Year round school or take summers off?

[Melinda]

First of all, thanks for bearing with all my questions as a newbie. :)

 

 

Do you do year round school or take summers off? If you do (or have done) year round school, how many weeks do your sessions run and how long are the breaks between sessions?

[RoughCollie]

We take July and August off. We live in Massachusetts, and these are the two best months of the year in our opinions.

[Kelli in TN]

We are taking off June, except for math. We also take off December, except for math.

[Lisawa]

:)

First of all, thanks for bearing with all my questions as a newbie. :)

 

 

Do you do year round school or take summers off? If you do (or have done) year round school, how many weeks do your sessions run and how long are the breaks between sessions?

 

 

We are taking July and December off... Im bounce back and forth from 6 weeks on and 1 week off, to 10 weeks on and 1 week off....

 

The last few years we have homeschooled August-May.... but before that we were year rounders... now we are back... It depends on the season....

 

So the 6 weeks on and 1 week off is new and not used yet!

[Brigitte]

First of all, thanks for bearing with all my questions as a newbie. :)

 

 

Do you do year round school or take summers off? If you do (or have done) year round school, how many weeks do your sessions run and how long are the breaks between sessions?

 

We have not been at this very long, but this is what we did last year and will do this year....

 

We are taking June and July off completely. In August, we will add a subject or two per week. After Labor Day we will be back in the full swing of things. Our calendar tends to follow the school calendar, since dh is a teacher. That will change next school year, since he will not be teaching anymore, but I suspect we will still end up with about the same schedule.

 

Over the summer we will do some fun learning things...I am going to find some fun handwriting practice books for them to use and they are going to do the Big Book of Sticker Math from Usborne (their choice). We will not do anything too structured, since we all need a break. Also, we are moving, dh will be working out of town in July, and I will be at Convention for almost a week, so it makes sense for us to have the extended down time.

 

HTH's

[Jackie in AR]

We do some schooling in the summer, but usually only one or two subjects per child.

 

And there will be days/weeks in the summer where we don't do any official schooling, depending on what else is going on.

[Lisawa]

We do some schooling in the summer, but usually only one or two subjects per child.

 

And there will be days/weeks in the summer where we don't do any official schooling, depending on what else is going on.

 

 

Ya know... us too... the schedule is lighter... I don't know why I didn't think to mention that... we will continue science, writing, and math and reading... and fun. *Ü* 3 or 4 days a week....

 

Spanish, History and literature discussions and the rest will wait till September this year....

[JudoMom]

We go year round. Last year we took July off, and I thought about that this year, but I don't think we're going to.

 

I don't schedule sessions or our time off. We usually take 3 different weeks to visit family-1 week in WI, 1 week in TN, and 1 week in KS. Family also comes to visit us (my parents for a week, and last time his parents came for almost 2 weeks). We also take off a week or so at Christmas and we take birthdays off.

 

That's about 7 weeks right there. Combine those with any appointments or sickness and I think we'd be working through any breaks I scheduled.

 

In essence, we school unless we have a reason not to.

[Tracey in TX]

Taking off June (best month in TX)

School 2 wks in July and 2 wks in Aug.

[yvonne]

We went year round last year, our first "official" year of homeschooling, but we were all so burned out by September. I also felt ambivalent about my children not having a summer break since I loved summer vacations when I was young. (Anyone else conflicted about this?!)

 

This year, we'll take June and August off (except for math for my rising 3rd graders and reading for my rising K.) In July, we'll continue math & reading, and try to get a jump on Science & History, which we didn't get to very often this past year.

[Donovans4]

My dd was in school through 2nd grade, so she was used to having a summer break. And, so many of my kids' friends are in school with summer off, so if we want to see them and do fun activities, we need to have summer off, too. And, there are a lot of fun, semi educational camps offered around here, so we participate in some of those, too.

 

LauraD in MN

[Karen in CO]

We do math, reading and right now spelling year-round 5 days a week. In the summers, I throw some educational books in at bedtime too. I just don't do any big, planned-out subjects. The lighter school schedule in the summer helps us to not go backwards in any core subjects and keeps me from stressing about getting in our 180 days durning the year.

[sleepy]

We usually take a summer break (5 or 6 weeks in July/August).

[Dayle in Guatemala]

We school year-round. We used to take summers off, but, I felt too much pressure to "finish" well by the end of May. This works much better for us and our family.

 

We take time off when we need to, and I don't really worry about finishing, we just keep going and add new subjects and levels when we need to. We usually take December off (the schools here are off Nov, Dec, and part of Jan) and also Holy Week. We also take a small break in the summer.

 

When we lived in the States, our summers were full of educational field trips, classes at a local nature center or arboretum, gardening, nature journaling, summer reading program at the library, art classes, math, and writing.

 

We also schedule our school year with M-Th schedule and Fridays are more unstructured with projects, nature journaling, and art. We also use Fridays to catch up with anything that didn't get finished during the rest of the week.

 

Is this TMI?:D I kinda went on and on!:001_rolleyes:

[Retired]

Summer's in the deep south are so hot, you don't enjoy being outside. My boys would rather have fall off to enjoy camping, hiking, etc.

[Quiver0f10]

We tried year round one year and it just wasn't for us and then once my older kids started college it made sense for us to follow the trraditional school calandar, so now we are off when they are.

 

I have the kids doing those vacation stations by BJU this year to keep their brains functioning LOL.

[hsmamainva]

Ours varies every year, depending on what has happened in our family that year (i.e., when new babies would arrive, I'd always alter my schedule to accommodate that)

 

I usually don't take a long summer break, anyway, as it's hard to get them back on track and focused again if we take the entire 3 months off.

