orangejello Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 In order to get 180 days in a school year, how can I do this w/o going on public school system calendar? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyLittleWonders Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 We started yesterday, and are going through mid-June (when dh is done with his school year), have a week off every other month, and 6 weeks "maternity" leave planned between Thanksgiving and the New Year. All of that combined to give me 38 weeks of school this year - 190 days. I would think if you start sometime in August, plan on taking a week off every other month or so, plus a couple weeks for Christmas, and go through mid-June, you will probably end up with more than 180 school days. How early do you want to start your school year? Are you okay with beginning when it is still "summer" according to the public school calendar? Do you prefer more frequent breaks spread out, or less frequent, yet longer breaks? Just glancing at the calendar I made for myself, if you start on August 16 and school through June 17, 2011, you can take seven weeks off during the school year and still have 36 weeks of instruction (assuming I counted correctly - I was interrupted by my oldest's tantrum over having to look up words in the dictionary ;) ). If you started the fist week of August, you would actually be able to take a couple more weeks off and maintain 36 weeks through mid-June. I hopes that help. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrs.m Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 We start Aug. 2. We and then we do a round about 6 weeks on, 1 week off schedule. It doesn't work out perfectly in the fall which is ok. We usually need more time off in the spring for the pretty days! We finish before Mem. Day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 For the past two years we've started June 1 and ended at the end of April. We generally have done one day a week off with a couple of week breaks. This year we're trying to be better and do about 4 weeks on, 1 week off, with two-week break around Christmas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orangejello Posted July 20, 2010 Author Share Posted July 20, 2010 We started yesterday, and are going through mid-June (when dh is done with his school year), have a week off every other month, and 6 weeks "maternity" leave planned between Thanksgiving and the New Year. All of that combined to give me 38 weeks of school this year - 190 days. I would think if you start sometime in August, plan on taking a week off every other month or so, plus a couple weeks for Christmas, and go through mid-June, you will probably end up with more than 180 school days. How early do you want to start your school year? Are you okay with beginning when it is still "summer" according to the public school calendar? Do you prefer more frequent breaks spread out, or less frequent, yet longer breaks? Just glancing at the calendar I made for myself, if you start on August 16 and school through June 17, 2011, you can take seven weeks off during the school year and still have 36 weeks of instruction (assuming I counted correctly - I was interrupted by my oldest's tantrum over having to look up words in the dictionary ;) ). If you started the fist week of August, you would actually be able to take a couple more weeks off and maintain 36 weeks through mid-June. I hopes that help. :D I was thinking of starting on Aug.9 or 16 and I would like to do more frequent breaks that are spaced out. Where do I begin? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrs.m Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 I was thinking of starting on Aug.9 or 16 and I would like to do more frequent breaks that are spaced out. Where do I begin? I printed a year calendar at DonnaYoung.org and start marking weeks on and weeks off using colored pencils. It helped me to see the entire year. And then I counted the days. I kept adding weeks until I got to 180. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom31257 Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 We do follow the school system because my dh teaches there, but it's a great schedule. We will start August 2nd and be done by the end of May. We will take 7 weeks off during the year, which will include some field trips. That leaves us a 2 month summer break with their daddy, but still getting our 180 days done with lots of breaks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pegasus Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 We school 3 months on and 1 month off: Sept-Oct-Nov school with December off Jan-Feb-Mar school with April off May-June-July school with August off We LOVE having the entire month of December off for holiday planning, baking, travel, etc. Spring is in full swing here by April and a perfect chance to spend some quality time in the yard, getting our garden growing, etc. August is fun to take off because everyone we know is just going back to school. :lol: 3 months on works out to be about 13 weeks, or 65 school days, for a total of 195 days. Pegasus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyLittleWonders Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 I printed a year calendar at DonnaYoung.org and start marking weeks on and weeks off using colored pencils. It helped me to see the entire year. And then I counted the days. I kept adding weeks until I got to 180. This is pretty much what I did - I printed a calendar off my computer from July '10 until June '11, marked our first day and our last day, "x"ed out the maternity leave days, and then figure out how many weeks were left. From there, I subtracted how many I wanted to complete (I was aiming for about 38-40 to give us a bit of a buffer), marked regular school breaks (dh's spring break mostly as his Thanksgiving break and Christmas break were already covered by my maternity break), and then saw how many weeks were left to take off. Once I had a physical calendar in front of me, it was much easier. If you want more frequent breaks spaced out (8-10 for the school year including the big ones of Thanksgiving, Christmas/New Years, Spring/Easter breaks, then I'd print a calendar, mark off the weeks you know you want off, mark the day you want to start (I'd recommend Aug. 9th as that would give you more school weeks to play with), and the day you want to end. After that, count all the remaining weeks (for instance, from Aug. 9th to June 10th, there are 45 weeks; if you subtract 4 weeks - Thanksgiving week, winter break, spring break - you have 41 weeks left for tweaking. If you want to cover 36 full weeks of school, you have 5 additional breaks to plan ... you have no breaks in August, September, October, January/February, March, and May. So, starting in early August, you could take a week off in September, one the end of October, one in mid-February, one the end of March, and one mid to late May. So, your school year could look like this: Start August 9th. Break week of Sept. 13th or Sept. 20th. Break week of Oct. 25th. Break Thanksgiving week. Break two weeks for December/New Years holidays. Break week of Feb. 14th or 20th. Break week of March 28th. Break spring break week (we go with dh's district's break; you could time it with neighborhood kids if that's important). Break week of May 16th or 23rd. Finish June 10th. I think I counted correctly and that would give you 36 weeks of instruction time. Print out a calendar; highlight the weeks off in one color, highlight start date and end date in a different color, and number the weeks of instruction. Hope that helps. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mrsjamiesouth Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 In order to get 180 days in a school year, how can I do this w/o going on public school system calendar? I always put August 1st- August 1st on my school forms, this way I have 365 days to get the 180. We are doing 3 weeks on and 1 week off this year, but I haven't done it before so I will have to let you know how it works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue G in PA Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 Yup, I did what jannylynn did and printed the yearly calendar from Donna Young and colored in the squares with colored pencils for when we would do school and when we would break. I'm happy with our yearly schedule. My dd13 starts on Aug. 9 and the others start Aug. 16. We go for about 6 weeks and then break for 1 week. Then we go for 7 weeks and break for 1 week. Then the mini-session of 3 weeks w/ a 2 week break for Xmas/New Years. Then, we go 6 weeks on, 1 week of again. Then 8 wks on/1 wk off and then another 6 to finish off our year on June 3. That is 36 weeks or 180 days, leaving plenty of time for make-up days in June if need be. I'm hoping it works out as I have planned! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcconnellboys Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 I start about August 16. We're taking a week off in September to go to Williamsburg; a week off for Thanksgiving; two weeks at Christmas; a week of spring break, and finishing near the end of May, about the same time as our public schools. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrie12345 Posted July 21, 2010 Share Posted July 21, 2010 Yup- print a calendar and play with it! I've planned 2 weeks of school in July, 2 weeks in August, and then we're off from mid-Dec to the end of January (new baby). That still leaves us room for 180 days by the end of May if we don't take any other breaks. I'm sure we *will take a couple of other days off, but that leaves all of June to make them up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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