Anyone do a 4 day "work week" with a Fun Friday to top it off?

So as I'm planning things for school to start, I'm thinking that I may want to change things up even more... instead of having "school work" type things M-F with Friday being a light day, making "school work" type things being only M-Th and having Friday be a completely fun day. We would still be learning of course.. but we would be doing things like playing games and watching videos.. maybe a field trip to the park once in a while (I don't venture out with the kids alone all that often, but Rylee and Reagan are finally getting more managable for me when we are out).

I have to look a bit more at the curriculum-y things I have for Rylee and Reagan and see how it would fit into 144 days of more structured time instead of 180, but I know I can make it work out fine for Garrett (my only worry was TT math and well that would fit perfectly since it's 116 lessons and 19 quizes).

Has anyone done this? How did it work out for you?

 

I have tried having a 4 day school week with 1 fun day and my 3 younger kids loved it, but with my oldest...well he tends to think that every day should be that way and we end up fighting more when we did it because he wants me to switch the fun day to whatever day he wants it to be, which means that there is no work done, just fighting. Of course he is my most difficult child and we tend to butt heads alot anyways. I think it is a great idea, and I wish it had worked for us.

 

I have been wanting to do this for a long time. I am hoping I can try a similar schedule. I always seem to need the extra fridays. I am thinking if not every week maybe every other week. I hope it goes well for ya!

 

Minthia, my oldest is definately my most difficult.. and if I do go this route it will be with the understanding that his best effort is put in M-Th, the Fun Friday will never move to another day, and if he hasn't put in his best effort and work needs to be redone he will be having Fix-it Friday instead of Fun Friday with the rest of us.

 

That's what we are doing.

Mon-Th is 'formal school' and Fri-Sun is nothing formal (unless they ask-which they have been known to do)

Friday-Sunday is educational TV, reading for fun, field trips, experiments, natural learning, Library, playgroup, ect. There still enough learning going on Fri-Sun that I'll mark Friday as a school day on our attendance reports for the state though... I also like that if we have a bad day during the week (or a doctor's appointment or something)-we're not behind and we can catch up Friday.

 

Dont limit yourself to Friday.

You could set your schedule so that Sun-Tue and Thu-Sat are work days with Wednesday being the day off.

Or Sat-Mon being your "weekend" so that you work Tu-Fr or any other combo. You might have two "heavy duty" days each week.

Or you can do M T W Th F Sa Su with bold days being school days and that way you have more time to play and can schedule 1 - 3 out days where you do something educational or just take a Home Ec and Ed day, so that you can clean/run errands/etc and spend time with kids.

 

Gizzy, M-F weeks work for us because it's when my hubby works and when he is home we would prefer to be with him... We do fieldtrips and things on weekends when he is home, but to make sure we meet the requirements of our state laws, it's easiest for me to just have a standard week documented. Also.. like I said before, it would be a reward type thing for good effort shown, it's not something I can explain in one post, nor do I wish to since I'm trying to move forward, but it has to do with many past experience with my oldest.

 

Oh Sommer when my girls were small we did M-Th all the time with Fridays off. You can do it. My girls both worked hard during those four days to have Fridays off.

 

I did a schedule like that..sort of. Fridays did still have spelling tests...but other than that is was hands on activities and special projects day. I worked out great! This way there was time dedicated to special projects and things of that nature...even movies or shows. So, if something didn't get done during the week...or I thought of a great project...I didn't have to put it off but add it to Friday.

 

We do and we don't! LOL
Honestly, it depends on how much work we cover during the week. We use to take Fridays off or at least lighten the load. But as Ems gets older, the work seems to take a bit longer to complete.

 

We have soooo many educational games that we never play, soooo many things we would love to watch on video or tv that we dont' have the time to.. it would work so perfectly to have Friday be nothing but our fun stuff. I have even thought that spelling tests would move to Thursday

Unless something majorly needs fixed or caught up, we will not do any book-like work except read alouds that are in progress on Fridays.

I'm getting excited!!

 

Go for it! My kids learn so much from educational games and TV. My son loves documentaries. Like weird stuff for 6 year olds. And it amazes me what he picks up from documentaries and what he's into.

