Year round schedules and how you use them?

[Senorita Tuna Fish]

Does anyone here use a year round schedule? If so do you care to share it? Do you keep the same intensity all of the time or is it more relaxed. What are some of the things that you add in the summer. Do you use the summer for review? How do the children enjoy it? Does it leave room for summer fun, vacations, swimming, ect?

[angela in ohio]

We school six days a week, year round. I want my dc to know that learning is something you do all the time. We take Sundays off for a day of rest, and we take vacations off.

 

Every year varies a bit, depending on what we are involved in and what our vacation plan is. This past year, the older girls did Challenge, so we did a more traditional school year schedule and now we're doing some short-term projects.

 

Usually (and for next year,) I just divide the work up into 42-46 weeks or so. We do less per subject each week, which allows for (1.) doing more, and (2.) taking more days off. We take days off a lot in April, May, September, and October. We take off two or three weeks at Christmas, a week or two for Spring Break, and a few weeks in late July and early August for dh's vacation. Ournew year starts each year about the second week of August.

[Senorita Tuna Fish]

Do you kids still have time for things like dance lessons, music lesson, ect? What type of activities do you do on saturday? How do the kids enjoy this schedule?

[robsiew]

I just decided to go to a year-round schedule this year so it's an experiment! During the year we took off Thanksgiving week, a couple weeks at Christmas and some time in January because of helping a friend through the death of her father. We also took about a week off this spring and days here and there throughout the other months. We take all the kids' bdays off. We are heading into our last 2 full weeks of school. Then we'll take 3 weeks off in June. After that we'll start up again full schedule, but only 3 days a week. In September we'll start up 5 days a week again. Weeks that we take vacation we'll just take off (we don't go away all that often and when we camp it's usually at the end of the week/weekend which works into this schedule well).

[angela in ohio]

Do you kids still have time for things like dance lessons, music lesson, ect? What type of activities do you do on saturday? How do the kids enjoy this schedule?

 

They all take music and art lessons. The oldest two are girls, and they dance. The youngest is a boy, and he plays sports year round. We have more time for those, because they have less work each week due to the longer schedule. Saturdays are full school days unless we have something else going on. We like to travel during the week, when there are less people at attractions, so we only miss Saturdays for family events usually.

 

My dc love it. They even make up their own school work when they have a vacation. :D

[Melissa B]

We schedule our year into three terms Sept - Dec, Jan - Apr and May - Aug. I schedule 15 weeks of work for each term. Basically, we have two weeks play in each term and an extra week off the end of December.

[twoxcell]

We pretty much finished our school year last Friday! This week we are finishing up science. For the rest of May and June we will be doing reading, nature study, math games, etc. I plan to start up the new school year the beginning of July. We will take 1 week off in Sept., 1 week in Nov., 2 weeks in Dec., and 1 week in March.

[siloam]

Ideally? We do 4 days weeks, 4 weeks of school and 1 week off. In addition I take 2 weeks off in June and at Christmas, and I will adjust the weeks to accommodate other times off if they don't line up right (like Thanksgiving). I do a lot of intense programs that require prep and planning so for the last 6 months I have been doing:

 

2 Weeks of full hsing

1 Week of the kids doing their independent work and I do planning

2 Weeks of full hsing

1 Week off

 

It is working for now, though I do hope to catch up and be back to the old schedule, but I really could continue this way for a while if need be.

 

Heather

[Closeacademy]

We do 4 day weeks. Fridays are for playgroup and errands.

 

January to April is our time for a full schedule and we get a lot of work done at this time of the year. We may take 1 week of spring break if we are feeling burned out. We start a lot of new curriculum in January.

 

May is usually vacation time and we take up to the entire month off. The weather is often nice and it is a good time for us to have summer break. Sometimes we do school the first and/or last week of the month.

 

June through August is another good time for us to get a decent amount of work done. We start some new curriculum at this time. We may take 1 week off for 4th of July or VBS.

 

September through Thanksgiving is a time where we are winding down the year. Doing those last units and finishing off curriculum. Subjects start falling off the schedule toward the end of October. We take the week of Labor Day off.

