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How do you homeschool year round?
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I posted not long ago about struggling with homeschooling and keeping my home in order right now while pregnant, and I’m happy to say I have taken the advice for getting a housekeeper. She will be coming a couple times a week starting this coming week.
Now I am wanting to focus on schooling and I’m thinking about doing year round school, but I’m not sure when you start and stop that. So far I have just tried to stick by the public school schedule, but that hasn’t worked. Particularly not this year. I planned to start school in late august but we didn’t and haven’t done much other than reading aloud as I have been battling morning sickness and low energy. I don’t want the whole school year to go by having not done any real school work, but is it too late to start?
With Thanksgiving, christmas and a new year coming, I just feel so behind and I’m not sure how to schedule an entire school year if we are starting so late…
When I started homeschooling year round, I just started a new year a few days after I finished the old one. That usually got us started in the summer. I think somebody on this board starts their year in January. Could you do that?
In my state, you have to file your Delcaration of Intent by Sept. 1, but then you have an entire year to get the 180 days in.
We take time of for the Fall Holidays, a few arounf Thanksgiving, a few days of HAnukkah and then a few for Christmas since my extended family observes it and I have to bake and we visit them. Then New Years Day.
Then we go for while and then don’t have another significant break until the Passover- we take a 2-3 weeks off prior to to get the home prepared and then the entire week of. Then we go back to work and take off a couple days at Shavuot. By this point I’m trying to get the garden ready, too so our schedule begins to be adjusted. Once June starts, I’ve gone to a lighter summer schedule.
So as you can see it’s a very flexible schedule. Our big breaks are in the spring and summer with a couple days here and there scattered about, and a lighter schedule to accomodate gardening and preserving.
Just adjust it to your lives. At the beginning of the year, I print out calendar and highlight all the Biblical and Jewish Holidays and National Holidays for the next year and then circle the actual days which we will be off.
We work Sun-Thurs. with Fri. having only about 2-3 independent subjects for them to do (except for Bible study); until summer hits and then I will either make the days shorter or work on fewer days. It depends on how far along we are and what we’ve gotten accomplished.
HTH
It’s very flexible. I have planned 3 weeks on, 1 off throughout the year with 2-3 at Christmas and 2-3 in fall or spring when it’s cooler. One of the best and simplest ways IMHO is to plan 3 months of work and allow 4 months to complete it. Sept. – Dec., Jan. – Apr., May – Aug. This gives you goalposts without locking you in to specific days off. I’m morphing to this method myself.
I always look at our family calendar and block off any big holidays or trips so I can keep that in mind as we go.
We just keep going picking up where we left off. I think start and end dates are unnecessary as learning is continual. We have breaks, by if we finish early or late we keep with our studies.
We technically start our new school year in January and continue througout the year, usually with a longer break over the Christmas holidays-January (we’ve moved the last two Januaries in a row and will move again this January…which is basically as long as we’ve been homeschooling, so it just makes sense for us to take our long break then, and start fresh after we are settled.) I’ve tried various means of scheduling (3 weeks on, 1 week off, etc.), but have found the easiest way for me is not to schedule at all, but just to take days off here and there as well need them (sometimes just because we need a break, sometimes because we have something else going on, sometimes because we go on vacation or a holiday or grandparents visiting or whatever.) We rarely take more than a day or 2 off at a time unless we’ve gone away from home for some reason. I mark on a calendar each day that we do school and keep a running total at the end of each month to help keep myself on track and make sure we are on target to get 180-ish days in by the end of the year. We tend to average about 4 days per week over a month-long period, more or less. (We’re overseas so I don’t have reporting requirements, but use this more as a guideline to keep myself accountable.) I blogged more in detail about my scheduling system here:http://snowfallacademy.blogspot.fr/search/label/Schedule
Jen
We just went fully to yearround this year. It is working great. We started mid-July after finishing prior year end of June.
I do just what Christie said. I plan 3 months or 12 weeks of work and allot 4 calendar months to complete. It had worked out like that as we just completed our 1st term mid-November, 4 months after we started.
Our next 4 months will end mid-March. It will be a bit trickier as I tend to want more time off in Dec than we need. All of our family is local so no major traveling. Plus more than 2 weeks straight and we fall into bad habits. We do supplement with more handicrafts (gifts) and pare down extras, and cook more and do woodcrafts, etc.
Then our final 4 months will end mid-July, but we will be done by mid-June b/c I need time to plan for the next year. We may have lingering subjects that need finishing independently throuh end of June, but no new things at that point.
