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Schedule/Plan for the Year–Options
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I was just curious of what ideas people have done or have heard of others doing as far as how to schedule the year. For example:
- Follow the public school calendar (Sept – May, Summers off)
- School 3 weeks out of the month, take 4th week off, for 12 months
- One I just read today: do the core stuff through the year (Math, reading, etc), “extra” stuff in the summer (science, poetry, etc)
- School for 3 months, then 2 weeks off, 3 months, then 2 weeks off…would that leave all of December off or something? Or half of December/half of January?
What are some other plans out there?
Thanks.
I used to school 6 on, 2 off. Then tried 3 on, 1 off. We’ve finally settled into 3 months work and 4 months to do it. We school year on, but a bit lighter in summers as the kids have gotten older.
For the last few years we’ve gone straight through from September, not taking holiday time so we end at the beginning of May for 4 months off. Our summer schedule was a bit of math in the morning and that was it (they are always reading!). This worked well for us as. I’ve thought about doing 6 week and 1 week off and might try it next year with the hopes that for the 6 weeks there is focus and attention so they don’t have work to do during their week off.
We are required to have 180 days. We have 365 days to get that in. We school flexibly year-round with no more formal plan than that.
We’re required to have 900 hours (Ohio). We school year round and take breaks when we feel like it, do heavier days in the traditional school year but also do light school in summer (sometimes full school if it fits our life better). I used to be more formal about it all but once Mason was born my plans went out the window and his many appointments and suprise surgeries took precedence. I’m learning to let God plan our breaks and just accept them when they are needed.
We do the same as missceegee, 3 months of work per 4 calendar months. It works well for us. In some ways I would like to go lighter during the summer, but it seems there is always something to take time off for in any given month so year round it is!
We also just take a break when we feel like it. In the summer, we do about 1/2 as much work per week as during the rest of the year. We take the day off for birthdays. We take days off when Grandparents come to visit. And we take days off when Mom gets overwhelmed with the clutter that collects in the laundry room or can’t stand looking at the carpet any longer without steam cleaning it! Things like that …
We also just continue on with our books and programs, so there is no real beginning and end. We just move to the next book or subject or level whenever we finish the one we are on.
Which brings me to this weeks dilemna. Are my kids now in the grade that their age peers are finishing today (last day of school), or the grade that the peers will start in September? It only matters when people ask, but it occured to me that right now I wouldn’t know what to answer!
jmac17 – too funny a question! For my kids they are the next grade once we do their standardized testing for the year. So we took tests mid-May and they are officially done with the grade they tested for. In your situation I would pick a date, for example the beginning of July could be your ‘new year’ where you begin calling children the next grade, or the first of June, or whatever you wish.
I am planning on 15 week terms, schooling 4 days a week.
Term 1
July 7- October 17 (15 weeks)
Off October 19-31 (2 weeks)
Term 2
November 3-December 19 (7 weeks)
Off dec 22- jan 2 (2 weeks)
January 5- feb 27 (8 weeks)
Off march 2-6 (1 week)
Term 3
March 9-June 19 (15 weeks)
Off June 22-July 3 (2 weeks)
We are doing 2 weeks in the fall and Christmas because we are in Florida so that is when it is nice out. 2-3 months offing the summer just results in too much time inside whining at me that it’s too hot to play outside. So for us it makes sense not to plan summer off. I can see maybe even doing 2 weeks in March and only 1 for our summer break.
We have just recently started doing the 3weeks on, 1 week off, year round schedule. I think it will go much better than trying to get done in less months and be ready to take off the summer. We always ended up having to do things throughout the summer anyway, but it did not feel good, like we were playing catch up all the time.
We start and September and end in June. We’ll probably start a week after Labor Day and when we finish, we finish. This year that just finished, we started a week after Labor Day and finished the middle of May. I am hoping to do that again. I really get spring fever in May and am just done!! But, we will go into June if need be. I am planning to take off 2-3 weeks at Christmas/New Year’s time and a week the end of March or first of April. We also take off any governement holidays. My husband works for the Bureau of Land Management, so if he is off so are we – unless we are behind on something. We are also off on Friday’s ’cause my husband only works M-Th. If we get the planned information in, I don’t care how long it takes us to do it. I am thankful that our state doesn’t require a certain # of days. The only thing we didn’t finish last year was math, but we didn’t even start the math book until March because we were doing Rapid Recall with our math facts up until then.
Before we started the “school” journey, I had planned to school year round. But, we are just so busy in the summer that it doesn’t work for us. We tried one year to do term 1, take a month off, term 2, take a month off, term 3 take the rest of the summer off. But, by spring we just wanted to finish so we didn’t take the whole month off and got done earlier.
We tend to figure a start date and then plan flexible breaks, making sure that we are at a good stopping spot.
Right now I am feeling totally overwhelmed and am dreading September and starting school again . . . and it is only June. We are just going to be so busy and I’ve still got so much planning that I feel like I am not going to get any break or “rejuvinate” time.
We do roughly the PS school year, which here is September-end of June. I wanted to start partway through August a few years, and something always happened (hospital stays, etc…) so I’m just gotten to thinking that our family just isn’t supposed to start early. We also end up having summer camps etc, and we have similar aged relatives that get the summer off… so we do too. I do generally have a bit we do during summer – a bit of reading, some math games, and a general project…. this year it is typing.
It took a couple of years for me to get my dh to understand that we couldn’t take every single holiday, professional development day, early dismissal, etc. that PS had…. especially if we were going to have some random family field trips, errand days, etc….
I prefer to begin and end our school year about the same time as schools in our area. August – May This year we started a week earlier and finished a week earlier. I like to have June and July free for beach days and visiting family. We take days off during the year as it fits our schedule. Sometimes my husband says he can get away on a Friday so we do. I need that flexibility.
We also have to have 180 days.
I should add that for planning purposes, I think in terms – Fall Term, Winter Term, Spring Term, Summer Term. Summer Term is really just lots of free reading, arts and crafts, music, nature. We do those during our regular terms also, but I like to keep those things going year round. It’s just part of our family culture. Also lots of gardening, canning, and freezing during summer term! 🙂
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