 

Thanksving through New Years is a time when we focus on a Christmas unit, math and phonics if needed. We finish off anything else we need to get done in the first week or two. We often take up to 3 weeks off for Christmas.

 

This has been working for us for about 6 years now.:001_smile:

[hsmom]

This will be our first year. I am doing it for the simple reason a full summer off is just too much of a break. Also another big reason is I hate the feeling that something has to be done by a certain date. Then you end up behind because kids get sick and life happens. So, this year were are doing it all year. We are keeping summers simple.

 

June 1st- Oct 1st - 7 days on 7 days off. (this works with dads schedule. He works 7 on 7 off)

Oct - May - our weeks will be 5 days when dad is at work, 4 days when he is off

This is taking a 2 week break at Christmas and 1 week in the spring. We will still have like 2 more weeks to take off as needed or not.

 

I am hoping it works out the way I have planned. It will take a lot of stress off of me. Now with our studies we are doing the once a book is done we move on to the next. Like we are still doing K LA, but we just started out 1st grade math.

[Wee Pip]

We school year-round, but our days off aren't planned ahead of time.

We have homeschool co-op classes every 2 weeks, so that is 2 days off per month.

We take a day or two off for cleaning house days, field trips, and holidays.

Summers have a lot of random off-days: beach days, park days, VBS weeks, vacation, etc.

We do half days when I want/need to.

 

I am trying something different this year.

This summer, we will do -

Math

Science

History

 

Our Sci & His should be finished in 24 weeks (so winter). Then our schedule will be -

Math

Language Arts (Reading, Grammar, Writing, Spelling)

 

Not sure how this will work out, yet, but I'm flexible.

[Guest]

It is looking like year-around is going to work for us, at least for the next few years. We live where it is already nearing 100* and we're still in May. You can imagine the next few months. :glare: We do 4 days per week. Because we can, I feel it is important for my ds to continue in his studies to help retain what he is learning. I'd hate to take a few months off and have him forget everything!

 

Here is a loose schedule ~

 

M - Sonlight, language arts, math, game(s), unit study

T - Sonlight, language arts, math, game(s), science experiement

W - Sonlight, math, language arts, game(s), unit study

Th - field trip, co-op, library, optional school

F - Sonlight, language arts, math, game(s), nature walk

 

We currently do history and science reading through Sonlight and we normally read those books on Fridays. Our unit studies go further into those subjects, too.

 

At this point, we just take weeks off whenever we feel like it - illness, family visits, nice weather, etc. We don't have any state set regulations, although I know we exceed most, anyway. As long as my son stays ahead, we will continue at this pace. If we ever were to fall behind, we would definitely go more structured. I like the idea of schooling year-around until they get older and have friends that have summers off. Then, we would also re-evaluate.

 

ETA: My son just started piano and that is scheduled in the afternoon, after school is over. We will take weeks off for VBS and swimming lessons. We'll also be going to CA for a week in September - it leaves plenty of room for extra fun stuff. ;)

Edited May 17, 2010 by Guest

[PentecostalMom]

I humbly say that me....not so much! We have schooled year-round since we started ten years ago. My schedule is simply based on life. At this point, I have two youngers and we have two homeschool park days per week. One of the days is for errands and park day, the other is for light school and park day. If something comes up, we can take off for it, or modify our day. We have lived in a variety of places due to dh's work, so our schedule has changed a lot over the years.

[delaney]

We school six days a week, year round. I want my dc to know that learning is something you do all the time. We take Sundays off for a day of rest, and we take vacations off.

 

Every year varies a bit, depending on what we are involved in and what our vacation plan is. This past year, the older girls did Challenge, so we did a more traditional school year schedule and now we're doing some short-term projects.

 

Usually (and for next year,) I just divide the work up into 42-46 weeks or so. We do less per subject each week, which allows for (1.) doing more, and (2.) taking more days off. We take days off a lot in April, May, September, and October. We take off two or three weeks at Christmas, a week or two for Spring Break, and a few weeks in late July and early August for dh's vacation. Ournew year starts each year about the second week of August.

Do you live in a neighborhood? We do and it would be entirely IMPOSSIBLE to do that with all of the kids around us out of school all summer. I really want to start with the girls in July doing geography and I can see the fights already.