I also take a calendar like Rachel said and X out days/weeks I know we are out ahead of time. I love the simple year on one page versions on donnayoung.org for keeping attendance. I keep it in a page protector in my planning notebook.
I haven’t really started much with my younger set of kids, but with my older ones our year went like this:
- We usually took vacations in September after everyone else went back to school. Our vacations were usually educational, but not much book work involved. We generally started book work the last week of September.
- We schooled up to Thanksgiving, and then took off from Thanksgiving until January 2. We had a lot of bad thing happen in my family in December (deaths, divorces, etc) and also one of my son’s birthday. I always found myself struggling and hating the holiday season, so we spent our time doing holiday things and keeping an emotional balance in our nuclear family, instead of pushing to “get school done”. It was a long break, but it really helped my family a LOT.
- School from Jan 2 until mid to late February. Both my older kids have a chronic illness that often flares up in Feb/March so we would take off however much time we need, or just do simplified school with a couple key subjects.
- After Easter (varies with the calendar) we would generally be back to a full school load until mid June when the local PS let out. If I felt we were “behind” in any subjects we would contune with a light load of only those subjects until mid-August.
- We would take lots of day trips, museuem visits and educational activities on our vacations. Even if these were on weekends or times we were “off” school I would count those tword the “attendance” I turned in to the state. So for example, if we were on vacation I would count the day we visited to the civil war battlefield but not the 2 days driving in the car. We were required to have 180 days of “school” and we always had around 225.
We didn’t really do CM back then, but I plan on doing a similar schedule with my younger kids/CM. I am sure we will have different needs and take off different times, but I just made it work for us. We would/will take days off as needed to enable us to do stuff with other families who had a more tradational schedule.
I “start” (I a mean that loosely, since we never really stop)our school year in July just because that is when our umbrella school start theirs, that way I keep it on tune with them. But for us that “first day of school” is just the continuation of last week. We usually take a fall break week, three days for Thanksgiving, two weeks for Christmas, spring break, a week or two in May for our vacation (this year was almost a month but we traveled internationally). Those are the breaks I know I will take, but in between those we take a few days here and there just to relax and avoid burn out. Just like Jen said, I dont schedule specific breaks like three weeks of school and one off, but just take a break when I feel it is needed. One thing I have learned the hard way is that going more than 6 weeks without stopping will cause burnout at leat for me.
Also, I have come up with “maintanence weeks” for when I dont think it would be wise to take a break (maybe cause Chritsmas break is just around the corner or we just took a break) but I’m needing to relax on the school part. On those “maintanence weeks” I do the minimun: copy work, phonics (if I do them everyday maybe I just do them three days that week), I read to my kids from our required readings, math games instead of “class”, I skip art study and music appreciation. You get the idea, it’s like an emergency mode, when you only do the bare minimun to keep things moving, to keep the kids on the same routine. I see it this way, when I used to work on the school system, they would count a half day (they started at 7:15 so 11:30 would be a half day) as a whole day. So for days when they expected snow, they made sure they got that half a day so they wouldnt have to make it up. So my maintanence days are like my half days, I do just a couple of things and if you add the character training, you got enough time to count it as a whole day.
Hope you feel better!
We start our new year in January, but that really doesn’t mean a whole lot. It’s not like we start all our new curriculum at that time. We are where we are. We finish when we finish and start new books when we need to. We’re very flexible. We are working on Mod. 2 right now and we’re just about half way through it. I don’t know when we’ll be done, but when we are we’ll go straight to Mod. 3.
I try to get 4 full school days in a week when it’s during the public school year. During summer months I do 3 days a week. That gets me all the days required, and I find that I’m less burned out if I do only 4 a week vs. 5 a week. Now, my boys are a bit behind where I want them to be in math so they do a lesson of math on the 5th day usually, even though we do nothing else. I want them to continue pushing through with math so they can catch up a bit. My dd7 is where she’s supposed to be in math so she just does the 4 days.
Anyway, I do like year round schooling because large breaks are just not what our family needs. We need the flexibility of taking days when we need them. If I know my next week is going to be extra busy, maybe I will push through with a 5 day week, so I only need to do a 3 day week the next week. You get the picture. =) My dh has a varied schedule, which is another reason to be very flexible. It provides more family time when he’s home if we work around his schedule a bit.
Best wishes!
We started our first grade year in May this year because we ended our K material so early. I have planned for 3 terms. May-Jun-Jul-Aug is Term 1. Sept-Oct-Nov-Dec is Term 2. Jan-Feb-Mar-Apr is Term 3. We planned for 36 weeks of work, so 12 weeks per 16 week term. This gives us 4 full weeks off each term and we have been taking those days off as they come, whenever we need to. It has been working out well so far.
