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I'm planning to use my hod curriculum for a 4 day school week rather than 5 days. I'm wondering when to start the school year to make sure I cover the minimum requirement of 180 school days. It seems I would have to start around July to finish up the following May. Any feedback I would appreciate!

Is there any way you can count the 5th day each week as "school" (with field trips, co-op, lessons, classes, "phys ed", etc.)? Just because you're not doing HOD doesn't mean you're not learning or completing any educational goals!

That said, a 5-day-per-Unit guide might then take more than 1 school year to complete - which is just fine, too! It's a learning curve to learn how homeschool is and can be different from PS even within the PS reporting system.

Blessings,

For my state, the requirement is listed as so many days of 4 hours instructional time, or the equivalent number of hours each year. If you can count hours, then it may not matter how many days. Also, as pp said, Sunday school, scouts, and other extra curricular learning count as well.

We also have the "180 instructional days" requirement. We attend a co op one day a week which counts as an instructional day. But even if that's not what you are doing on your 5th weekday, you can count plenty of other things as school per your state's requirements. PE (any kind of sports you do or just a couple of hours at the park), field trips, nature walks (field trips), home ec (cleaning day), Bible instruction.... there are so many things that count. Even things like Sunday school as someone else pointed out (though I really don't count that).

You can also school year-round. We do. That means we do take weeks off, but it's just here and there. If you are more of a planner I know people who really like the 7 weeks on then one week off schedule (of course adjusted around holidays so your week off is on the holiday).

I track my "instructional days" by writing the date on the guide of the page we are doing that day. Then as I mentioned, co op also counts and that schedule I should also keep a record of.

You will find that there will be days when you use that fifth day to finish up a few things. However, I look at it like this. The way the schedule is written it's as if a typical 5-day schedule is squeezed into four. I figure that we are doing more on those four than we would do if we schooled using another curriculum spread over five days. We're doing five days' worth of work in four. Therefore, I don't start "early" just to get 180 days. Anything that my kids do on that fifth day that could be considered, "school," I count no matter how much time was spent on it. As a former ps teacher, I can assure you that many days that were counted were not "academic." In fact, if we were at school until 10:30, it was considered a full school day. Snowy weather dismissals always had to wait until 10:30 so we could get our full day in!

Thanks for all the input! I appreciate all I your time! You put my mind at ease to not stress about what is actual "textbook" time vs real life learning time. I can count so much more as learning than I realized:) I did notice the younger guides are written for 5 day instruction. Does anyone try to teach those guides in 4 days to stay on schedule with the older kids in the older guides?

Last year I did Bigger and Little Hearts spread over 4 days instead of 5. It was a bit some days. However, my kids were able to do quite a bit of the reading independently. And this summer I am finishing up the cursive and grammar. We did co-op once a week and I didn't want these levels to go longer than a year. I debate on whether or not it was worth all the extra. To be honest, it was quite a bit! So...I guess I don't know if it was really worth it or not. If you have the extra time, I would not squeeze into 4 days.

I think you could maybe do Little Hearts or Beyond in 4 days for the 5 day unit but you couldn't do Bigger I don't think. That guide is just so full. Maybe someone who is more with it and a child who would tolerate a much longer school day than my 8YO would want to do. I feel like Bigger is the transition year to "serious" school and a good work load.

I've done the younger guides over 4 days, which just means I pick up on the next day the next week. This makes the younger guides go a little bit past a "school year," but I school year round and it's never been an issue to me. If I didn't do year round, I think I would just pick up the guide the next year where we left off. But I"m pretty laid back, and I realize not everyone would like to do it that way.

I got the idea from Julie to school LHFHG, and Beyond with 4 day school days to spread the two guides over three years. That is what I will do with the next guy coming up through the ranks.