Improving Our Homeschool With A Four Day Week

For the longest time, we had a typical homeschool schedule. Monday through Friday were school days and we took vacations as we needed them.

Honestly, though, most weeks by the time Fridays rolled around the kids and I were tired. We weren’t putting in our best efforts and just doing what we could to finish out the day. Personally, by this point in the week, I was ready to be done and get caught up on other things and prepare for the weekends.

In January we began an experiment. One brought on my desperation and the idea that there had to be something better. In January, we implemented a four day homeschool week and we are all better for it.

Evaluating Our Schedules

The biggest factor in all of this is our family’s schedule. We are busy. We have outside activities every afternoon, and twice on Wednesdays. Evenings also bring on a myriad of activities and obligations Tuesday through Friday. Most days, we need to finish our school by 1:30 p.m. in order to be able to accommodate all of these items.

Rarely, however, were we actually done with what we needed to complete. This left us in a constant state of feeling behind in our homeschool and overwhelmed. We combined courses where we could and cut what we could do without. Cutting down on outside activities might help, but these activities are important to our kids, and my husband and I believe they are worth the time they take up.

I tried streamlining. I tried to start earlier in the day. We even contemplated using Saturdays or the idea of “homework” but that didn’t sit well with me. Saturday is the only day this family has free, and even then we use it for projects, errands, and getting caught up on housework.

Besides. I knew that we didn’t need more time to homeschool. We didn’t need to create a busier schedule to do more.

Asking The Homeschool Community

So I began looking at others. Homeschoolers who had gone before me and had been in my shoes. Overwhelmed and frustrated, unsure of where to turn. It didn’t take me long to learn about a four-day school week.

A four day homeschool week seems to be quite common in the homeschool community. Whether parents need a day for doctors’ appointments, household errands and tasks, or a dedicated day for field trips, homeschoolers are embracing a shorter school week and longer school year for the sake of peace.

And I was ready to give it a try.

I was ready, and I was convinced that this would help us all out. I planned out how this would change our school year and looked to balance both immediate needs and long-term homeschool planning. Counting out how many days off and adding them to the end of the year really wasn’t as impactful as it seemed and would not cut too much into my kid’s favorite time of the year – summer vacation.

Now, I just had to convince them.

Convincing A Skeptic Audience

Planning our homeschool year is something the kids and I do together. And when I say planning, I mean starting in August and only taking off the time we really need to. We tend to skip a lot of the holidays and days off the public schools take. For us, that means our summer vacation starts earlier.

It’s a schedule we all really like. It’s one that had developed over time from a rigid, planned to the max, printed calendar to a laxer one. We pick a start day, I plan for three weeks off in December and one in April, and count out the state-required days. From there we know our anticipated end date and we know if we take random days off we have to add them on at the end.

Taking Fridays off would add to our school year and I know this. I’m OK with this. I was pretty sure the kids would not be. We decided to try it though for a month. One month of Fridays off, just four days that we had not planned on that we could take back easily by skipping out on a week off in April.

They weren’t loving it for sure. However, the idea that the kids could have an extra day to catch up on work, an extra day to follow their own interests, or just an extra day to do nothing started to appeal to them. Begrudgingly we started this in January because all I knew was that I couldn’t keep going. I couldn’t keep up the pace and the level of our schedule any longer. If that meant our homeschool year continued into June I was ready to deal with it.

Trying Something New

That first Friday was strange for all of us. Waking up, knowing it was a Friday, and yet not preparing for lessons was a weird idea. Even if it was mine, the concept was foreign. However, by the end of the day, it was nice. It was freeing to have this extra day. The kids enjoyed a day off and their only obligations were their activities in the afternoon that we couldn’t skip out on.

January came and went, and by the time February rolled around, there was no going back. We had developed a new routine that included Friday being dedicated to things other than school unless someone needed to get caught up or required some extra time for studying.

What we have found is that by having Fridays free from the obligation of homeschooling we are better able to focus during the week. We know we have a day that is in limbo, set aside for whatever we need it to be.

For me, it has morphed into a workday. A day to get caught up on grading and planning for next week. A day to think about my site and readers and plan for them as well.

For the kids, they love a day of freedom, a day to use their imaginations and follow their own paths. Some weeks, there may be a quick assignment to finish up, but most weeks they push through on Thursdays because the idea of working on their Fridays is just too much to bear.

Embracing Our Four Day Homeschool Week

My once skeptical children have seen that for our family, a four day homeschool week works better than any five day week ever did. Not only is it better for their learning and their school, but it’s better for our family.

Someday, we may even try a 3 day homeschool week!

For now, we have learned that by shifting our schedule around slightly, we were able to free up and findsome much-needed time. Our school days are less rushed and feel less hectic! There’s something about knowing that we have Friday as a safety net, even if we rarely use it. We know that this shift in our school week means that competing our school year in May probably will not happen this year, but I am already looking at went to start next year to accommodate for this.

The reality is, for us, shifting from a five-day week to a four-day week took us out of that homeschool survival mode we were finding ourselves in far too often. Those days where you just work for the sake of getting it done. Instead, our days have a little more freedom and a little less pressure on them.

We still have the same number of school days, just in a different order. And we still have the same number of lessons to complete, but a few less per week. For us, shifting to a four day homeschool week gave us all the breathing room we so desperately needed.

Have you found a great way to manage your homeschool schedule? Share below and help others find the hope in the chaos that is homeschooling!