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4 day school week – how to make it work?
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We joined a co-op for the upcoming school year for the first time. I’m excited to give it a try, but stressing a bit about fitting everything into a 4 day work week. Those of you who are part of a weekly co-op, or have been a part of one in the past, any advice or tips to share on making it work successfully?
Well….this is something we do every year. What I try to do is choose classes (if that is an option) that have little to no homework, maybe enrichment classes, handicrafts, etc. Or, choose core classes and be ok with the class being used as core curriculum. For example, my oldest took a Literature class last year even after I had planned out his Lit for the year. So, we just used what the mom/teacher planned and let it be. It was a great class and she chose quality literature. Yes, there were some books he missed that I wanted him to read but maybe he will this year or when he’s an adult.
Be satisfied with whatever gets done on the co-op day and not try to squeeze in a poem, a reading, a math sheet, a page of copywork, etc., which will only frustrate everyone (I should know, I’ve tried it many times). If it happens that your dc can manage a bit of school before or after the co-op day, then great! But, if it’s not working, be ok with that.
Do your best to not over-schedule the other 4 days, which can be hard, too, if you have music lessons, sports, ballet, church, or whatever, but it can be done (we have multiple classes throughout the week). Keep a tight schedule throughout the week during the hours of your home school time.
And, try to enjoy it. Co-op classes are some of my children’s favorite days and I would never take them away for sake of an extra day. But, that’s us and we’re a bit crazy! The way I see it, the co-op classes are a part of their education, not an addition to what I have planned, so I factor in those classes and the time spent in them.
I’m not sure how your co-op classes work, but we get to choose which ones we’ll take. Someone is always teaching a writing class or science, maybe history, and most of the time they are not CM-friendly. I try to avoid those at all cost. Way too difficult for me to do what I want to do (CM-style) and have my child learn, say, IEW way. Not gonna happen and everyone’s frustrated 🙂
I hope you have a great time!!
We have been in a weekly co-op for four year (this year will be our fifth). Some suggestions:
-Give the co-op 100%. It can be tempting to think your at-home work is the “important” work and the co-op is just extra. In my experience, people who feel that way at co-op get a lot less out of it, are more likely to drop out, and end up resenting the time it takes from their other schoolwork.
-Since we are only home for four days, I have found that doing fewer subjects each at-home day (making them a little longer – while still maintaining short lessons) works better to not overwhelm the kids. Therefore, we do history 2x/week and science the other 2x. I make the lessons a bit longer, but not so long as to make everyone lose interest. Before I did this with some of the subject the kids felt overwhelmed with so many subjects to get through every day.
-Don’t duplicate efforts. For example, if your co-op is covering science, build on what the co-op is teaching (rather than coming home to a full and possibly unrelated science curriculum at home.) If your co-op is doing literature, take dictation and copywork passages from those books. If they are doing history, look ahead and borrow living books from the library that deepen and enrich what your kids have been taught at co-op.
-Recognize that the co-op may teach differently than you and may not match your child’s learning style as well as you can do at home. However, be sure to recognize the gifts that the co-op does bring. We just had a planning meeting for our fifth year of co-op, and I can tell you that the deep friendships, the comradery, and the support-system we have gained from the co-op far outweighs any negatives. I could give 100 examples of times when a family in co-op is struggling and the other members step-in to help out. My kids have benefitted from the different teaching styles (and answering to a teacher other than me for a day each week!)
Hope those few suggestions help you out. Enjoy your year!
We would generally still do math on our co-op days, which on top of their co-op classes, made me feel like it was a very productive day. If I had a beginning reader, I’d make sure to fit in phonics as well. Our co-op met in the afternoon, so we had most of the morning at home. If I didn’t have much prep work to do for co-op (ours required each mom to teach), we’d sometimes get to a few subjects that day. Otherwise, I used the time before co-op for catching up on laundry and make sure everyone was prepared for their classes.
I tried to keep meal times very simple on those day. Cold cereal for breakfast, homemade “lunchables” for lunch, and an easy crockpot meal for dinner. The days I managed to get something in the crockpot went so much easier! We followed co-op with our piano lessons, so it was an over-all hectic day.
For your curriculum, you can figure out how many days you’ll have at home and divide it over those days. Anything that doesn’t get finished, can be covered over the summer or for the following year. I would count the co-op days as school time if you are required to keep track of hours or days. Our co-op only met for around 20-25 days each year, including some field trips, so it didn’t take a huge chunk of our time.
Great advice here and I’m looking forward to reading more responses. My thoughts are probably not going to be very helpful with offering strategies (as I am needing them myself).
We did a co-op last year and I am not looking forward to it starting up again this year for several reasons:
I think it cuts into our week too much. Once we get home nobody wants to do anything even though I make them do math and reading.
Our week is already very full and rich, thanks to SCM’s materials and lesson plans and I don’t feel like we need it.
I felt like I was in a hurricane when I was there with my 6 kids having to be in 6 different places, plus I had to be a helper in the classes with kids who aren’t mine and I lost track of what my own kids were doing.
It’s downright hard to get them all out the door on a Monday morning without leaving the house a disaster and I found myself feeling resentful about it.
So with all of my whining and baditude, WHY are we probably going to do it again?
My kids LOVE it, especially the older ones. They made friends there and they get the big-old-kickball-game fun of gym class. My kids were in a private school for years and were used to the social aspect. As hard as it was to adjust to becoming a homeschooling family, after we joined the co-op they actually started to LIKE homeschooling and stopped complaining about it. It made the rest of our week easier in a sense.
SO, my advice is to think very hard before starting something like a co-op because even if you aren’t into it your kids might be reluctant to give it up! If I could do it all over again, I don’t know…my husband says I need to embrace the co-op. 🙂
Oh–one plus is that my daughter took a ballet class at the co-op so that was taken care of during the day and didn’t take up a weeknight evening. Trying to work myself up to feel the co-op love.
Thank you, everyone, for your responses.
Our co-op meets every Friday from 9-2, so I’m pretty sure I won’t do any other “school” that day other than our reading in the evening after dinner as usual. I was able to pick the classes my kids get to take, so I chose classes that wouldn’t interfere with what I was teaching at home. For example, I didn’t choose the science classes because none of them line up with what we will be studying this year and I didn’t want to overwhelm myself, or my kids. The classes I chose are Bible quizzing, PE, crochet for my daughter, cooking with Little House for my daughter, a Lego class for my son, a watercolor class for my daughter, baseball for my son, an American history class for my son, and a math games class. I basically wanted to join a co-op for the social aspect of it. Also, the nice thing about it is it starts in September, two classes of which we will be missing because of vacation, and ends at the beginning of November. So, if by then I realize it really isn’t for us, I won’t go back after Christmas. However, I know my kids are going to love it!
I think I’ll go ahead and spend the rest of this week going through my curriculum and fitting it into simply 4 days. I’m not real concerned with not finishing everything by years end. Our state requires 180 days, so I will work with that. I’m actually considering trying out a sabbath schedule and schooling year round. However, I’m also wanting to start back on Monday, so…I have a lot of work a head of me. I might just have to push our start day back a week.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond. 🙂
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