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Considering all-year-round schooling
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So, I’m on “Planning your Term” Planning Your CM Education. Last year I did the traditional three 12 week terms, 5 days/week.
I’m wondering whether to switch to all your round schooling – but not sure how that works. Do you school just 4 days a week?
You can do it a lot of ways. You basically just need 36 weeks of school, 16 weeks off. We do six weeks at a time, then take a few weeks off. Usually it is 2 weeks off, we take 4 weeks in June and 3 at Christmas. We did 4 days a week, but Fridays were for co-op or extra activities so we still counted them. you could do a whole 12 week term and then a break. Or some break it down to 3 week pieces with a week off in between.
Tara
Oops, what I meant to say (and I can’t seem to edit my post) is “-but not sure how this works for best. Do any of you school just 4 days/week? I’m curious. I’m also thinking of the 3 weeks on, one week off option, and would love to know what others find works best.”
Here are some past discussions that might help:
http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/year-round-schooling-how-long-are-your-breaks
http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/for-those-doing-3-weeks-on-1-week-off
http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/year-round-school-schedule
http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/3-week-on-1-week-off
My family is in a weird season right now so we need a lot of flexibility in our schedule. Basically, we school when we can, and take days off as needed, not in any kind of pre-determined schedule. I am not required to keep attendance records, but since we are doing such a free-form year I do keep a calendar and mark off how many days each months we’ve done school just to keep myself on track and ensure that we still get 180 days or so in for the year. I do still keep a 5-day ‘weekly’ schedule, but rather than labelled by Monday-Friday weeks, it is labelled Days 1-5 and we just pick up where we left off when we take a day off or have a weekend in there. This is working really well for us – still making progress and getting things done while giving me the flexibility we need to stay sane. =)
HTH some,
Jen
We school year around, 4 days a week. Fridays we go to my Mom Time group and then go on a nature hike/picnic with other homeschoolers. We basically school every week that we can and take breaks when needed. Like the week of the 20th we are taking off so that I can paint in the house (Our walls neeeed it!). My mom said she’ll watch the kids so I can get it done!
We somehow always get everything done in the year and are usually ahead of schedule. My children usually start a new “grade/book” before their peers because we end up doing more than 36 weeks, and we don’t have to review.
We are doing year-round now. Finished in June with last year. Took about 3 week totally off, then started back July 16.
Ideally it will be 4-5 weeks on with 1 week *off* which may not be totally off. Some weeks it will include camping, which always includes nature study and reading and lots of time outdoors. Some weeks will be for trips to the zoo and science center and ??? other field trips or plays. Some weeks are for scheduled surgeries as DS4 has one in a week and a half, DD2 has a open-heart surgery that will be this fall or next spring (will find out in a few weeks), so that is one big reason we got started. Not sure how much time off that will require, but I figure basically 4 weeks on, 1 week off with us finishing mid-June again (for 36 weeks in books not including a week-long trip to DC, Jamestown/Yorktown, VA, so that is school but not included in our 36 weeks of book studies.
Probably way more than you wanted to know, but I just keep a paper calendar where I mark as we go. I have paper weekly schedules that we date as we go, so that when we are off a week, we just pick up where we left off.
HTH
We are going to try this for the coming year. I printed off a one page year’s calendar and colored in all the days that we are going to do school. This really helped me to “see” how it would work. We are going to do 12 weeks of school followed by 4 weeks off. Our last 4 weeks off will only be 3 due to a planned summer event we need to be done for. That will still give us a 7 week summer. We are also going to try and do a 4 day week. DH is always off on Friday’s so we won’t have to do school when he is home. We are also taking all holidays that he gets. He works for the BLM and since that is government he gets everything. Even Columbus Day!! The first year and tried to convince him to go to work on Columbus Day, I mean, who get’s Columbus Day off?!? We will start right after Labor Day and finish the second week of July. Our months off will be December, April and mid-July thru August.
I don’t want to be the sour note here, but thought I’d share something I learned just in case…
We don’t school year round (I like summer vacation!), but last year, my daughter was eager to start early. Since I had most of our materials and the days were hot and humid, we began the last week of July. It was a VERY busy week for me. My second child’s birthday was that same week so I was also planning a birthday party, preparing for out of town relatives, and I had some canning to do from the garden. While I was thinking starting school early might be great because we had nothing else going on, I soon learned I was wrong. I remember rearranging our days for beach days with friends or family as well as various end of summer events with our church.
