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Hi ladies,
Thank you in advance for your responses. I always feel so blessed by the community of homeschoolers on here who are willing to reach out and encourage one another! Like many of you, each week I am struggling to balance all of my duties. My kiddos are 7 1/2, almost 6, 3 1/2, and 18 mos. Just keeping up with laundry, dishes, feeding, cooking, cleaning, etc. is a full-time job on top of school! Then you add in paying bills, grocery trips, making quiet time a priority, visiting with grandparents, trips to the library, time to play outside, etc....!!!! My husband and I also have a youth ministry position at our church and b/c he works another full time job, I often am the one running with the kids to make copies, set up stuff, etc. All that said...I feel like I am really struggling to get everything done each day. Our evenings are pretty full as well, so most of that stuff needs to be taken care of during the day. I was thinking that perhaps going to a 4-day school week would help me significantly... a day set aside to grocery shop, bake, visit grandparents, pay bills, work on the budget, etc. Then my question becomes how do we transition to a 4-day week? Honestly right now we're not consistently getting our 5 days every week and I feel guilty when something comes up and we have to miss. I'm wondering if that 4 days with a consistent Monday or Friday off would help me feel more organized and not guilty for missing a random day! For those of you who do this, would you recommend just doing 4 days and taking a longer school year, or would you recommend adding a bit each of the 4 days to get through an entire week in 4 days? Again, thank you for taking the time to read and respond!!!! Any advice is much appreciated!
Meredith

Hi Meredith,
You could switch right now to 4 days and if you need to make up some work, squeeze more time in your day to catch up. I recommend to moms to start their school year cycle from June 1 - May 31. This will easily allow 4 days a week, but it is hard to switch to 4 days if you wait till the fall to start your school year. It is possible that you may need to finish up with your current schedule and just try to get through May, then start fresh in June. Your school week can run tues-Fri or Thurs -Mon. I used the weekend schedule with my oldest, but now with just my youngest I use tues - friday routine. Hope this helps. Let your school day block of time be arranged with your family's routine, if you are busy with ministry in the day, then let "school hours" be at night. My school time is at night, with Taylor's homework time and free time during the day.
Laura

Meredith,
I just wanted to pop in and say that I have been trying to work out the same thing. We prefer the four day week as well for the same reasons. I had never thought to add more to each day in order to make it work to four day. I am obviously not the creative type! Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for the idea. I will be thinking on how to work our week into 4 days...I will let you know how we decide to work it out.

Mercy

Let me just encourage you by saying that changing our homeschool to a four-day week saved my sanity! I relate to all of the things you mentioned that present daily challenges. We have been doing a four-day week for the last year, and it is wonderful. I don't know how in the world I could school five days a week. My husband works two jobs, one of them entails 24 hour shifts, and so almost all of the operations here at home fall on me. It was my husband who originally urged me to go to a four-day school week!

Let me also tell you this....my kids are not behind! When we first started homeschooling (and especially when we went to a four-day week) I really had to let go of the rigid ideas of what a school year should look like. I realized in the homeschool community we often waste so much time with the idea that when we start a certian guide, program, or book, then we MUST be done with it by ______. Many times we have this rigid mentality because we are still thinking about "school" in the way that we were raised--in the school system!

I understand that there may be states that require testing. Obviously, we have to teach our kids to the testing to some extent. Beyond that, I say we should not worry too much about the rigid yearly schedule simply for it's own sake. Learning is a continual process and it really is okay if a teacher's guide lasts for 11 months instead of 9.

Let me just add by saying that I would not try and do any "make up" work or squeeze anything in on Saturdays or at night. Your kids really will do fine and not be behind. In fact, schooling will more than likely go so much better because it will be easier for you to keep up with things with a four-day week. I know this has been the case at our house!!
Hope this helps you in some way!!

Hi, I agree with the previous poster. I just do school Monday through Thursday, with Fridays off. It keeps me sane Since I am using Bigger Hearts, that means I had to let go of wanting Day 1 to be Monday, day 2, Tuesday, and so on...now day 1 is wherever it happens to fall, and it really doesn't bother us one bit. Also, the guides from Preparing on up are written as a 4-day a week schedule already! So this would just be practive for when you get there In the meantime, your kids will not "lose" anything by you simply using 4 days instead of 5 for school, thereby extending your school year by about 9 weeks. I also would not recommend trying to "double up", just do the days as written. "doubling up" defeats the design of the short Charlotte Mason style lessons.
Here is a quote for Carrie on the Beyond FAQ page of the website, which is found here: http://www.heartofdakota.com/faqs.php#F ... _His_Glory:
"Q: How long does the program last?
A: The program contains 34 five-day units, or one school year of instruction. However, at our house, we do "regular school" 4 days each week and save Fridays for our "extras" (all the extra things I'd like the kids to do, but would never get around to doing otherwise). So for us, it takes a little longer than one school year to complete each program. The program is meant to be flexible in order to suit each family's needs."

Thank you ladies so much for the encouragement and advice! We are going to a 4 day week. Yesterday was our day off and it felt great to be able to "catch up from the weekend" around the house, go grocery shopping, bake bread, take the kids to visit with their great-grandma for a few hours, and just do all those things that overwhelm me during the week! I think this will really free me up and allow me to focus on them more the other 4 days and not be so rushed...feeling like we need to hurry b/c I'll never get everything else done! I really appreciate your input!