Fridays are my favorite!!!

My littlest one (3 years old, and if I could figure out how to get pics up here I would, but I don't like half of the pic being green :( ), anyway, my littlest boy loves to say "That's my favorite. " Last night I passed out some chewable vitamin C as we are struggling to get over coughs and colds, and he came up to say, "Mom, you're the bestest mom and these are my favorite."

I thought I'd tell you about my school plan currently. Right now, my plan is to have five months of school with one month off. I have Bible study on Thursdays, so as much as possible I want to take those off and have our thorough cleaning day that day. Also once a semester, my in-laws come for a week so we take that off. Our birthdays that fall during school days are also days off.

So every year, I sit down and look at the calendar about 15 times during the school year and revamp everything once more because I forgot about this or that. Also, I have struggled with how to keep everything in front of the kids that they need to do on a particular day. I found a website that has been extremely helpful.

It's an on-line planner, that generates a new activity only after I've checked the activity off. More about this part later. Google "homeschool skedtrak" and you'll find it. It is a Christian family that needed a planner that worked for them and it works well for me, as you also mark quiz days and test days and you have to tell it what percentage each thing (quizzes, tests, etc) has and then as you go you plug in their scores and voila you have a report card. So nice for me.

During the week, Monday through Wednesday, everyone must do one lesson in each subject no matter how far ahead they are. Then, because Thursday is a Bible Study and cleaning day, if they are behind they have to work those subjects. And Friday, if they are ahead in anything, they don't have to work on those subjects. For example, we were to be finished with Lesson 94 at the end of the week. So my first grader only had to do spelling and writing, because he was on lesson 90 in those subjects. Now, today, Friday, he doesn't have to do Language because he's on lesson 95. This helps me to give them some incentive to have a 3-day weekend, though some don't really worry about it much. It also helps me to give them a bit more say on what they do and don't do, because they can do a lesson in each subject every day and stay ahead or they can use their day each week.

So using this planner and the example above, on Thursday, I only checked off spelling and writing, and so the planner generated new activities for these. Today I will not check off Language for him, so the computer will not generate a new activity for Language. I love this. I spend so much less time figuring out where they are supposed to be. As he had a writing test, I have to go to the test tab and under writing, type the grade for that. I'm done. At the end of the semester, I can print off a report card.

As a bonus, I have added other things, piano, typing, watching baby, watching preschoolers, and chores. They have different chores during the week. Also, I let them know on this planner what times they'll be doing each thing, so that I don't have two at the piano at once. It helps me so much as I just go up every morning to print off their lists. I just have to remember to check everything off the day it's done, or we get behind.

There you have it. That's why Fridays are my favorite. It's more relaxed and when they're done, they're done. Monday through Wednesday they have to work at school until a certain time, but not Friday or Thursday.

Have a great day!!!!
Steph