Schedule - 4 day week, light Fridays, co-op days?

[cbollin]

I am planning to use MFW for the first time next year. I have only been homeschooling one year. I am thinking about doing school Monday thru Thurs. and taking Friday off. My husband is a minister and works a lot of long hours. He is off on Fridays and I thought this would give us some much needed family time. We also do a co-op on Thursday for most of the day, so we would actually be doing MFW 3 days each week.

I will be using CTG with a ds-7th grade and dd-4th grade. One of my main concerns is the time between lessons.

We would start the school year earlier and go later in the the summer to get the required days in. I had also considered year round school which several schools in this area do, that would give us more time off through out the year. The problem with this is the co-op isn't on year round schedule.

My question is, would this schedule work for MFW? I just wasn't sure if this would cause any problems with the flow of the work. If anyone has any input, I would love to hear from you. I have already used this message board several times and have received some wonderful answers. Thanks!

CTG's week is set up as 4 regular days and 1 light and independent day (aka light and independent Friday). Most of those light and independent Fridays will have some Bible time (you could just have it in evening as family reading), a quick "test" time of the Greek root word vocabulary that you were learning that week. That is quick time. and then optional math/individual reading time. That light day is not a full schedule at all.

So, doing 4 of the full days into 3 .... hmmm.... I don't know how/if they would work. I haven't tried it.

There are 34 weeks scheduled in CTG.

-crystal

[Jenn in NC]

I am about 2/3 of the way through CTG (also doing 1st) and I would not want to try to fit it into a 3-day week. But it might work for you if there were things you were willing to leave out...?? I do know that, for us, "light and independent Friday" has a tendency to turn into our catch up day.

You might check the main website for the link to the sample for CTG to get a better idea what each week will look like. Also you may not have as many littles to take care of at the same time you are schooling your olders as I do, so the idea of a 3 day week may work a good bit differently for you than it would for me.

[Lucy]

Hi,

There are are a few things to consider.

1. I think it will be too much information to try to cram into 3 days a week so I think that trying to do 4 days would probably work, but 3 may be over kill. I would actually figure out the days and the number of weeks you will do school. For instance if you only did 3 days worth of curriculum each week you would not complete 34 weeks in a year(it would take over 56 with no breaks). Now I know that is not what you are thinking of doing but my point is map it out so that you have enough time to complete it in the year with the breaks that your family will need. It is not only the MFW history, bible, and science but the other subjects too that I am not sure you can fit all into 3 days.

2. I am not sure how long coop is but possibly you could still just do the history for that day and if you are doing the bible in the evening as a family that will help with day time scheduling too. Another thought is since Friday is light already you could just plan to be done by 10. Reading could be done on the weekend instead of Friday too.


3. You have a 7th grader who at this point you are beginning to prepare for high school(only 2 years!). MFW recommends using Apologia Gen. Science beginning in 7th and this is at least 4 days a week. Some kids, like one of mine, needed 5 days a week. This is a textbook series and we have found in our family an excellent resource for teaching study and test taking skills as well as independent learning. So this is not a subject you would be teaching him after you have helped him learn how to use the material and study for and take a test(this may take a few chapters).

4. I think a 7th grader needs to do 5 days of math although if math is easy for him, he may be able to do 5 days in 4 days. If you use Saxon it will take at least 150 days (120 lessons, 30 test). That is assuming that a lesson is not done on test day. Saxon is set up to have a test every 4 lessons so if he does 4 lessons Monday-Thursday then Friday would be a little less time with the test. I think that a 4th grader needs math everyday too. This consistency is needed to retain the subject usually. Again you could make Friday morning math and a few other short quizzes from the MFW manual and then the rest of the day can be family time.

All in all I think you can work it out. You may need to make adjustments but I think it will just be a matter of sitting down with the T.M. and mapping it out for your family to see how the days will work out.

Lucy

[dascott]

Hi! First I want to thank everyone for their responses so far. I am leaning towards doing school on Friday, but like someone suggested making it a shorter day. We could also start earlier on Friday mornings to complete the day earlier. With the curriculum we used this year, a different unit study, we had an abundance of activities to choose from, so I just choose those that I knew my kids would enjoy and cut some others out and we just did school on Fridays until around 11:00am. I agree that kids need math everyday. My son used Saxon this year and I really liked the way it was set up. I do think I will be more organized and not have to stress out over what to do and not to do. Sometimes too many choices isn't good especially for a new homeschool mom:)

I do have a question for Lucy. You were talking about 7th grade science, which I plan to use the Apologia Science like is suggested, but I wondered if my son would also be doing the science with my daughter? Is this recommended - He does enjoy science but I don't want to overwhelm him.

Thanks,

Dedra

[HSmommi2mine]

I have been doing ECC in 3 days a week because of a family situation I have no choice. What I did was do math, LA and Latin everyday and then one day we did all of the Bible, one day all the geography and one day all of the science.

I know this goes against the CM methods that MFW uses but I am more of a Latin-Centered Curriculum girl and my kids like it this way.

Starting this week we get a 4th day for the first time in years and I am very excited. Our fourth day will be for projects and finishing anything we didn't get done.

[cbollin]

We are finally on the way with CtG and loving it! I'm having a hard time with our schedule, though. Our Monday's are completely taken up by co-op. I'm not getting to some of the more fun parts of CtG that are always equally as educational as fun! Would LOVE to fit in a good balance of everything, but just not sure how to reschedule into 4 days.

We really don't want to be busy with school on a Saturday, since we'd love to have a day of 'nothing' before a busy church day.

Any ideas?
Caryn

hmm.. what if you thought of it like this:

Curriculum Friday work is done on Monday of the next calendar week.
Then, Monday of "next" calendar week is done on T, etc.

