Katherine typically does school work four days a week for about 3.5 hours per day. The fifth day we reserve off for play-dates, appointments, and errands. Having a weekday off allows me to arrange doctors appointments (and other hard to get or weekday only appointments) without missing or rearranging school. This school year we have consistently taken Fridays off.   We are part of a multi-denominational Christian homeschooling group that meets at the park on Fridays.  This has been great for the girls and for me. The kids get to play and I get to socialize! Oh….it’s the kid’s socialization that I’m supposed to be concerned about.  Well, I’m a better mother and teacher when I’ve had a little socialization myself. You can get a lot of great ideas and learn a lot from other moms too. Our group is starting to play organized sports and games at park-days again (we kind of slacked off for awhile).  This particular group also goes on field trips, and we have mom’s night out.  If you home-school or stay home and you don’t a have a great group like this, then perhaps you should consider starting one.  It isn’t hard.  It only takes about four moms to have a pretty good group.  I didn’t take a picture of the girls at the park yesterday, so I posted an old picture of a play-date we had with our friends who have now moved away. Bailey is dancing with Katherine while Sarah and Kennedy are dancing together.  Elizabeth is providing the music.  Their mom, Kecia,  is a wonderful lady, and she is the author of the blog Clothed With Scarlet (posted under Blogroll in the sidebar).