Just throwing those thoughts your way… if you spend any time at all with people on a traditional schedule, you may not like the year round schedule. Then again, a lot of families love it!! I’m truly not trying to be pessimistic, just wanted to add another perspective.
I am with you Jennifer!
I don’t want to be pessimistic either, and while I did think about doing school year around with 3 or 4 weeks on and 1 off; I soon realized I couldn’t because besides me needing a break to catch up on things I am behind on, I also plant and grow a large garden and I need time to weed and harvest it! This year I even went later into June so that I could have more time off in September so I would have time to can tomatoes. (I work 40 hours a week, so I can either do school in the morning or take care of garden stuff.)
Also what Jennifer said above about time off for beach days, VBS and fun summer things was a problem too.
That’s the beauty of homeschooling. We can do whatever works for the season we’re in. I’ve schooled year round from the beginning and can’t imagine doing it differently at this point.
* I like having a week or so off each month because it allows me to tackle big projects like cleaning closets, remodeling something, shoe shopping for 4 kids, dental/doctor/haircut appointments & the like without being an interruption to our regular school routine.
* I LOVE traveling when kids are in school. Smaller crowds are always good. I love not being beholden to a traditional calendar. Our family spent a month overseas on a mission trip once while regular school was in session.
* I like that we don’t spend any time playing catch-up for things that may have been forgotten over a long break. Like math.
* We like the routine. Months off without a regular routine wouldn’t work as well for us. We’re very flexible, but like have routine to fall back into.
* We still have time off in summer. I plan for it. Usually, we have 1 week per month off, but sometimes those off days are rearranged in summer. This year dd11 did 2 weeks of camp and has participated in other activities that are about once per week. All of this is doable on a year round schedule.
The way I plan:
– start with a year on a page calendar that can be found online (Donna young’s site or Five J’s)
– mark off Jon-negotiable time off. I start with trips and vacations, then holidays. We take 3 weeks off at Christmas, at least 2 days for thanksgiving, etc
– I mark down any big field trips that will require a full day or more. This flexes throughout the year, but I start with what I know.
– next, I mark a start date and figure from that point.
We generally school 3-4 weeks on , 1 week off. That’s how I plan. In reality, we may end up with 1/2 week off due to taking extra field trip days that were spontaneous or if there was illness. We also take 2-3 weeks off in fall and/or spring when it isn’t so hot.
Do what works for you at this season and feel free to adapt as you move along.
I had planned to do a light schedule over the summer, but it just didn’t work for us. I have no set requirements for days/hours in our province, so I am only planning to do 36 weeks of the basics (math, reading, language arts & Bible), and 30-33 weeks (10-11 per term) with additonal subjects (history, science, typing, composer/artist/poetry, etc. My boys are getting way more of these things than their PS counter-parts, anyway). Our summer has been crazy with church Family Camp, my older son away to Bible Camp, VBS, Family Reunion this past week, company coming the last week of August and house renovations. When dh is off we don’t school other than maybe the basics, and he’s been off about 3 weeks already this summer with another week and a half to go. Having fun fishing with Dad or helping build a deck can be educational, too. It’s much easier to follow the PS calendar for our family’s more formal schooling, at least at this season in our lives. That said, we still take 2-3 weeks at Christmas and 2 weeks in the spring, start one week later than PS and end one week earlier if at all possible. We’ve also got a week to 2 weeks per term wiggle room which allows us to be flexible in terms of appointments, unexpected events, illness, etc.
I guess you could say that we are unschoolers in the summer…?
We just started our first grade year this May and will be doing year round school. I have scheduled 36 weeks of work into 3 terms of 12 weeks each. BUT… Each of my terms on the calendar is 4 months long. Term 1 = May-August, Term 2 = September-December, and Term 3 = January-April. That way I can take off whatever days and weeks I want/need to because we just have too hard of a time sticking to an every day schedule. During the summer it tends to be a few days a week all summer long since we always have something going on every week, or the weather is just too nice to stay inside. Over the colder months we tend to be more regular with school and take off for the traditional vacation times when we visit family. I just started using the CMO and I think it is going to work really well with our schedule – flexing with life!
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