Most Fridays in CTG are light and independent. So before heading to co-op, you can do review Memory work and review the Greek Roots flash cards. Then on the few and far in between Fridays that have one extra assignment in Bible reading, could be done at supper time on Monday if needed? There are a few times with Children's Homer where you have some Friday read aloud, but you can double up a reading, or use audio cd. That will be determined when you get there.

you dont' "have" to do the weekly letter writing. They are young enough that if you do math only 4 days a week, it's ok

I'd just try to think of calendar Mondays as you "curriculum light and independent day". The memory review can be at breakfast table?

-crystal

[Poohbee]

Yes, it definitely works to do a 4-day week with CtG! My 2 1/2yo has speech therapy in a town half an hour away on Tuesday mornings, so we make Tuesday our lighter day. We do the Bible readings and Victor for that day, and my dds can get in their math and maybe one or two other things before we go and while they're waiting at the therapy office. Other than that, we usually shift most things to another day. You can definitely work it out to shift things around and have whichever day you need to be your lighter day, and you can double up on Bible readings some days if you need to. It works for us, anyway.

[Julie in MN]

When we were doing CTG, we spent one day a week at co-op. We did Bible in the evenings as a family, and otherwise did everything on the other 4 days.
Julie

[Cyndi (AZ)]

We're in CTG and have co-op on Thursdays. A 4-day week works great unless we take a field trip one day - then it's school on Saturday morning around here.

[Caryn]

Hmmmm..... wheels churning...... just rearrange the days, and leave some stuff out. Just want to make sure we keep on track with everything else. And I think 4 days for everything else will work. If push comes to shove I can make other appointments before or after co-op so if Monday is a wash, it's a wash.

Thanks, ladies! Going to look at next week to see if I can juggle it around

[Julie in MN]

I mapped out our schedule for this school year and would like to build in some flex time. I think we would be better served with a 32 week curriculum, as opposed to 34 weeks. Once I add in our planned field trips and nature hikes, 34 weeks of core curriculum stretches us out all the way to June and closer to 38 weeks of school. We started on 8/15 and I know that we need to be done with core our core curric by the third week of May.

So CTG veterans, are there a couple "lite" weeks that you could recommend we combine or skip? (we read Bible and exercise Math and leisure reading year round). I'm flipping through the manual and it seems like weeks 7, 10, 14, 24, and ? Might be the ones to combine? Squishing weeks 7-9 into two weeks, as far as Bible, History, notebook, science goes. We just carry on with Math and LA as usual.

Chelle,
When we did CTG, we had co-op one day a week, plus our calendar was only 34 weeks. We did fine. There is a lighter Friday every week. If you need those days bunched another way, then you can just skim past Fridays and move on, so you do day 4 of one week followed by day 1 of the next week (if something small is scheduled, you could fit that in somewhere). That gives you 34 extra days during the year. And like you mentioned, squishing a light day here or there can just move you forward another day.

In other words, I skipped days rather than weeks. It meant that "Monday" wasn't done on Monday necessarily, but that was nothing new since every school year at our house starts right out doing Monday work on a Tuesday (because we start the day after Labor Day, to match the local public and private kids). If you don't have those holidays, then you could start "Monday" work on Monday and just use the "light Friday" column for recording what you do on your co-op day (whether it's Friday or another day).

We also did the Bible readings in the evening as a family, so that made our school days shorter, because the Bible is the biggest history book in CTG.

HTH,
Julie

[TriciaMR]

Chelle,

Because of field trips and other stuff, we are often through with our required school (172 days) before we finish the curriculum. What I usually do is spend one or two weeks afterwards only doing history and/or science. I let the kids take a break from Math, Spelling and Reading and we will do several days worth of history readings in one day (but not more than an hours worth or so). And then do a week's worth of science. That way they at least have heard the history, even if we didn't do the notebook pages.

Just another idea. But, like Julie said, you could just skip the really light Fridays (sometimes there is History scheduled on a Friday), and that would do it for you.

-Trish

[HeyChelle]

It would probably help a lot if I could get over the whole issue of wanting a 5-day week to flow Mon through Friday.

Thanks for the ideas!

[MelissaB]

Does anyone school 4 days a week instead of 5 days a week with CTG? We don't do a light day on a fifth day, we only do school 4 days a week.

I'd love to hear how you work the grid to accommodate 4 days. Thank you!

Yes, we did. We did Friday's work (it's usually very short) on Th. If needed, we chose to take out Spelling and/or Foreign Language on Th.'s to allow enough time to finish CTG.

[Julie in MN]

Chiming in late, but we always had co-op or field trips one day a week 3rd-6th grade or longer.

In CTG, we often did the Bible reading in the evenings with dad, so that freed up quite a bit of time during the day. It was such a blessing and lots of fun -- reenacting the 10 plagues, sipping grape juice in our "booth," etc.

The other things on the Friday grid were easy enough to move to another day, especially when our history readings were fewer due to the evening Bible time. I'm so glad we still fit in all those "Friday letters," because they (and their replies) are a fun part of his notebooks to look back on now that he's 18 ( ).

Julie

[erin.kate]

Thank you, Melissa. From the sample it seems pretty simple to move things around from Friday if need be. I like that it's already a bit lighter than the rest of the week.

Julie, I love the letters on Friday and I'm sure my girls will find time during the week to do that. My 10yo has a Chinese penpal in Russia and she writes to her best friend in CO every week (we live in New England now). Those are precious memories. I really like the idea of Bible with daddy at night. Great thought.

[asheslawson]

We only homeschool 4 days a week when we have co-op, which is 12 weeks in fall & 12 weeks in spring. I like my 5 day weeks better, when I can relax and not feel so rushed, but 4 days is very do-able! It is part of why I chose MFW in the first place when I originally was comparing curriculum.