Well as I mentioned previously I have decided to use our break as a chance for me to make some changes/tweaks/etc. The first tweak I’ll discuss is our schedule. As I’ve shared previously we school for four days and then take three days off. We are also homeschooling on a year round schedule, which is a rather new development, but over the long haul it seems to make the most sense for us.
Originally, we schooled Monday-Thursday with Fridays being our field trip/social time. This year since we are taking part in a co-op opportunity with another homeschooling family we have switched to schooling Tuesday-Friday with Monday being our co-op/homeschool buddy/field trip/social time. It still allows us to have our four days on, three days off which I think is important, while still having the days be consecutive. Once our friends PCS we will more than likely go back to our Monday-Thursday schedule, since I prefer starting on a Monday. I count the Monday/Friday off day in our schooling, since we do usually do something school oriented as well. It just wouldn’t be our usual formal lessons.
Aside from that change around I have also been having to plot out school breaks. Our year round schedule starts in July and ends at the end of June/ first week of July. The actual cut-off date depends heavily on what day of the week the 4th of July falls on. That holiday will signify our last break before the new school year. It will be a week long and then we will start on that following Monday.
Instead of doing a six weeks on, one week off type of deal I have planned out breaks to coincide with birthdays and certain holidays. So we start back in July, then we would school through September/October, I still haven’t worked in a break for that time frame because I would love to do our biggest break/family vacation during that time period. Then we would take a week off in November for a birthday and Thanksgiving, then two weeks in December for winter holidays and the New Year. From there we would go until the last week of April and take two weeks of for Earth Day and the National Day of Reason. Lastly a week in June for a birthday, and then the week for the 4th of July.
That puts at 225 days in a school year, without the break in September/October. When we plot out that break it will knock a good 25 days or so off, bringing us to about 200 days in our school year. Which I think is fairly good compared to what our public/private school counterparts usually do in a school year. Getting into the habit of planning at least 200 days of schooling will also work well when we return to the states, since we could end up in a state that requires a certain number of days for schooling. This way we can ensure we always meet the minimum requirement for the state, regardless of what may happen throughout the year.
As far as our daily breakdown that isn’t changing. We will still do a morning meeting after breakfast, followed by outdoor time *weather pending*, language arts/phonics, break, lunch, quiet time, art/music (alternating), math/science (alternating), history/social studies (alternating). I am adding in 30minutes of Japanese language learning after our history/social studies time. Another small change will be the way we do our virtues learning.
At first I had planned to do a weekly virtue, with 52 virtues so we had one for every week of the year *regardless if we are on a school break or not*. That just seems too much to me though for their ages, so I’m cutting it back to one virtue for every month. Once they reach about 8/10 years old then we will convert it back to a weekly virtue. For now though I think it would be best if the spend some time over the course of a month doing virtues learning, so they can really learn it and not just have a ton of info thrown at them.
That’s pretty much it as far as our schedule goes. I’ve made other changes/tweaks in some other areas as well, and I’ll get to those later on in the week. For now I’m off to prep for Monday!
Originally, we schooled Monday-Thursday with Fridays being our field trip/social time. This year since we are taking part in a co-op opportunity with another homeschooling family we have switched to schooling Tuesday-Friday with Monday being our co-op/homeschool buddy/field trip/social time. It still allows us to have our four days on, three days off which I think is important, while still having the days be consecutive. Once our friends PCS we will more than likely go back to our Monday-Thursday schedule, since I prefer starting on a Monday. I count the Monday/Friday off day in our schooling, since we do usually do something school oriented as well. It just wouldn’t be our usual formal lessons.
Aside from that change around I have also been having to plot out school breaks. Our year round schedule starts in July and ends at the end of June/ first week of July. The actual cut-off date depends heavily on what day of the week the 4th of July falls on. That holiday will signify our last break before the new school year. It will be a week long and then we will start on that following Monday.
Instead of doing a six weeks on, one week off type of deal I have planned out breaks to coincide with birthdays and certain holidays. So we start back in July, then we would school through September/October, I still haven’t worked in a break for that time frame because I would love to do our biggest break/family vacation during that time period. Then we would take a week off in November for a birthday and Thanksgiving, then two weeks in December for winter holidays and the New Year. From there we would go until the last week of April and take two weeks of for Earth Day and the National Day of Reason. Lastly a week in June for a birthday, and then the week for the 4th of July.
That puts at 225 days in a school year, without the break in September/October. When we plot out that break it will knock a good 25 days or so off, bringing us to about 200 days in our school year. Which I think is fairly good compared to what our public/private school counterparts usually do in a school year. Getting into the habit of planning at least 200 days of schooling will also work well when we return to the states, since we could end up in a state that requires a certain number of days for schooling. This way we can ensure we always meet the minimum requirement for the state, regardless of what may happen throughout the year.
As far as our daily breakdown that isn’t changing. We will still do a morning meeting after breakfast, followed by outdoor time *weather pending*, language arts/phonics, break, lunch, quiet time, art/music (alternating), math/science (alternating), history/social studies (alternating). I am adding in 30minutes of Japanese language learning after our history/social studies time. Another small change will be the way we do our virtues learning.
At first I had planned to do a weekly virtue, with 52 virtues so we had one for every week of the year *regardless if we are on a school break or not*. That just seems too much to me though for their ages, so I’m cutting it back to one virtue for every month. Once they reach about 8/10 years old then we will convert it back to a weekly virtue. For now though I think it would be best if the spend some time over the course of a month doing virtues learning, so they can really learn it and not just have a ton of info thrown at them.
That’s pretty much it as far as our schedule goes. I’ve made other changes/tweaks in some other areas as well, and I’ll get to those later on in the week. For now I’m off to prep for Monday!
Copyright(c)2010 Rayven Holmes
October 3, 2010 at 6:55 AM
Wonderful, I Love Ur Energy.