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making the most of the seasons and scheduling
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So we live in GA (and are about to move to SC). Spring and Fall are awesome weather, and summer is really hot! In the past I have done a relatively traditional school schedule, and then done some more open ended “fun” school things lightly in the summer, after having the kids (8, 6, 4 and baby) outside as early as possible in the morning. This year I am really struggling with how beautiful the weather is and wanting them to be outside a LOT, but then still wanting some predictability. I guess I am trying to envision a schedule that is lighter in the spring, summer, and fall, and heavier in the winter. What does that look like? I know we need to track 180 days of school, but surely being outside can count as science and PE, right? My kids really seem to need a predictable schedule, so I am up for whatever, but just not sure the best way to implement it. During our “regular” school schedule, we do family stuff of about 1-1.5 hours (Bible, memory work, poetry, history, lit, science, geography, picture books) and my 8yo has about an hour of independent work, plus piano practice. I try to spend 15 minutes 1-on-1 with my 4yo, and 30 with my 6yo, and they love that time alone with me. They love all our together work and don’t really consider that school, but rather just life. They want to hear our read-alouds on the weekends when possible too. Mostly it’s the independent work that definitely takes a good bit of time (relatively speaking). Anyone have advice?
I don’t have any advice, but I’m from north GA and we are struggling with school getting done because it is sooo nice outside right now. The past week, as long as they read and do math, I’ve been letting it go. A few history notebook pages and that’s it. Days like this are hard to come by.
Technically I could say it science. We had a baby goat born (agriculture) so they stay with it all the time and the two younger ones have been building houses for their toy dogs (construction). We were hoping to be done by the end of May, but if the weather continues we will school 2 days during the summer to complete the 180 days.
What part of GA are you from?
We live in the northern part of Gwinnett County.
Today we skipped some of our regular stuff to take a walk and pick wildflowers. So worth it! I think I might be kind of shifting to year round schooling, but just doing “half days” when the weather is nice out. I have found, though, that too much unstructured time, even outside, and they start having behavior issues. Hard to find the right balance!
We are in north GA (soon to be living in Cherokee County) as well and are definitely loving this weather we’ve been having! All week we’ve been schooling in the mornings only, so that we can enjoy the afternoons outdoors. We school year round so that we can take more breaks or school lightly during the beautiful and busier seasons.
We are in Missouri, but also have hot summers (probably not as hot as early as you do, though). We also like to vacation in the spring and fall when crowds are lighter. For this next year, we will take seven weeks of May and June as our “summer vacation”. We will start back the last week of June and our first term will be July, August and September. (I prefer to schedule 13 week terms instead of 12 to allow cushion for sickness, birthdays, holidays, and just the need to take a day off and catch up around the house!) We will then take the first three weeks of October off for vacationing and enjoying the last of the warm weather. Our second term will span the last week of October, all of November, the first week of December (we will then take the next three weeks of December off for Christmas as it gets so hectic by then it gets tough to get school done anyway) and finish up the second term in January. Third term will be February, March and April. This gives us three thirteen week terms (giving a full extra week each term “cushion”) and thirteen weeks of scheduled vacation. It is a much shorter summer break than usual, but seven weeks is enough of a break without us forgetting everything and I can look forward to another three weeks off in October. I do plan out my next school year and get everything ordered in February, March and April so I don’t have to spend our shortened summer break thinking about school. Missouri requires 1,000 hours of school rather than 180 days, but three thirteen week terms with five per week gives you 195 days, so a full five days of “cushion” each term.
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