 

This year, school ends in the middle of July and starts back the first week in September, so 6 weeks off....which is plenty!

[Parrothead]

Our winters are so harsh that we take the summer off. That way we can enjoy the outdoors when the weather is beautiful.

[mo2]

My dd is 6, and we are going to keep doing math and phonics through the summer. She has made so much progress as of late that I don't want to let her forget things by taking months off. We may do a lighter schedule, say, 3 or 4 days a week, though.

[SusanG]

We will continue reading, writing, and math through the summer. It's just not worth stopping for 2 or 3 months and then having to do so much review in the fall.

[Kris]

Hi, Melinda -- We're working through the summer to finish up. Depending on how long that takes, we might get a "head start" on fall -- I haven't decided yet.

 

We definitely won't be taking more than a few official days off, though. If I thought he would use his time for something more than TV or video games, I'd feel differently. But for now, it's just easier to have him do school work than to be "fetching" him constantly from his electronic heaven.

[Doran]

That said, I'm pretty flexible/lenient about that. If the kids or the family has a worthy invitation to do something else on any given day or days, I don't require that they stay home due to school. But, if it's just an average day, like many of our summer days are, I'll ask that they get their subjects done before they go to the pool or out to play w/ friends.

 

We focus on history, English (writing), and math.

[clwcain]

We're effectively year round, since we're just working on Phonics and Handwriting.

 

As the kids get older we're looking to adopt the 3 term system common to Oxford. This affords for several short breaks throughout the year, and the Terms are marked by feast days found in the Catholic and Anglican Liturgical Calendars (very important to us).

 

HTH

[Tammyla]

We take the summer off here. They still read a lot, and I sneak in literature discussions. They are busy taking a number of summer classes outside the house. When mine were little, we schooled year round and took unique breaks that suited us. There is no one way to homeschool.:D

[sheryl]

for the most part, December off and other days off here and there....Sheryl <><

[nmoira]

We school year round except for family vacations and camp weeks.

[TravelingChris]

We school year round. We take time off for vacations, Christmas week, a have light weeks some of the time. We always take time off for moves and that can be a few months, depending where we are moving. My girls' homeschool academy and co-op classes run from August to April next year so they will be full-time then. Right now, they are both slightly less than full-time. I am trying to catch up my older daughter back to regular schedule so she can graduate in May or June of 2010 or 2011. ( I think it will be 2011 but she wants to try to graduate early).

[jina]

We are trying a cycle schedule this year. One of our neighboring school districts uses the same schedule, so we stole it!

 

Basically, it is

9 weeks on, 3 weeks off

9 weeks on, 3 weeks off

9 weeks on, 3 weeks off

9 weeks on, 7 weeks off - SUMMER BREAK

 

So, we still get a summer break of 7 weeks from the beginning of June to mid/late July. Here is the breakdown for 2008/2009...

 

Session #1 starts July 21 and then the break is from Sept 22-Oct 10. That's a nicecool time of year where we can do some camping and outdoor fun things without it being so HOT.

 

Session #2 starts Oct 13. We start break on Dec 15 (over Christmas and New Year).

 

Session #3 starts on Jan 5th. We start "spring break" on March 9 and may go on a ski trip or just have some nice spring weather to relax in.

 

Session #4 starts back on March 30. Last day of school is June 3rd - then we have our 7 week summer break.

 

This schedule gives me flexibility throughout the year, we still get a summer break, and to me it's nice to go the 9 weeks, knowing we'll get a good break and then hit it back hard. We wanted time for vacation, but not just in the summer! So, with this schedule, we could (if we wanted) take a vacation in the spring, summer or fall and still have our winter break for Christmas holidays. i can't wait to use this schedule this year. I did make up an "official" schedule for us to put on the wall so we all know when our breaks are. Hope this helps someone?

 

Jina

 

:grouphug:

[Plucky]

We homeschool light during the summer. We do math, independent reading, handwriting review, and journal writing. My oldest is taking an online summer class. It's still a nice break and helps us all recharge while keeping knowledge fresh.

[Parrothead]

Our winters are extreamly harsh so I take summers off. That way dd can be outside as much as possible during fair weather.

[Snickerdoodle]

We have lessons year round. Our weeks shape up to be mostly 4 days of lessons. We take breaks when they are necessary and/or when something unexpected comes up.

[Deeke]

We take summer off, sooner if work is done and also we take 6 weeks off for the Christmas season, so all of December and two weeks into January.

[mom2att]

At our house, if we're home and it's a weekday (Monday - Thursday for us, Friday is co-op day), we do school. I tried taking the summer off one year, and lasted about 2 weeks. The kids were bouncing off the walls with nothing to do, and I was going crazy with the bouncing. Our summer schedule is light, usually just an hour or so of school, and if something comes up like a playdate or outing, we quickly scuttle the school plan and off we go. This also gives us more freedom during the year, since we don't have to catch up after a long summer break.

[Diane]

We take the summer off. We especially needed to get rejuvinated this year, this year really burnt us out. We follow our school systems schedule since I have two nephews who are in public school. It's much easier to schedule play dates with them.

[Plaid Dad]

The last two years we've taken an extended Spring Break. We officially start our school year in July and usually finish up by mid-May at the latest; this year it was the end of April. May and June are so glorious in our area that no one feels like working. We keep up with lots of free reading and activities, but I let the formal academics go for that time. We also take breaks for Christmas and Holy Week/Easter.