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Do you school year round or follow the public school year?
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We are planning on schooling year round. We will start our first year of homeschool this June. I am planning on going year round so I don’t have to worry if we need to take sick time or if we want to add in a vacation during the school year.
I’m wondering how you all plan your school year and the pros and cons of it.
Thanks!
Keri
The pros are pretty obvious. As you said, taking time off when needed. Also, there is the routine that is not broken, things are not forgotten, and one would think that the school day would be shorter on average. We have tried to do this a couple/few times, but not been able to because the cons outweighed the pros for our family. Namely, we just really want to take a break. Also, we keep a rather large garden. Then there are the seasonal chores, like mowing, that have to be done on top of the regular year-round chores. Then there is the fact that no one we know schools year round and so when invitations come it’s hard having to say no.
The way I plan our school year is that I take the days I know we have to take off (our vacation, any conferences, special days, etc.) and then from what is left I plug in the work we want to get done. Sonya’s Planning Your CM Education is very helpful, by the way. We do not have to count days; just show a certain amount of progress, so I don’t have to log attendance, which is helpful.
I, for one, think I would enjoy keeping a more consistent daily routine through the year, and so I will look forward to what others have to say. I do plan on having one day per week as a ‘regimented’ day this summer, just for the sake of keeping up the discipline.
Blessings,
Cindy
I totally understand about needing breaks! I think that keeping a routine going will be one of the harder things for me at the beginning.
In my school district, I have to keep count of hours. We are supposed to be “in school” for 1050 hours per school year. (185 days of school). I will be counting a lot of life skills as school though, because my children really need training in these areas. I would really like to do a fine arts day as well which I think will help break up the week.
I am planning on starting with “School Lite” this summer. Mainly getting them used to Nature Study, Art, Poetry and possibly some science as we are doing Apologia’s Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day. The bulk of my time will be spent reordering our habits so that we operate on a better schedule and the children will have more routine chores.
We will be attempting to school year round starting this summer. I like your idea of schooling lite, especially since the subjects you mentioned are the ones that I tend to slack on during the “normal” school year. I will have more feedback after this summer since this is our first time trying it.
Faith 🙂
We school year-round. For some reason, I actually find it easier to get schoolwork done during the summer. I’m not sure why that is, but it is.
My family was involved with a big community project this spring and we got very little “book work” done for several weeks. We learned many valuable lessons in the project and the experience was worthwhile, but at the back of my mind, I kept thinking about the regular schoolwork we were missing. I was reassured knowing I will get back to our schoolwork routine in the summer.
We live in FL and school year round. We are never exact, but try to do school for 6 weeks and take 1 week off. We take a couple of weeks in either the fall/spring when it’s cool and a couple at Christmas time. It’s so hot that we are indoors in the summer anyway, so why waste that time. 8)
Blessings,
Christie
We school year round. California likes 180 days, so I plan for that, but the truth is we school way more than that.
Basically I set up 6-week terms. 6 of those give me my 36 weeks for the state. I take vacation days when we need them (even if they are unplanned, such as, we all woke up on the grumpy side of the bed after a really busy weekend!) The kids actually like the routine of a little school every day. Our days are not as full school-wise when we spread it out like this. Sometimes, at the end of a 6-week term, I will plan one week just as a project week.
The thing I love about schooling year round is that it gives us a routine we can all live with, but it is flexible enough to stop when we need a break – and I never feel guilty because I know I’m meeting my requirements for the state.
There are a lot of ways to school year round – I had a friend tell me that she used to do all the regular subjects except for science during the school year, and then devote the summer to science.
Hope this helps!
So, Tanya, when you set up your 6 week terms, do you spread them out over the year with break in between or just keep going until whatever you had planned for the 6 weeks is done and then go on to the next term? Does this make sense to you? I’ve confused myself. 😳
Hi CindyS,
Sorry, I guess my post is kind of confusing!
I do not spread out my 6-week terms across the year. In the beginning of the year, I plan (generally) what things I would like to cover. Then I set up my first 6-week term (many do 12-week terms, but I am just not good at planning that much!). When those 6 weeks are up, I plan the next 6 weeks (and when I say “plan” I mean very generally – like what books we are going to read, how many chapters of something we want to get through, etc). I plug in vacation days (or weeks!) as we go. If we don’t finish something that I expected to finish, I just roll it into the next term. Does that make sense? It’s definitely not a perfect system, but it seems to work well for us right now.
We are schooling year round.
Right now our schedule is: Monday = math and hymns/scripture memory box in the morning, with co-op in the afternoon. Tues, Wed and Thurs = normal school day (5 hrs each day). Friday = math, hymns/scripture memory box and nature study/walk (we also have a vocab test sometimes).
I schedule a few breaks here and there, but we’re military, so we never know when Dad is going to have to attend a school, head out to the field for training, or when we may be able to schedule a 4 or 5 day weekend and head home to Cincinnati to see the family. It helps to know we won’t get “behind” if we take a break for those things. Plus, right now our duty station in in NE Arkansas, and it gets REALLY hot here in the summer, and the kids (everyone’s) spend most July/August indoors.
I added the days/hours up a while ago, and it = almost 172 days…not counting all the “real life” school that goes on all the time. So, I think it’s more than enough.
We do 3 months on and 1 month off.
This is our ideal schedule for the year:
On – September, October & November
Off – December
On – January, February & March
Off- April
On – May, June & July
Off – August
Blessings,
Heather
We do school year round you could say..
We start 1st of Aug. doing all the subjects then as we finish something we just don’t pick it up again unless it’s a core one. So like a month ago we finished math and DID re-order, but things like picture study we finished and are done now till Aug. again.
We do math, spelling and copywork all summer.
Our reason for doing it all year is as my dh says “I don’t get to go to work for 36 weeks and take off for 3 months, nor should our childrens brains”. Also, for us a schedule is very important our children thrive on it with out it things go just haywire. So it’s actually a blessing. Now mind you a playdate comes up or something and we’ll start our morning with chores, breakfast and then school if time allows if it doesn’t we just skip it.
So I would say YES we do school year round just with a lighter summer schedule.
Misty
We school year round. I agree with Misty’s husband. Our children need to learn that they will be expected to work 5 days/week 52 weeks/year. We do take off when Daddy is home and any other time that the Lord throws a fast ball. Which seem to be coming much more often!!! LOL!!!
This is our third year hmsing. Our first year we did school year round and it worked out great. We just took breaks as needed. The second year we tried to take the summer off, but it wasn’t working for us. So this year we are back to year round schooling. Our state requries 180 days which is just a minimum for our family. We actually go over like many families probably do with all the extra things we do Saturdays. I don’t schedule any work on Fridays unless it is a field trip, fun study, or if we had to miss a day during Mon. – Thurs. I split my year into 4 terms and schedule week long breaks during the holidays, summer, and the day off for birthdays! This seems to work well for us. The children also like that they can skip a good portion of their math each year because half of the book is review. They also prefer the year round because they realize they retain the knowledge more and we can have lighter days. I hope this helps someone. It is great to have so many wonderful ideas listed on this site. Thanks to all of you wonderful ladies for your honest heart in the hmsing journey!
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