I would definitely suggest taking the holidays “off” and regrouping in January, if I were you. That is actually what we end up doing every year, so I just plan it that way now. Thanksgiving (the week leading up to it, actually b/c we’re getting ready to go out of town) through New Year’s is off. Now, of course that doesn’t mean they don’t learn. We follow our similar daily rhythm and just read Christmas books and make gifts and bake and decorate and do things like that during the “school” time. I still have them read daily and I’m reading aloud Christmas related books, but we don’t do the other subjects.
January is a great time to get a fresh start. After that, I would do whatever works for your family. There have been some great ideas here. You can either SCHEDULE certain times as on and off or you could just sort of go with the flow and take off when you need to, but do school whenever you don’t need to be off for any reason. It’s up to you. I definitely agree with the 4 day week thing! And, always count field trips and outings as shool days.
Try to make it as much a natural part of life as possible and be flexible. Go with the flow. Don’t let it get you all stressed out.
And TAKE OFF THE REST OF THIS YEAR! Enjoy the season with your children. Read and bake and make and listen to Christmas music.
Blessings!
Melissa
We do a lot of the above mentioned. We also count carschooling. 🙂 This is driving somewhere and listening to History, Liturature or German Tapes,MP3 or CD’s. It also counts watching DVD’s of educational value. We do a 4 day a week school. But, we do a library day with a computer time that can be counted as a 5th day since it is educational. We are also more relaxed. I expect them to get certain work done. (the basics) in the 4 days or no Library. Then we add to the rest when we have time left in our daily/weekly schedule. We also take off when we have our holidays. We go on vacations Usually, one the first week in Aug. One the first week in Nov. for 2 weeks. and a third sometime during the year. We also take off for Biblical Holidays.
When I take off for a long period of time it is harder for all of us. I like that we are more relaxed and that we can get more done doing it all in a year. Especially if I am feeling behind. I am amazed at how much more we get done when we aren’t pushed to get it all done at a certain schedule. It gets done. I hate to feel rushed to get it all done by the ps schedule. I never did like having to go on vacation when we had to be in ps school. Why should I stick to their schedule now that I am out? 🙂
You will find your own nitch, It might take you a little while of trial and error but you will find what fits your family and what is more comfortable for you. I wish you the best of luck! Have a blessed day!!!
We school July – June, 5 weeks on 1 week off. Sometimes our 5 weeks gets shortened or stretched because of a holiday or event we want to take off for or sickness interrupting our week. We get way more than our 180 days but my boys don’t retain much with long breaks, plus I’m always pursuing something I’d like to learn in life so why shouldn’t they?
Sorry if some of this is repeated from previous posts…didn’t have time to read through them all tonight :0(.
We have done school year round for about three years now. We started during a particularly difficult year when I was pregnant and we had a round of sicknesses that knocked us off our ‘normal’ schedule.
This is what we do:
School is Monday – Friday, but Mondays mornings are music lessons, library, and a PE class. Friday is a lighter afternoon – nature walks, picture study, composer study. We used to do school at home Monday – Thursday with outside lessons and classes grouped on Fridays – and I liked it better that way. Having just one day of running around in the week helps everyone settle in and get work done at home. But we just moved to a new area, and this was the best we could do. Sometimes you just have to do what works and make adjustments later on.
We do school all year round, but take breaks for sickness, vacation in the summer, a week for Thanksgiving, a week in the Spring. We also take 3 weeks off in December to focus on making presents, service, and just enjoying Jesus’ birthday. Because we make the majority of our income in the Fall, December is when we purchase curriculum and we start fresh in January.
Occasionally, I also take breaks just because we feel the need to do so. We may need to focus on organization, or cleaning, or our home business, or just play and have more fun for a week. I don’t worry about when I am going to schedule these breaks. We just do life and learning on a daily basis and the breaks come along naturally as well.
The whole idea of CM homeschooling is that learning and growing is an innate part of your life, not ‘seperate’ somehow from the rest of your life. When you make learning a part of your family life, you will find that the kids soon get bored without it! And you know where boredom leads…whining, arguments, etc…it is really easier just to have ‘school’.
My kids have developed the habit of learning so that they don’t realize it is school. They watch science and history documentaries in their free time and read great literature for fun!! Nature walks are the highlight of their week! They don’t know they are weird and I am not going to tell them – HOMESCHOOLING ROCKS :0)!
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