Help me think this through - when should we start?

[TXMomof4]

I have decided to use HOD for this next year. Our future is entirely up in the air and won't have any resolution until July probably. DH is applying to go full time active duty with the army. If everything goes as planned we will be moving, somewhere, sometime this fall. But we don't know and won't know for a few months. That is a little bit stressful to me.

 

But here's my dilemma - I like to start school in July. Really, we school year round with lots of little breaks throughout. However, packing up our entire life and moving to an unknown destination doesn't seem like it will be a little break. We have VBS the last week of July and it is a BIG deal here - I'm on the committee so will be pretty busy throughout July. Dh will be coming home from Iraq in Aug/Sept - so that will be a few weeks off schedule getting him home and adjusting to him being here. Then, if we move, we'll be packing, finding a new home, actually moving, getting settled in a new place - sometime in the fall. Part of me says just finish up the few loose ends from this year and dive into next years stuff so we will still get some good time in before all of the chaos of the rest of the year hits. Part of me says just to try to keep to the July - May schedule and hope for the best this fall. I hate not having good continuity though. A week off is one thing, weeks off is a different thing.

 

Help! Give me some perspective on this!

[Susan in KY]

Well, I don't know what HOD is, so maybe my thoughts would change if I knew how the curriculum was laid out. HOWEVER, in my current curriculum choices, I would do as much as I could with a relaxed touch through the summer. Then I could not worry about anything but math and library books while moving in the fall. That way you'd have a good head start and getting to school work is one thing off your mind while you're moving.

 

We moved a dozen times in a dozen years and the stress never lessened. :tongue_smilie: No need to add getting behind on school to everything else.

[ConnieB]

I agree with Susan....I would take a very relaxed schedule so that I wouldn't feel "behind", but I also wouldn't take that long of a break completely.

 

Perhaps choose which subjects you feel need to be kept on schedule the most and concentrate on those....for our house that would be math and grammar/writing/spelling. While I consider our curriculum to be literature and history centered, those are the two subjects that I most want to ensure that we do almost every day. We school year round simply so that we can take days/weeks off when we want...when life gets in the way, or when events come up that we don't want to miss. Sometimes they're educational, sometimes not, but knowing that we put in more days over the course of a year, I don't worry about missing time when something comes up. We travel a lot with DH when he goes away on business, so we often do "school on the road" and those subjects are easiest to transport.

 

Math would certainly be one that could easily be done admist the chaos of moving.....if your child can't work the pages themselves, have them bring their book into the room and you can talk them through it while you pack that room. If your kids are so little that counting is the lesson of the week, have them count how many items you put in each box...or how many boxes are in the room. For older kids, estimate how many boxes the room will require. There are lots of ways of getting math into an ordinary day and math is one of those subjects that requires resources that would all fit into a backpack and be easily transported and done whereever.

 

English/grammar/spelling would require a bit more space in the backpack, but can be pared down to the bare essentials without all my tweaking and extras for a time being.

 

History on the other hand.....I use so many resources and so many library books and so much hands on projects, that this does not travel with us. But, when we travel we typically hit museums and such, so they're bound to get science and/or history in that fashion. If your move has you driving to your next residence, and your stuff is a bit further behind, consider hitting some educational stops along the way....it'll make the trip more fun than sitting in the car day after day, and throw in some fun learning that won't really feel like learning.

 

If however, you find that even doing minimal school is too stressful for you....then by all means do what is best for yourself and your family. You can always double up on the lessons when life gets back to normal...but a stressful homelife can have much more damaging effects than some delayed schooling.