I’m blogging everywhere and there but here this week. So I figured I’d share a bit of what we do on our “off weeks”. This week is the last in our term. We run a 6 week “on”, 1 week “off” schedule, though not dogmatically. If we need to continue to finish things up we do, if we finish before the 6 weeks, we moved on.
Anyhow, our “Sabbath” rest weeks aren’t really rest, nor are they really “sabbath”, as in devoted wholly to seeking God in the Scriptures – but we do continue our family worship times. Our “Sabbath” weeks are our one week “change in routine” we take between each term. I got the idea LONG ago from Teri Spray of Christian Cottage Curriculum, at a CHEC conference.
On our break week we focus on learning Life Skills rather than “book learning”. It may be on cleaning and organization – whether that means learning to clean something, or digging in and tackling a project. It may be cooking or baking skills or menu planning. It may be sewing or craft skills.
When we had a garden and bought cases of fruit to put up, there was always a week of canning and freezing and dehydrating. When we did Mega-Menus we put up 6 weeks worth of meals in the freezer during this time. For the boys it might be helping dad with a remodeling project. For next week it will be finishing tanning their deer hide – and probably raking all the acorn caps out of the yard! I also plan to take some more specific, prolonged times to help dd so-close-to-16 to work on her driving skills.
Sometimes this off-week is also devoted to special help in Learning Skills – such as, if someone is stuck on a math concept and they just need extra help over the hump. Or if we’ve slacked in working on spelling or editing-of-our-writing skills, we’ll do some catching up.
It’s also a week we try to throw in some extra fun things. Play some games, perhaps go to the Children’s Museum or other “special place”. I thought we were going to be going to Omaha – but 2 wrenches got thrown into that idea. We’ll have to come up with something else. (And Omaha will end up taking a day out after we get back to our “normal” routine. — Is there really such a thing?)
What do you do to “change things up” – to keep from getting in a rut, or take a break from the “normal” – at your house?
I am beginning to like the idea of changing our schedule to include a “grace” week more and more. We just keep going and going, taking breaks here and there when we tire, or, more specifically, I tire.
Knowing there would be time to “catch up” on household chores, projects, or play time would be refreshing.
Thanks for reminding me to judge what we are doing, and encouraging me to liberty.
We make Fridays our ‘Friday Fun Day’ where we play our games related to math and language (this is for my assessment for the next week) and we also work on various other things – currently we are making our own Bible Times Museum and having cooking classes. These activities as well as others related to current studies usually extend through the rest of the weekend as well (very relaxed and enjoyable time together). This is what works for us currently. ( :
I do like your schedule very much though and may adopt it down the road. ( :
Warmly,
Mandi
Hi Renae – I like your term of “Grace Week”. I think I’ll adopt it! 🙂 (because it isn’t always necessarily a Sabbath week.)
Hi Mandi – Have you blogged on your Bible Times Museum? We’re UN-cooking this week 🙂 refreshing dc as to why we eat so much raw.
Thanks for stopping by and chatting.
Lisa,
I really like the term, too, but I can’t take credit for it. I found it on Lindafay’s blog, Higher Up and Further In.