Starting in January

[Mommybostic]

I saw a thread on here about schedules for folk who start their school years in January along with the new year.

 

We are starting homeschooling after Christmas break on Jan. 3. I was worried that we would be off kilter with all of our work because we were starting halfway through the year.

 

It seems perfectly feasible to start the year in January instead of in the fall. I just never really thought about it. The only concern I see is that our reporting deadline is June 30 of each year. Does that even matter?

 

I'd love to hear some thoughts on this. It's hard to break out of the whole institutional mindset, isn't it?

[colleenebeans]

HAHAHAHA...I cant believe we posted a thread at the same time...LOL.

[Ellie]

I saw a thread on here about schedules for folk who start their school years in January along with the new year.

 

We are starting homeschooling after Christmas break on Jan. 3. I was worried that we would be off kilter with all of our work because we were starting halfway through the year.

 

It seems perfectly feasible to start the year in January instead of in the fall. I just never really thought about it. The only concern I see is that our reporting deadline is June 30 of each year. Does that even matter?

 

I'd love to hear some thoughts on this. It's hard to break out of the whole institutional mindset, isn't it?

The first year of your reporting would be kinda weird, but after that it should work out.

[nukeswife]

This has been the area of I've thought on most. Here in VA I have to send in my NOI by Aug 15th and my test scores are due by the following Aug 1st. I figure as long as on the NOI I have them in the appropriate grade and give them that test in order to turn it in on time we'll be good. They don't care what curricula I'm using and I don't have to track hours or days, nor do I have to keep a log or anything like that, so I figure it should work ok.

 

When talking it over with dh, we both felt it should work fine because most of the PSs around here don't test the kids at the end of the year but sometime in the spring, so they have only been in classes for about 5 months before testing, so that's about where we'd be too if I start in Jan and test in June.

[colleenebeans]

What type of testing do you have to do in VA? Here in Florida, you can register with the county and they have to be evaluated once a year and basically just show that you have to be progressing from one year to the next. The evals can be done with a certified teacher or a phycologist. I didnt like the idea so the only other option is to join an umbrella school. You report the grades and they make a transcript and everything and they are technically enrolled in private school. You can use any curriculum you want. The one I use is called HOMELIFE ACADEMY and its only $50.00 a yr and they will even do a payment plan if needed. It makes things alot nicer for me. Check it out, on the main page it tells you about each state.

[colleenebeans]

I know every state is different but something to look into...:confused:

[tricia]

You're not alone. I've been homeschooling for over 23 years of my 12 kids and I've always started the new school year in January. Even back in the day!! I've already got my schedule up and running except for the printing of them.

[Mommybostic]

I'm not going to do any standardized testing this year at least. I'm going to use the portfolio for now until we are firmly established. I will wait probably until eighth grade to do the WestTest 2, if I even do it then. So I guess as long as our portfolio is up to snuff, it will be fine. The only is that I have to submit the cirriculum each year before the official school year starts, and it will be a repeat because of the way our year will be, kwim? I just sent it in, and we will be working mostly in the same stuff come summertime, so I'll just send in a copy! I guess I can note that we are further in the books or whatever, I just don't want to get any static.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I saw a thread on here about schedules for folk who start their school years in January along with the new year.

 

We are starting homeschooling after Christmas break on Jan. 3. I was worried that we would be off kilter with all of our work because we were starting halfway through the year.

 

It seems perfectly feasible to start the year in January instead of in the fall. I just never really thought about it. The only concern I see is that our reporting deadline is June 30 of each year. Does that even matter?

 

I'd love to hear some thoughts on this. It's hard to break out of the whole institutional mindset, isn't it?

 

We used to school year round, then when one of our moves had us with a couple month gap in the fall, we did a January start. We were not in a situation where we had to make reports to the state about subject completion.

 

One thing that I found was that in our small community, where just about everyone went to the same school district, that trying to maintain school during the summer was a bit of a trial. I had a lot of conflicts with sports, scout camp and the kids' friends being available to engage in free creative play.

 

I also wish that we'd spent a lot more time at the pool in the warm summer months than we did.

 

Something that I think helps with year round or with January start schooling is really have your nose to the grind stone and get it done in the morning rather than letting other things (computer, appointments, hitting the grocery store) fill up your morning.

 

We're in the midst of another move and it means that we're starting up a lot of new concepts/subjects in January again. One of my New Year's resolutions will be to stay off the computer until school is complete. I've found that it's just too distracting and fills up too much of my time.

 

We're starting with the middle ages after New Year, but we're still on a typical schedule for math. My goal as we head through middle school is to get them on a more typical completion schedule for math and science, which often has one year courses on high school transcripts (biology, algebra, physics). I'm less worried about literature or history, since some of the divisions are arbitrary and don't fit well with a classical rotation anyway.

 

For elementary, we always just kept doing a subject until it was done and then starting the new book the next day, so it didn't much matter if we took time off in the summer or not.

[nukeswife]

What type of testing do you have to do in VA? Here in Florida, you can register with the county and they have to be evaluated once a year and basically just show that you have to be progressing from one year to the next. The evals can be done with a certified teacher or a phycologist. I didnt like the idea so the only other option is to join an umbrella school. You report the grades and they make a transcript and everything and they are technically enrolled in private school. You can use any curriculum you want. The one I use is called HOMELIFE ACADEMY and its only $50.00 a yr and they will even do a payment plan if needed. It makes things alot nicer for me. Check it out, on the main page it tells you about each state.

 

We have to send in the results from any nationally normed standardized test. We can even give it. We used to live in FL so I know what you're referring to with the eval. I did that my first year because trying to find a teacher for testing was a pain. For some reason I was never informed of the Umbrella school option or I would have used that.

 

I don't mind the testing here, because it's really just a wicket to go through but they don't make it overly complicated. I usually order the CAT-E survey test from Seton, although a couple of years my dh gave the ITBS (I can't because I don't have a Bachelor's degree, which seems odd, but it's ITBS's rules) There are other option but they came about in the past few years so most school boards aren't familiar with them and can be kind of a pain if you use that because they just don't know what to do with it.

 

Looking at their website, all Homelife could do for me is help with record keeping, transcripts, and diplomas, which aren't really an issue because we don't have to keep any records, just do the testing. Registering with Homelife wouldn't change that, but if dh ever gets transferred back to FL I'll keep them in mind.

Edited December 20, 2010 by nukeswife

[TheAutumnOak]

I never thought about that...I live in NJ, and there is no one to report to here...