[Amy Jo]

We are going year-round, this is my simplest plan:

 

4 terms (Sep-Nov, Dec-Feb, Mar-May, Jun-Aug):

 

5 weeks school + 1 week catchup or test (if needed)

5 weeks school + 1 week catchup or test (if needed) and plan

 

1 week off (where ever we need it)

 

So 12 weeks of school per term. Daily subjects (reading, composition, math, languages) are "do the next thing" and for history/artist study/science I plan 10 weeks per term, so life & fun can happen.

 

To make the summer lighter we will be doing Nature Study for science and American history with living books. We start a "new" school year in Sept., so I can take advantage of summer sales and because its right after my birthday :tongue_smilie:. Unless something major occurs, I start new subjects / curriculum at the beginning of a (any) term.

 

Right now I plan 2 light days and 3 longer days, since that works better with DH's schedule.

 

Amy

[angela in ohio]

Do you live in a neighborhood? We do and it would be entirely IMPOSSIBLE to do that with all of the kids around us out of school all summer. I really want to start with the girls in July doing geography and I can see the fights already.

 

Sort of. We live in a row of one acre lots backed by a field. We have neighbor kids running around out back, especially the boy next door who is just a bit younger than ds. We have taught our dc in this area the same as many other areas; they should not expect to do what other children do. They are also in bed while the neighbor kids are still out playing. :D

[nmoira]

We school five days a week during the traditional school year. Scheduled days off include vacations (usually three or four days tops, twice a year), birthdays, theatre/field trip days, and a couple holidays. We're generous with sick days (we tend to "fun" work and David Attenborough on these days), and allow personal days. However, the latter don't happen often... probably because we make up half the work missed during the weekend. ;)

 

During summer we cut back to four days a week and shorten days a bit, with a homeschool Park Day on the off day. There are usually one or two week-long full-day summer camps. This year we've added a couple half day camps, during which time we'll do a super-light school day.

 

Edited to add: I take personal days when I need them, but don't make the kids make up that time. :) When possible, we all go to a movie, so I sometimes notice the kids eyeing me hopefully when I'm particularly grumpy. :tongue_smilie:

[pageta]

We do 4-day weeks with one week taken off each month. I schedule for 40 days per quarter, which is 160 days per year. We cover all of our curriculum in that amount of time and do enough field trips to easily cover the remaining "school" days.

 

Right now we take our "week" off each month here and there. I have little kids and we need the structure of school. They ask for it if we don't do it. I can take one or two days off per week (our usual day and one other), but if I start doing more than that, they start asking questions. I do plan ahead a little if I know a family vacation or something like VBS is coming up where I will have a block of days off. Today we just finished day 23 of our spring quarter (April - June) so we're right on track.

 

We go to the library every Wednesday for storytime so that is also our errand day. So we school M, T, Th and F. In May, August and December, the library does not do storytime so we're a bit more freestyle. We also school in the afternoons when it's hot in the summer but nice in the mornings. My kids are still young enough to live in the moment and thrive on routine so this works for us.

[Ellie]

Monday and Tuesday: Official School Stuff

Wednesday: Library

Thursday: Field trip

Friday: Clean house, park day one Friday a month

 

That was our schedule for many years. Our Official School Year started about the middle of January; we took off a couple of weeks in the spring, a couple of weeks in late August/early September, and any other random time off as needed. We put away the Official School Stuff at Thanksgiving, but the other days mostly remained the same year-round.

[GoVanGogh]

We "school" off and on, year-round.

I don't follow a strict schedule, just let "life" dictate to a degree and follow our natural family rhythms. Some seasons are simply busier than others. We take advantage of quiet times by schooling hard. We set aside our books and take advantage of 'educational opportunities' when life gets crazy.

Ex: This year we are taking most of June off, as DS is going to a day camp one week, we have two field trips scheduled the next week and a three day camp the following week. But both camps are highly educational (chosen for that reason) so I will actually count them toward our days.

 

Last year we completed 191 days of school, ~40 days were field trips and ~12 were camp days. The remaining were good, solid days of school at home. We completed our core curriculum.

 

DS takes music classes all year, regardless of whether we are doing formal school at the time or not.

