Has anyone tried Sabbath week schooling? The idea is that you organize your year around 6 week sessions, and take one week for planning and playing in between. I am thinking about doing this next year. I like to do lots of unit study type activities, but I get bogged down in the organization. So we do one really cool unit, then just math and phonics for a few weeks while I get organized for another one. I think having a week off would allow me to be more organized and ready for the next session. Although for us it would be less abour a "sabbath" rest, and more about working on it myself. My son might benefit from a layed back week where he only has to think about a feild trip and his music practicing. Any thoughts
I have tried to do that this last year. It was ok, but we are not "normal" in that we have a business so things don't always go as planned. I would make sure and remember any other holidays you have planned too. For instance I planned a week off in May and forgot that my fil wanted to keep my kids on his spring break. So I had to change my week off to match his. Vacations, visitors, busy times like Christmas, funerals, births ,good weather days, etc are all things that need to be considered. My kids also like if the week off lands on their birthday weeks. That being said, I think we will continue to try and school that way, because it seems that something always comes up and we need to have a school free time. It is nice to know that we can take that time and just skip the next off week, and still be on schedule. My kids also drive me nuts if they have weeks on end of time off ( like months in the summer) I think they get bored and look for new ways to entertain themselves. Usually ending with them getting in trouble. One other suggestion is that don't plan to use each of your weeks off as a time to get ready for school. Because I am sure all homeschool Moms need some time to catch up on other things, or spend time just being mom. Make sure you can take some time off too. You need a vacation from school just as much as the kids do.
We do a version of this - not necessarily every 6 weeks, more like our 9th week is off. We got the idea from football. One weekend in the season was the "bye" week - the week your team does not have a game. We stole that idea for our homeschool . During our bye week, we typically try to go see friends, do a smaller trip, do lots of art, and try to complete any bigger projects or do a presentation for one of those projects (a poster, powerpoint presentation, etc), watch movies together, and then we also do lots of reading and read alouds. I have found, especially with my son, that if he gets a week off, it allows his brain time to organize the information he's been receiving for the past few weeks, and we when come back, he is stronger than ever, especially in math.
aggie01 - I like the idea to correlate weeks off with birthdays or other special days. I might try and match up our spring break with the local P.S. so that the kids can do things with their PS friends. gwenny99 - I think I will probably end up more like you. Maybe not every 7th week off exactly, but a preplanned break when it lines up.
I'd also like to take off the whole month of December...from Thanksgiving, until the public school goes back in January!
Last year we did an art unit. So we went to a local art gallery, we made christmas crafts and ornaments, we wrote notes to go with gifts we gave. A bit of sneaky way to do school.
From the week before t-day to the first week in Jan we do 'art/bible" month. I pick something for use to study in the bible, and we do all kinds of artsy things for gifts too. I think if we did real school it would only happen like 3 days. We have 4 birthdays, all the major holidays, and with split families we have 4 sets of grandparents not counting great grandparents. Once Christmas starts it last for weeks around here.
We start the second week of July and work for 9 weeks then take 1 off, work another 9 and that brings us up to the Friday before Thanksgiving. We take off 6 weeks, which brings us to the Monday after New Years (with the holidays its a mad house here, add in the fact that 3 of my 4 kids have birthdays in the same week as Christmas and there is just way too much going on to deal with school work). We then go 9 weeks and take 1 off and then go another 9 and we are done the 2nd week of May. We then have an 8 week summer.
We do the 6 wks on, 1 wk off for the most part. We may occasionally do 7 weeks depending on when the week we want off (for a holiday, to coincide with PS, etc) falls. We take 3 weeks for Christmas/New Years, and we take about 6 weeks for summer. We try to really relax during our weeks off, too - no work is done except maybe a field trip. Last year was our first year doing it this way and we love it! It's nice to know you have that good break coming up!
Sounds good. I love to hear the feedback. My DH is skeptical. He thinks all the breaks will make us lazy, but I think it just refresh us.
In all honesty, even on our breaks we are doing something... we are on break now, but Rylee and Reagan are begging to keep learning to read, so we do that and they beg for math so we do some fun math things (but we dumped all math curriculum and all our math is based on fun hands on stuff now for them and will stay that way till about 3-5th grade most likely). Garrett watches an educational video or tv program every single day and the littles usually do to. We are also exploring the world around us.. always. The days on my "schedule" are just to make sure we have 180 days accounted for for the state.
I think 6-8 weeks of school with a week break would be perfect for my kids. I haven't had a chance to try it yet since we have moved in the middle of the past 3 school years and that has taken a chunk of time from our school year. We may have our first uninterrupted school year coming up so I'll have to see how a normal school year goes and then move to a schedule like that in the future possibly.
I read somewhere that most kids' need to give their brain a break from intense learning - that it helps the brain then focus on organizing that information so they can better learn new material after the break. I can't remember where i read it, but I saw the application with my son (he was struggling with phonics before a week-long trip to nana's, and came back from the trip reading! ) and I see it even more now with more complication levels of math and the like. It is an interesting phenomena!
We did Sabbath Schooling for the first time last year. We stuck to my plan and did not waiver, and there was no need, because we never got burned out this way! We started at the end of August and did school for 6 weeks and took a week off all the way til December, at which time we took off the whole month of December. Then we went back to school and structured spring break the same week of Easter and did that as our week off. We will be done tomorrow...yippee!! And then we will take off 6 weeks and back 2 school we go! It has been amazing, for all of us involved. I can't imagine ever going back to the way it was before!
I forgot to mention......we only do a 4 day work week. It seems to all work out though with no time lost. The lady who "came up" with this method (I think) even has samples and does a 4 day work we like we do! Her blog is great for those considering this way of scheduleing. http://angelinainlouisiana.blogspot.com/2008/10/scheduling-our-weeks-and-days.html
We always end up with a 4 day work week too, but more by accident! DS has a homeschool group he goes to on Wednesday mornings, and I end up with an appointment or errand that needs to be run most weeks, so I do that on Wednedays too. So then we are both tired and we just do P.E. (play outside), that afternoon!
http://angelinainlouisiana.blogspot.com/2008/10/scheduling-our-weeks-and-days.html I found a blog post on it and a master schedule...looks like an interesting concept!
