Those who school year-round: Can you share your yearly schedule?

[Sue G in PA]

We will start year-round schooling this year. Our "year" will go from July 1 - June 30 (that is the hs year in PA). I'd like to have some sort of "loose" schedule to keep us on track, otherwise I might get lazy! I've toyed w/ the idea of 3wks on/1wk off...that puts us at exactly 180 days by the end of our year. I'm not so sure about that, though. I also thought about just taking extended breaks at Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and taking off whenever we need the break. Can you all share what works for you? Thanks!

[kaylk in tx]

we use elementary spanish via unitedstreaming. each unit takes 5 weeks if you do it 2x per week. after 2 years, it finally dawned on me to use that as my organizing strategy. finish a spanish unit, take a week off.... sometimes i'm a wee bit slow! :tongue_smilie: we'll also take a full week at thanksgiving, and 2 weeks at christmas. also, we only do school mon-thurs. dh has every other friday off and there's just no way to do school when he's around so fridays morphed into no school. although that's when we do the zoo, park, etc.

[Dayle in Guatemala]

we do a 4-day schedule with Friday being for catch up, review, nature journaling, art appreciation and composer studies, and field trips (not all on one Friday!).

 

We take a significant amount of time off during the holidays, a week at Easter (because of Holy Week here being so busy), and a week in June for the dc to go to camp. We then take time off as we need it. That has worked best for us because of traveling and my dh's schedule. That's the thing about a year-round schedule, you can make it fit your needs. It really takes the pressure off.

[WTMindy]

Personally, I would hate the x week on, 1 week off plan because I would lose momentum. We basically just keep plugging away all year. We go to a public school co-op, so we structure our school year around that calendar, but once our co-op is out we do what I call summer school. We continue to do a couple subjects (math, spanish, piano) and drop a couple subjects (grammar, Latin) and the last couple of years I have added a special focus for the summer. Last year it was history and this summer it is going to be life science. In the summers, we school for a couple hours in the morning and play in the afternoons. We all do better around here with some structure.

 

In terms of weeks off, we take 2 weeks off around Christmas, we take 2 weeks off in the spring to travel, we take 2 weeks off in the summer to travel. Other than that, if Dad goes to work, we do to.

[cin]

We sort of school year round. We do the traditional 180 day school year from August through May and then I do an 8-10 wk term in teh summer. This year we are doing Health, some American History (DD is concerned that we don't hit it until year 3 or 4 in SOTW), reading and math. Math is the same curriculum, no real break, and for reading, we are working on COMPREHENSION <arghhh> She reads so fast, skipping over alot of words, that she doesn't remember it. So I've found a book that focuses on that. She has to answer a bunch of questions after each little story. And she will be doing free reading for 30 minutes a day, and writing a book report on Fridays (filling out the form, actually).

 

Then, The Monday after her birthday we start our new school year. (BD is 8/15)

[Sunny]

We loved our year round schedule!

We did 6 on 1 week off. This was long enough to get a good unit of work in, but we easily saw the break at the end of the tunnel. For me, it was just enough time and a well deserved break.

We took off 2 weeks at Christmas, 2 for Easter, a week at Thanksgiving and the month of July. This still left plenty of time to take off each family member's birthday, ski days, and sick days.

Doing it this way gave us plenty of flex time.

Arranging this type of schedule is definately a family thing. It matters how the kids respond to lengths of time.

The thing I recommend thinking about is NOT scheduling so much time off that you don't have any flex time. By scheduling exactly 180 days, you're not leaving any room for sick or life happens days.

 

Also, I found it extremely helpful to have off at least some time in the summer while all the other kids are out. We did lots of swimming those days. Plus, the days we were schooling in Aug. were half days. We always started back up with just the basics, or we would pick just the electives that sometimes didn't get done during regular school.

[K&Rs Mom]

We just keep going, moving up in any subject as needed, no real start date where everything is new at once. We take breaks when there's a reason (illness, vacation, just don't feel like school this week, etc), but don't have a specific plan for them. I schedule 4-day weeks, but sometimes one "week" will actually drag into the next calendar week. Other times we'll start on the next "week" before Monday because we have the time and inclination. I love the flexibility, but I'm in a state with no reporting requirements. If I had to count days or hours or subjects, it would be very different!

[Susie in CA]

Hi Sue,

 

We have been working on a 3 week on - 1 week off schedule for a couple of years now. We love it! We work very hard those three weeks and our week off gives us enough time to rest and visit some museums etc. My kids are only 7 and 9. So, I do think that we will have do increase our school weeks in a year or so to maybe 5 weeks on and 1 week off -- not to increase their school time but to keep flexibility with unexpected vacations and such.

 

Good Luck.

 

Susie

[Elisabeth in IL]

We basically work (do school) when daddy works. In the summer we take time to go on lots of fieldtrips and we take a cleaning day every so often.

