just to see how dc is doing with it all. After a month or so of normal MFW, you can perhaps see how dc does with adding a little each day from the next day's work. That might work.

Another option (which I happen to like) is to do MFWK as written (meaning a day's work each day, with no compressing) and just either go into the summer or start first grade later. That way there's no rushing.

I've not tried to compress K into a shorter schedule, but I'm guessing someone here probably has.

[LSH in MS]

We do each letter in 5 days. I just read books to them while my other children are doing other schoolwork or having book basket time.

To do a 4 day week , like Kelly said, you could just start a new lesson a different day each week. You don't necessarily have to do one letter per week.

[cbollin]

Just to make sure this part is said over here. The K program is NOT meant to be "do school for 6 days in a row." I had wondered about that until I read the explanation in the TM. Then it made sense.

Still -- we changed things around to fit our needs. At first it was "as written." And different units started on different days. Then we did 6 days in a row for a little while -- Saturday school was fun for us because dh would "take over" with the infant and the oldest. It was a time for me to spend one-on-one with the K student. Then later we blended the "6th day" into the rest of the week. So, there's lots of room for flexibilty and those adjustments to meet individual needs.

crystal

[Guest]

We are nearing the end of MFW K, and we've basically done one theme (letter) per week. Many times we only spent 3 or 4 days on MFW, but it has still worked out well. However, our dc already knew the alphabet well. So MFW K can be adjusted all kinds of ways to suit each family's schedule and level of difficulty.

In fact, we loved the weekly schedule, and I'm a bit nervous how the daily schedule of MFW 1 will work out, but I'm sure it'll be fine once we get into it!

Brenda

ds will be 6 next month

dd 4

[Cyndi (WA)]

? about doing Kindergarten 4 days a week

I plan to begin my oldest in the kindergarten curriculum next Monday, the 18th. I'm wondering though how any of you may have condensed it into 4 days a week? I know most of it is going to be a breeze for her so I don't see it as putting too much on her. Is there any certain way I could better put it into 4 days? Thank you for any ideas.
Melissa

Posted Tue Aug 12, 2008 2:08 pm by Cyndi (WA)

The MFWK program is not set up in weeks, it is the 10-day Creation unit followed by 26 6-day units for a total of 166 days (which is already 14 days less than a normal 180-day school year). You could easily do 4 days of school each week as written and do just fine. M-1, T-2, W-3, TH-4, M-5, T-6, W-7, etc., and the units wrap into the next week.

Having said that, yes, sometimes I did combine days when there wasn't a great deal of work for dd to do and she was really interested in doing more. If you decide to do some of that, I recommend waiting until later in the year once you've got your routine going and see how it fits your dd. Don't pass on all the hands-on stuff like the calendars and cuisinaire rods and the bingo and concentration games! Even if they're "a breeze" for your dd, they will be great for her to do.

[my3boys]

I am thinking about breaking each unit into two weeks and just doing 2 weeks per unit, as I have a young kindergardener that I would not mind stretching K out for. That being said, if I was not stretching it out, I am curious how the 6 days per lesson works. BTDT people- did you just make the 6th day go into the next week, then start the next unit on Tuesday? Is there an easy way to consolidate into 5 lessons?

We school 4 days a week with Friday being our activity day for things like swimming/extra reading/science experiments/nature study/ art activities. I did each K unit for 2 school weeks (8 days instead of 6). We read a lot of extra books on the theme to drag it out a little. It's worked well for us.

[Tennessee Mama]

When I was working through K, we usually just did the 5th and 6th day together.

[cbollin]

BTDT people- did you just make the 6th day go into the next week, then start the next unit on Tuesday? Is there an easy way to consolidate into 5 lessons?

MFW did not plan for Kindy to be schooling for 6 days a week either. Do your school for five days (M-F), then on Monday pick up on the next day where you left off. Or do school for 4 days a week, then do the next day's lesson the next day you do school. It's that simple.

If you consolidate each unit into 5 days worth of material, then you only have 26 weeks of school (plus the days you did the creation unit). So unless you have materials to finish out the school year, you might want to take that into consideration.

-crystal

[beaglemamma2008]

We're currently in Lesson 19 in MFW K. When we started the year, we had another commitment on Wednesday mornings, and I didn't want to exhaust everyone by doing our other commitment, then doing school, then heading to church in the evening, so we would stretch our units into 1 1/2 weeks. We were able to accomplish two units every three weeks using a schedule like this:

Monday - Unit 1, Day 1
Tuesday - Unit 1, Day 2
Wednesday - Break
Thursday - Unit 1, Day 3
Friday - Unit 1, Day 4
Saturday - Break
Sunday - Break

Monday - Unit 1, Day 5
Tuesday - Unit 1, Day 6
Wednesday - Break
Thursday - Unit 2, Day 1
Friday - Unit 2, Day 2
Saturday - Break
Sunday - Break

Monday - Unit 2, Day 3
Tuesday - Unit 2, Day 4
Wednesday - Break
Thursday - Unit 2, Day 5
Friday - Unit 2, Day 6
Saturday - Break
Sunday - Break

We did start in late July in order to have enough time to finish the curriculum by late May (dh is a math teacher/football coach, so we like to share summer break with him!), but it was kind of nice and gentle to only have school two days in a row, plus I always had a break to go get library books for our new unit!

That being said...sometimes life has a way of throwing you curve balls, and ours this year was a hurricane. We were evacuated for several weeks and have been making repairs to our house for the last several months, so we don't follow much of a schedule anymore. If it's a day when school can get done, it gets done. If not, it doesn't. And the amazing thing is, it looks like we're still going to finish up right around the same time as originally planned. (Isn't God good?!) These days, we always do Day 5 and Day 6 together, and there are often other days that we can combine, too.

I guess my point is that the K program is very gentle, so the schedule can easily be modified to suit your needs.

[homebychoice]

We do each lesson or unit for two weeks - 3 days each week. the sixth day is usually a quick review that could easily be skipped or used to catch up if we have to miss a day. I have some fun type educational activities for my daughter to do once we finish our MFW on day 6.

[jasntas]

Hi - I am interested in using MFW for Kindergarten. I am hesitant for two reasons, though. The first is that we are doing a weekly co-op, which will cover history, science and Bible, and will require some study at home. The second reason is that he already knows some phonics and can read some of the Bob books. Do you think he will be bored with phonics, or that it will be "too much" to be in a co-op and do MFW?

Thank you,
Christine

This is my first year using MFW and K and have started this summer (2 school days a week) so I am no expert but I'll tell you what the manual says. The TM says that if you use the K program as written the daily lessons are designed to be 60-90 minutes long. I think that would be very doable if you are meeting once a week with a co-op even with "homework". You don't have to do the K lessons every day either.

I think the decision would also depend upon the age of your child. If he is or will be 5 or older in the fall I think starting K would be fine. If he is younger, you might wait.

The program is not overwhelming and so far my dd has found it to be fun. We are currently in the middle of the second unit - Moon. She will probably be ready for the 1st grade program by the first of the year. She already knew all of her sounds and letters and could also read BOB Books, etc. before starting the K program. (That's why we are doing a condensed version of the program. So far it has probably only taken about 2 hours a day to complete 3 days. With your situation you could probably complete a unit a week and still finish by the spring. (Condensing a 6 day unit into 4 with no school on co-op day). Or just take your time and still finish by summer.

I'm sure someone with more experience will have some good and maybe even better advice but in the meantime HTH.