Some years, DS takes an art class through the summer, though this year he is just doing a few art camps scattered throughout summer.

In the summer, he also takes swim lessons, sports class and attends programs at two local libraries. (Summer reading program activities.)

 

Ex: We won't do school on Monday, but DS will take swim lessons in the a.m., music in the afternoon and attend a library program that evening. We will school Tuesday-Friday. DS participates in a sports class Wed afternoon and a library program Thur afternoon. This still leaves us time for school and "life" as things come up.

 

I really don't find that outside classes interfere too much with our school time, so that isn't an issue. I try to balance our outside activities, whatever the season. (Both for time and expense!)

 

We actually prefer to vacation during the 'off-season' when places are less crowded and tend to be cheaper. We enjoy 'educational travel' so always plan vacations around field trip opportunities. (Therefore, those days count as school.)

 

DS doesn't know any different, so he doesn't have an issue with our schedule. He knows that he does school some days when his friends are out of school - but he also knows he is out off school many days when his friends are in school. He also knows that his longest school day is 3 hours, vs the 7 hour days his friends have!

I am not shy about turning friends away at the door, no matter what season it is. (I hate having neighborhood kids drop by in January just as much as in July!)

[VaKim]

We do year round, 4 day weeks, no different in summer. We just take off whenever we need or want, and still always end up with more days than ps. Our year "officially" starts in January, but in reality, whenever we finish something, we just move on to the next thing, regardless of when it is. Works for us. :)

[Amber in AUS]

We school most days that Daddy is at work. He has 4 weeks annual leave plus every other Monday off. We take occasional holidays and sometimes (maybe once a month) we have 2 or 3 days off in the week because we have appointments etc. Generally though we are schooling, we don't have stay home school holidays IYKWIM.

[mom4him]

We do year around school 4 1/2 days a week. I have them do Math and LA 5 days a week, Sc. and History 3-4 days a week.

We normally start our 'new year' the second full week of Aug. but only to Math and LA for a couple of months. This year I am thinking of doing Sc. during that time also as it works in. I can and take care of finishing up our garden during this time. Starting in Oct. we will start with History.

We take a week off at Thanksgiving, 2-3 weeks off at Christmas, sometimes a week off at Easter and first part of June, depending on what has happened in our lives and if my sister comes to spend some time in June. I try to finish our 'school year' by the middle of July so we have 3-4 wks off before we start up again in Aug.

I try to stay very steady with Math and LA 5 days a week no matter what else is happening in our family. We are a bit more relaxed with Sc. and Hist.

Because of special circumstance about the only outside activities that we do is church twice a week. We have a pool set up in our back yard so they get plenty of time to play in that from June through Aug. We make trips to the library every week or so, go to the parks several times a week, weather permitting, etc.

We NEVER do school on Sat or Sun as those are catch up for around the house, church, and get to go do something special days.

You will find what works for your family. I am the only one that I know of in this area that does school year around but it works for me. To me the biggest is it takes the stress out of having to take a day here or there for Dr. appointments, company dropping by etc.

My health is not the most stable so it also gives me the opportunity to take times of rest when I need them.

One of the biggest is my kids don't have to spend a month at the beginning of the year relearning things that they have forgotten during the 3 months of vacation.

[delaney]

Sort of. We live in a row of one acre lots backed by a field. We have neighbor kids running around out back, especially the boy next door who is just a bit younger than ds. We have taught our dc in this area the same as many other areas; they should not expect to do what other children do. They are also in bed while the neighbor kids are still out playing. :D

I see. We are in a closer set housing development. There are no HS families near us and it makes it very hard to get anything done when school is out. It is very frustrating to me b/c I want to HS the girls next year and have the freedom to work when we want to work...whether it be a summer day, weekend day.....and it will be nearly impossible!

[lailasmum]

We home educate year round. I try and make sure we do and an hour or two of our curriculum based work monday to friday. We often do things on saturdays too. We tend to just plod on and then take off any days we fancy. We seem to be getting things done but we have no requirements to fulfil.

 

Often we will take off a whole week if we have had a very busy few weeks or have colds. I think we probably get through more in the winter because the weather keeps us inside and my dh is away a lot, maybe only home 1 weekend a month.