[Kay in Cal]

We school year round--

 

We do a Monday-Thursday schedule, with Friday being catch-up and field trips and family outings.

 

We take off: 1 week at Thanksgiving, 3 weeks at Christmas, 1 week at Easter, 4 weeks in the summer (based on family vacation). This year our vaction is running from mid-July through mid-August, so we'll start "next school year" in mid August.

 

We also do some school work during vacation--whatever is pressing/interesting/needed. And I don't stress about missing a few days here or there. For example--this next week we're going to Las Vegas for a board game convention for two days. It's just a little mini-vacation for dh and I--but we'll miss a couple of days of school. No sweat!

 

I'm a big believer in "moving at your own pace", so most of our school books don't actually line up with the grade change. We just keep moving on. "Content areas" like history and science are the only exception, those I do schedule out to cover over the year.

[Melissa B]

I schedule four twelve week terms with one week off between each term. Another week is given off one day here and there as we move our schedule around to match my dh's work schedule. I plan eleven weeks of material within each twelve week period, so we have one floating week off each term. That is 44 weeks of school. We take additional days here and there and don't always get everything done on any given day. I shoot for 42 weeks of school each year minimum.

[Melissa in FL]

We school all year round, but don't take "scheduled" breaks. With the exception of Christmas where the time off differs depending on what company we have here. I schedule to start school when the regular school starts. From there till Christmas we do traditional school. In December I evaluate where we are, what's working, and what needs to be changed. We continue with traditional school until Mayish. This week I'm in the process of evaluating where we are and when ds (6th grade) will finish most of his work. I try to keep summer "lite". This is different each year.

 

This year we will spend a lot of time doing the revolutionary war, studying our election system (since it's election year), we will be doing Chemistry (since we didn't do much during the year), and art (using discovering great artists, again we don't do much during the school year). My son will also keep up with daily math drill, assigned reading, free reading, and writing. My dd (1st grade) will keep up with handwriting, phonics and daily math drills.

 

We take time off during the year as we need it. The kids are in co-op once a week and ds has homework weekly from that that interferes with our assigned work (but it's worth it). When anyone comes to visit we just take time off. My niece and nephew may come for a week this summer so we'll be off that week. My mom was here for three weeks during Christmas and we took that off. We also take more days off this time of year with more park days while the weather is warm.

 

We do count days here for our umbrella school and I've always ended up with way more than I need (of course for that I count co-op and days at the zoo, etc. but for me it's actually having days to get the work done).

 

This summer I will probably have a schedule of: daily keep up work, and then assign something for each day. Like Monday: art, Tuesday & Thursday: revolutionary war, Wednesday: election process, Friday: Chemistry. That's what I did last year and it worked really well.

 

If you have any more questions feel free to ask

Melissa

[coffeegal]

We do math and Latin/Greek year around, 5-6 days a week. We do take 2 weeks of at Christmas. For all other subjects, we school year around but take time off as needed. There is no formal schedule. Actually, it's become harder to stop school from happening than it is to do it. The children start to grab their schoolbooks as soon as their chores are done so I have to stop the children from doing school BEFORE breakfast. It's lovely to have a habit working for me. :D

[lori in tx]

We have done this for 3 years, we start school the Monday after July 4th (it is super hot her in TX in summer so we do school). Our first break is normally the week of Labor day, which is also our first week of co-op(Friday after labor day) so normally I am running around getting my act together. We then talk 3-4 weeks off for Christmas, 2 weeks in the spring one week during Easter week and another week about a month later (I loose momentium by March). So we are done by mid May and have about 6 weeks off. WE do school 4 days per week but count it as 5 days because we do a 5 day school week in 4 days and during co-op we actually do school 5 days per week.

hth

lori

[lori in tx]

We have done this for 3 years, we start school the Monday after July 4th (it is super hot her in TX in summer so we do school). Our first break is normally the week of Labor day, which is also our first week of co-op(Friday after labor day) so normally I am running around getting my act together. We then talk 3-4 weeks off for Christmas, 2 weeks in the spring one week during Easter week and another week about a month later (I loose momentium by March). So we are done by mid May and have about 6 weeks off. WE do school 4 days per week but count it as 5 days because we do a 5 day school week in 4 days and during co-op we actually do school 5 days per week.

hth

lori

 

Forgot to say we do math 3 times per week during summer break

[fruitful vine]

We must have 180 days logged for the school district. We start logging those days in July/Aug. until sometime in May (depending on # of brakes we take)

After we have our 180 days completed we continue with math and reading. (The other subjects we do not continue with.)

It helps to keep the kids on a little bit of a schedule. Plus, it helps to keep them fresh for the next school year. But it still gives them a feeling of summer brake.

 

It has worked for us for 3 years and counting. :001_smile: