Planning Your Year

[MidnightHM]

We are going to be schooling year round. I was wondering how everyone plans their breaks. Do you sit down and decide when they will be at the begining of the year or do you take them as you need them?

[sewpeaceful]

we do 6 weeks on, 1 week off.

 

there are usually around 3 weeks of school between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

 

2 weeks off at Christmas

 

1 week off at Thanksgiving

 

I plan in 6 week chunks backward from Thanksgiving.

 

we "start" around mid-august, usually after my ds's birthday

 

we get a winter break in Feb around Valentines

 

a spring break that I sometimes fudge to include easter

 

1 more break before school gets out around mid-June

 

that still gives us a "summer break" for VBS, a trip to the beach, playing in the pool, mom to recooperate, etc. Summer break is around 6 weeks or so

 

Note: my poor kids have to do math, reading, and an elective (the elective changes every summer) most days of the summer... I'm simply not hard core about it, but most days they do something.

[Ann@thebeach]

I know we will take 2-3 weeks off at Christmas time.

 

Otherwise, we take time off as we need it. I don't have to count days or anything so I just figure it all evens out.

[purplemama]

We school year round. I work our schedule around my military hubby's wacky schedule. If he has a four day weekend (which is once a month at our current installation as a make-up for the many deployments), we take the Friday and Monday, or Monday and Tuesday that he has off. He travels for sometimes as much as two weeks out of every month. He sometimes gets a day off when he comes home from those trips, so we take those days off. It is really difficult to stay on any sort of schedule like this, but I try to keep to a 7 weeks on, two weeks off schedule, except in the summer I try to take 3 weeks off so my kids can spend time with their friends that are off during the summer. The two weeks off gives me time to plan and reassess, gather materials, clean up my house and do other things that don't get done when we are in full-on school mode. We also take off 2-3 weeks at Christmas and we try to take off the same week that the public schools do for Spring Break so my kids can hang out with their public school friends.

 

Jennifer

[boscopup]

6 weeks on, 1 week off, though if we need to take a break or we plan a vacation at a different time, we just take the break as needed. Since we have more than 36 weeks in the "schedule", it doesn't hurt to take a break if we need to.

[Amy Jo]

I'm planning breaks in advance - 5 weeks on, 1 week off. I discovered if we start the new year 2 weeks before the end of August, none of the kids have school on their birthday. About 3 weeks off in February because I need it, and another 3 or so in August for a summer break. In our house, I thrive on order and am neurotic when order is missing. (So most of the last 6 months have driven me nuts.) :P

[VBoulden]

I plan for some that I know I will need. Others, I take as I need. I knew I was taking a vacation in April for three weeks... what I didn't know was that my dad would be in the hospital half of March and that we'd be there visiting him, too. So.. we home school all year so we can do this kind of thing without falling behind. :001_smile:

[kandty]

I like to be organized and plan, so I plan in advance our schedule. But, I do make changes if something comes up. We do 36 weeks of school. Do about 6 weeks of school and 1 week off. Christmas is 2 weeks. We take 6 weeks off end of June into July and start our new year August 1st. I had planned to take a 2 week spring break, but we ended up taking a week off in March and we were off last week. Spring is my burn out season, so 4 weeks on and 1 week off worked better for us. Now we have 6 weeks till summer vacation and I am feeling good about it! Do what feels good to you. :001_smile:

[mycalling]

We start mid-July and take breaks when ever we need them. Starting early means I never have to worry about getting behind during our many breaks.

 

This year we took two weeks off for the kids to spend with their friend who's in year-round PS while he tracked-out, then a month for the new baby, then 2wks for Christmas/New Years, and two weeks in February for I can't remember...just because we wanted to and had time to kill to drag out the school year.:confused:

[missmoe]

I don't school year round. I do plan out my year making sure to build in a few extra weeks of unplanned breaks.

[prairiegirl]

Every year is different. This year we started in Aug. We took the month of Dec. off and the rest was unplanned. We just took time off whenever we needed a break. A day here, a week there, whatever worked for us at the time. I think we will do the same for next year. We will be done our year in the middle of June and then we will start again in Aug. Usually I don't take 6 weeks off in the summer but I feel like we need it this year.

[joysworld]

I do not plan breaks. I plan 36 weeks of science and history, and we take breaks as we need them. For math and reading, I just go through our reading book and math book, and take breaks as needed, and when we finish with on book, we move to the next.

[In2why]

I school year round, and the only breaks I schedule are 2 weeks in June when I get the new year set, Christmas and 10 days around our vacation. Other than that we take days off when we need them, or something comes up. But I only school Monday-Thursday, so we have 3 day weekends unless we need it for a makeup day when someone gets sick, or we didn't get what we needed to get done.

[guateangel]

I'll be the minority on this one but we stick with our local PS schedule since we have several friends we like to plan our days off with that attend PS. We continue math and reading throughout the summer.

 

Just realized you'll be schooling year round. NM. :)

[alpidarkomama]

We take off for all the Jewish holidays (3 weeks in the fall, 3 weeks in the spring + a few others), 4 weeks in July, and then days when we need them. I like being year-round so we have lots of flexibility. Especially now, when the weather is so nice and the summer humidity hasn't quite started yet. :)

[Ellie]

We took off Thanksgiving to mid-January-ish, a couple of weeks or so around Easter, and a couple of weeks in late August/early September. We also took other breaks as needed.

[chickadoodle3]

We plan our year but I try to stay flexible based on what happens in our family and our needs. This year my grandfather was hospitalized and then my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. Then flooding and broken furnace. We have needed to be flexible this year. One of the great things about year round is that there is not much time to forget math concepts and taking time for review. We love the flexibility.

[MidnightHM]

Thanks y'all. I'm gunna read over them closer and then look at my calendar. I love this form. :)

[binxsmom]

We school year round, Monday-Thrusday and generally take breaks as needed.

[janainaz]

We've done year-round hs'ing for almost 6 years now, and we take a week off every month. Sometimes it's planned (i.e. - Thankgiving, Christmas, birthday week, etc.).

 

Most months we just wait and see which week makes sense. We take mini-vacations to CA all the time, so that typically dicates when we are off. But I kind of do the 3 weeks on, 1 week off schedule.

 

I also like to take off a week at the end of a month and somtimes take the first week off in the next month, so that we have a full two weeks at times.

[mamachanse]

We took off Thanksgiving to mid-January-ish, a couple of weeks or so around Easter, and a couple of weeks in late August/early September. We also took other breaks as needed.

 

We are totally laid back (no reporting in AZ), and we tend to do similar to this because of gorgeous weather from November to January. We work hard in the summer though.

[RahRah]

365-days a year we do reading of some sort - it doesn't matter if we are taking a break or not, on vacation or home, it's daily and only skipped if DS is sick, and even then we can and often do read him stories if he wants us to, which he usually does.

 

I just wrapped up our calendar for July 1, 2011 - June 30, 2012 and we have scheduled breaks where I already know we need a break or have something scheduled on our calendar. With the exception of reading every day, we don't do school on Sunday's - but if something does happen along we do count it toward the hours requirement - we just don't plan on Sunday being a school day, except for reading.

 

So far we'll break from our normal schedule:

 

July 2-4

August 17-21

September 1-4

October 9-22

November 11-15

November 23-27

December 21 to January 2

February 17-24

April 25-29

May 20-28

 

Depending on when we meet the hours requirement for the year, we'll at that point reduce the schedule to the lighter load that'll likely start in May like it is this year. Wiith the above days blocked and Sunday's not planned as school days, it looks like we'll have 255 days in the year - plus 30-minutes every Sunday for reading -- that works out to our needing to average 3.25-hours a day on the days we're scheduled....witth that I'll work to create our monthly, then weekly schedule to define what we need to accomplish each month and week to stay on track.

[laughing lioness]

I plan our school schedule based on our academic class day. Then we plan breaks around when my oldest dd (24, living in KY) will be home. For summers, we have a lighter schedule that accomodates family visiting and camps.

I'm making a check off sheet for each of the 3 kids, laminating it so they can check stuff off, with a big "did it" chart. If they did all of the stuff on their sheet each day, they get to mark it off on the "did it" chart with some kind of reward at the end of the year.

Summer stuff includes skills like grammar, driver's ed (16 yo), typing tutor, math drill (1/4 mile), reading, etc.

[DragonFaerie]

I really like the idea of six weeks on and one week off. But, my oldest is in PS and it's really hard to keep the younger two focused on school when he's home. So, we pretty much follow the PS calendar (with the exception of early release days and the random teacher workday holidays). However, we only "do school" M-Th. Fridays are for P.E., field trips, and finishing up anything that didn't get done during the week. That said, we will continue to do reading and math through the summer, just a really light workload. They'll read for 30 minutes before bed every night and do one page of math facts per day. Simple but functional. :D

[twoforjoy]

I wish I could plan out the entire year, but it's just not in the cards for us right now. I've got a one year old and a baby due in August, along with my 7-year-old DS who is homeschooled, and so making long-term plans is just setting myself up for frustration.

 

We've just kind of been on a weird schedule since DS started homeschooling, and he actually started second grade at home this spring, instead of in the fall. My plan right now is just to do school straight through until the baby is born (or until I'm so miserable I need "maternity leave"), and then take 4-6 weeks off. DS will get some small daily math and handwriting assignments with dad, just to keep him on track, but otherwise it will mostly be unschooling and family time. Then once we've settled into life with the new baby, we'll get back to regular school. I know we'll take a break for Christmas, but other than that, we'll probably just take breaks as needed.