What to do? One child in 5 day, two children in 4 day

[Tami]

I'm just hoping for some advice with this situation.

We will be starting Bigger (5 day) and Res to Ref (4 day). How do you handle this with your kiddos?

[SetApartForHisGlory]

I can't really say, since we haven't started yet. But I will have 2 doing 5 day weeks and 1 doing 4. I just figure since my oldest has so many other responsibilities (her own animals to clean up after, more chores, more reading that needs done, etc etc) it's totally fair for her to have that day off from official school to catch up on what she needs to. I'll just do school as normal (LHTH & LHFHG) with the youngins. Their school doesn't take all that long so it's not like they'll be like "not fair, why isn't she doing school today?!" because they know she has a lot more to do than they do! Sorry I don't have a better answer :/

[mrsrandolph]

On the 4 day schedule, I don't do day 1 Monday, day 2 Tuesday, etc. I just do what every the next page is in the guide next and do school every day. So, we may do day 4 on a Monday. Does that make sense?

[hs.mama07]

We're not there yet, but I know many people do Bigger 4 days a week instead of 5. That means the guide would take a little longer than a year. And, as mrsrandolph said, your day 1 wouldn't line up with monday, but that's okay. Doing it that way means your whole family has the 5th day off together, though you'd still have the option of doing a little school (like the 3R's) on the 5th day if you wanted.

[Rice]

I have done Bigger as a 4-day unit, with an older child who could follow a graph for which subjects to do which days to get them all in. (Extenuating circumstances for her - she didn't learn to read till this year so by the end of the year when she read well enough, it was almost too easy and she was getting done more than a Day each day.)

However, it isn't ideal. I would suggest that you allow the 5-day guide to take longer than a school year, doing school with them whenever you do with the older ones, just doing the next day. For example, when you do R2R Unit 2 Day 1, you will also do Bigger Unit 1 Day 5, and so on. The biggest bonus I see from this (especially since this will be your last year with this "problem" - Preparing having 4-day Units) is that they will be switching guides at different times. When you start RevTRev, your younger one will have a few units left of something she's familiar with so you'll have extra time to spend on getting RevTRev started. Then, when they're in their "groove" it will be time to switch from Bigger to Preparing with the younger one, giving you more time to spend on laying that one all out.

I used to be a "everybody on the same Unit & Day" kind of homeschooler, but I'm learning that relaxing my expectations on that kind of thing also allows me to relax and not have all the work at one time of year. This fall I purposely left 2 units of LHFHG to do so I'll start new guides Sept 2, Sept 20ish, approx. Dec. 1 and mid March! It seems very strange for me but is fitting each of my children where they work best. (I'll have to figure something out for next year when I "should" be starting R2R and Rev2Rev at the same time. . . )

To help with the "I don't know what Day you're on!" feeling, we use sticky tabs (basically Post-It type notes that are 1cmx5cm) on each subject (so multiple ones in the LA box) and move them to the next unit when a subject is complete (we use a different color of tab for each Day; Day 1 is yellow, Day 2 green, etc.). That way it's very easy, visually, to see what is or is not complete and to do the first thing that is incomplete first. (It also has the bonus of not marking the guide for the next one to use it!)

Blessings,

[Tami]

Thank you all for the responses!

After talking to my dd (who is one of the ones doing the 4 day) she made it fairly clear for me....not that it will be perfect every week.

Monday is our afternoon for music classes, so we will start Day 1 on Tuesday and plan to finish Day 4 on Friday, HOWEVER, they will then have Monday morning to catch up as needed which will probably happen on a regular basis. The youngest will have Day 5 on Monday morning and could finish some things while waiting for his class.

Just like a budget, it all looks good on paper! LOL I have no doubt that our days will be off fairly soon, but this is the way we'll start and adjust as we go. When it comes time to start a new guide, it would actually be a good thing to have them with a staggered start day. It just easier to have one maintain the normal routine while helping the others adjust to new expectations.

Thanks again! I really appreciate all the wisdom shared on this board!

[MomtoJGJE]

I just do everyone moves to the next day in the guide whenever the next day is that we do school... So my kids are generally on all sorts of different units and all sorts of different days at any given point in the year. I don't tend to stress about a schedule.

[Tami]

Moving from one day to the next is the normal routine around here as well. The Day 1, 2, etc., isn't really an issue for me but my husband wants them to stay close to the same schedule. He just knows that if one is finished before the others we'll have a major upheaval and we have a lot on our plate this year.

If we get off by a lot, we'll just start a new guide and keep going.....but my guess is that with all things going on (major renovation with a move in the near future, plus additional remediations for learning disabilities, plus a cross country vacation, blah, blah, blah) we'll still be working on this years work next fall. Sigh.

[TrueGRIT]

Your proposed schedule sounds good. We had a similar situation going for a time and over all it worked well.
We did school 4 1/2 days a week. My oldest needed the extra time and my Beyond child was so quick he was able to do day 5 on the half-day. Beyond's day 5 was shorter, but I feel Bigger's is still a little quicker than the other 4 days.
Just wanted to mention we had done a schedule like this for about half a year.