I was going to watch the Jane Eyre mini-series last night-I started it while he was in the shower and he got out and came through the living room like 2 minutes into it and stopped dead in his tracks and asked if he could sit up late to watch it with me. He asked so many questions while we were watching it, he was really into it. He learned a lot of new vocabulary last night LOL He asked this morning if we could watch another episode tonight.

He just started watching Meerkat Manor a few days ago and is really into it, so we're gonna do a meerkat lapbook....

I think This Friday we might watch a documentary on The Shakers, I think he might like it from what I've seen of it.

I'm really working on teaching him not everyone is just like you, not everyone lives their lives like we do. I was a teenager before I realized not everyone drinks sweet tea for dinner every night or has in-ground trash cans at the end of their driveways. LOL

Like watching Jane Eyre brought up the discussion of orphans, foster homes, orphanages/group homes and adoption. Things my child has never heard of.

Oh the fun I'm going to have unschooling!! LOL

If Garrett needs structure then he needs structure but I say go for unschool Fridays and have FUN learning!

I may find that unschooling doesn't work as well for us as I think it will, but I won't know until I try. If you're fun Friday idea doesn't work out, you can always try something else.

 

I haven't read other responses, but for the last three years we've done a 4 day week with Monday as our non-formal day. They boys had their Fine Arts classes Monday afternoon and we usually took it easy that morning.

 

My daughter will be in kindergarten this Fall. We have joined the Classical Conversations co-op which meets on Fridays. Because it takes up the whole morning, we've decided that CC will be the only thing we do on Fridays (plus maybe a read-aloud, but that's just fun). In addition, my son will be 20 months old and I will be 8 months pregnant in September, so I think Friday afternoons off are going to be necessary for my sanity.

I also plan on using that time to prepare things for the following week, so I don't have to worry about it over the weekend.

Michelle

 

I think it sounds like a great idea. So good, in fact, that I may have to steal it

I have been thinking about doing a four day week and taking Fridays off, but wasn't sure I wanted to try that or not. This year I have taken a day off whenever we needed or wanted to. Since I have tons of church responsibilities and lead a kids club my life tends to overwhelm our homeschooling at times. I'm not sure if I can schedule our off day next year if I get my life more organized or if I need to keep the freedom. But I really like the idea of still calling it a school day, but having a relaxed fun day instead of boo work.

The first three months of school last year we did the workbox system and I was really good at putting the fun games and puzzles in, but then we got busy and just did the basics and I never got back in the groove.

 

We do school M-Th and take Fridays off for our homeschool group meetings. I tell my daughter if she doesn't get done with her work throughout the week she will have to finish it on Fridays. That usually ALWAYS does the trick! It works very well for us!

 

Just so I'm clear on my own intentions.. I don't plan on having the day off... it will be a day that I pull out all the fun games I have accumulated (Diploma Dogs, Gramopoly, 'Smath, Presto Change-O, Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego, etc) or puzzles, or educational videos, or free time on like Brainpop to explore what they want, or even baking a big batch of brownies (you know doubling or tripling or even quadrupeling the recipes ). It will still count as a school day, just more of an unschooling day for sure.

 

I would love to have a day off, either Monday or Thurs. with my older two, but can't figure out how to get in 180 days and still let them have their summer, which we all want! With my younger two, We will probably do very little on Thur., just go over what day of the week it is and our morning board, taht will be all, at least for a few years, anyway!

 

That is the beauty of my plan, we will get our 180 days because we will be doing something educational those days, it just won't look like school work.

Think of it this way.. the workbox craze was all about setting up extra space in the day (each and every day) to get to the fun things you normally don't get to. Well they failed for us because I would put in a game for Garrett and I to play and I simply wouldn't have time. This is kind of like taking all the fun things that would/could be added into a day of the workbox system and saving them all up for Friday when I can devote my day to playing the games, watching the videos, or just what ever fun thing is up for that day.

 

We are using Friday as a "catch-up" day or finish your work....

It's funny - Kolbe (who we signed up with this year) schedules their lesson plans like that!

I think it will work out really well once we really get rolling. Right now they are just doing some light "get started" work...... well they are doing the official week 1 of Kolbe... then next week is a vacation.