 

I think its a gentler pace of life continuing all year. We go to a home ed group once a fortnight (which I organise) and do art groups and various other social things. Planning to start swimming lessons again soon. When the weather is good we tend to spend the afternoons outside.

 

I don't really schedule that tightly, I just have a rough idea in my head what we want to get done this month.

[Senorita Tuna Fish]

I just decided to go to a year-round schedule this year so it's an experiment! During the year we took off Thanksgiving week, a couple weeks at Christmas and some time in January because of helping a friend through the death of her father. We also took about a week off this spring and days here and there throughout the other months. We take all the kids' bdays off. We are heading into our last 2 full weeks of school. Then we'll take 3 weeks off in June. After that we'll start up again full schedule, but only 3 days a week. In September we'll start up 5 days a week again. Weeks that we take vacation we'll just take off (we don't go away all that often and when we camp it's usually at the end of the week/weekend which works into this schedule well).

 

Hey Robyn,

Thanks for all your good ideas. Sorry to hear you've been having a trying year. Do you find that during your breaks the kids still want to do some school related things? When you go back is there some sort of review that takes place?

[Senorita Tuna Fish]

At least one more!

 

Most of the responses stated that you had a four day week. Do you find that having the year round schedule affords you that day "off"?

 

Do you keep up with math and reading through your breaks?:D

[MissKNG]

My original plan was to end our PreK year on 5/28. But since we are sick, I'm ending it today, taking 2 weeks off then starting our summer stuff on June 1st.

[Guest]

At least one more!

 

Most of the responses stated that you had a four day week. Do you find that having the year round schedule affords you that day "off"?

 

 

 

Actually, most of the families that I know that homeschool according to a traditional school calendar only h/s 4 days a week, as well. Again, we have pretty lax standards here so most of us don't worry about how many actual days we get in; we're more concerned about what we get through.

 

Do you keep up with math and reading through your breaks?

 

If you are referring to a break being a week off for illness or vacation, then no, we don't do anything "school" except for read-alouds (mom reads). When my kids get older, yes, they will still read on their own.

[kmacnchs]

Does anyone here use a year round schedule? If so do you care to share it? Do you keep the same intensity all of the time or is it more relaxed. What are some of the things that you add in the summer. Do you use the summer for review? How do the children enjoy it? Does it leave room for summer fun, vacations, swimming, ect?

 

Mine are young, like yours so if we take off too many days, it's difficult to get back into the swing of things. We do school whenever daddy works (5-6 days/week, year round). Because I spend most of the day nauseous and/or throwing up right now, we only do about 1hr/day right now. Normally, we will do 2-2.5 hrs/day.

 

We take off any day daddy is off, we take off whenever we go on vacations, whenever we are invited to someone's house, etc. I feel that by doing school year round, we do not forget, we do not get out of the habit, and we can still make people more important and take off as much as needed while still getting everything done.

 

All of my friends who hs do so from August - May. The moms feel pressured to do school during vacation (Sept. & Jan) and even during holidays (Thanksgiving & Christmas). I don't see the point of having that pressure put on me. I feel that if you just work at a steady pace (not work your children to death), there is less pressure and yet, you get everything done...who needs 12hrs/day in the summer to play outside anyway??? It's HOT here in the south!

[angela in ohio]

I see. We are in a closer set housing development. There are no HS families near us and it makes it very hard to get anything done when school is out. It is very frustrating to me b/c I want to HS the girls next year and have the freedom to work when we want to work...whether it be a summer day, weekend day.....and it will be nearly impossible!

 

I don't understand. Are they so loud outside that you will be unable to concentrate? Or are you concerned that your girls will not want to work if their friends are outside? You can overcome either of those, if homeschooling year round is what you feel is best for your children. :001_smile:

[Homemama2]

I love the idea of year round hsing...at least on paper!:001_smile: But my dh says we should all take a break, so we do. This summer however, we will be doing science (Apologia Zoo 1), and daily reading and math practice. We will probably start my 1st graders reading prog., and both math programs sometime this summer bc we're joining a co-op and I don't want to have to do any other school on coop days. I hope our summer work will be completed in about an hour each morning bc around 9am all the neighbor kids start knocking and I know we'll get nothing accomplished after that!