Those of you that homeschool year-round..

[parias1126]

Can you please share your schedule? How does it work out so that you still have a couple weeks off in the summertime instead of the usual 2 1/2 months? I'm thinking of going year round, but I'm horrible with scheduling. I just really need a break and Im sick of worrying about taking a break because it's so hard to get back on track.

[Momofeat]

We no longer school year-round, but I tried it in both 6 week & 9 weeks sections. I can't remember how long our breaks were, though--except that we still had at least a month off in the summer & 6 weeks off around Christmas.

 

I miss that Christmas break!!!

[go_go_gadget]

We school year-round and take breaks when we need them. I don't think we've ever done a break longer than a week, though, and a full week off is very rare. But because of that, we do take unscheduled days off when we need or want to, guilt-free.

[ForeverFamily]

:bigear: I'm interested to hear what others have to say. We just started this year to school year round. With 4 little kiddos it is very common for the school day to fall apart:glare:. I decided that I was tired of being so stressed about staying on track that we would have school year round with regular breaks ( I know my kiddos are only in K and Pre-K but when I can't stay on track with simple plans I worry about staying on track in the future). I am enjoying taking the month of Dec. off and not stressing about it too much! However, I am completely new to the concept of year round so I am very interested to see answers to the OP question!!!

[BillieBoy]

We homeschool year round and I like it a lot. I don't have a set yearly schedule, per say. If we need time off for whatever reason we take it. I do keep time off to a minimum to make sure we have a solid 36 weeks of hard core school and I try not to do more than 3 weeks at a time. I feel my DD gets disconnected if it's more.

 

My biggest obstacle was learning to let go of the norm. In our case we ended up finishing most curriculum earlier than the one year so we'd just move on. I sometimes cringe when someone asks what grade DD is in. It's all over the place.

 

Schooling year round really opens up a lot of options. You don't have to buy your curriculum in September when prices are at their highest. You can take your family vacations at off peak times and avoid the crowds and the costs. Harvest time for us is big, so we take time off for that. She helps me pick and can...I call it home-ec/earth science. ;)

 

Sorry, if I didn't directly answer your question.

[alpidarkomama]

We just take off all the Jewish holidays (plus time before and after for the big ones in the fall and spring). The rest of the time we just take off whenever we like, or when papa has the day off too.

 

I usually divide our courses into 10ths and divide it up over 10 months, counting August/September and March/April as one month. That way I can kind of keep an eye on our progress so I know if we're ahead or behind.

[Myeightkiddies]

We went with a year-round schedule because having most of the summer off was really a waste here in Florida. It's often too hot to do much but stay indoors.

 

I use to take all of December off but I don't any longer. We usually take two weeks off until the first of the year.

 

We take all government holidays. Two weeks around Easter, especially if the weather is nice. If it is expected to be really cold or rainy, we may just take a week and save that other time for a nice day.

 

We take a week or two off in the fall, the week of Thanksgiving, and whenever is needed due to illness, hurricanes, or the exceptional cool day (it goes from winter to summer so fast here).

 

We will be moving to Ohio soon, so I'll have to readjust our typical schedule. I'll probably still school during the hottest part of the summer. There may be more pleasant days to take off up there.

 

During the child's senior year of high school, we school on a traditional schedule due to testing, transcripts, graduation dates, scholarship applications, etc.

[kolamum]

We generally take 6 week rotations with 1 week off after each six week stretch. We take an extra week off in the Spring for a major family outing, and often an extra week in Jan & Dec for holiday.

 

This year we're actually taking a proper summer vacation which will be interesting. I won't be surprised, one little bit, if we don't stick with it. :lol:

[manyblessings]

We school for 5 weeks and then take up to 1 week off. We also take 1 week off at either Thanksgiving or Christmas, depending on how our school year falls. In June/July we take 3 weeks off for written narrative prep and vacation time while my husband is off work.

 

We schedule 40 weeks (8 terms) per year but that allows up to 4 weeks of misc days off or even some light schooling periods. If a subject is finished early we can either move on to the next level or simply review.

[Bloggermom]

My kids go crazy without a set routine. So we school year-round except for a week long Christmas break. We only take a day off here and there, but never an entire week off like we do for Christmas.

[mom31257]

If I could homeschool year round, I think I would want one of these schedules for a 36 week school year. Dh is a public school teacher so we follow his schedule. I do want one longer break a year, but I don't want it in the summer because it's so hot here. I think I'd like to take the long break from before Thanksgiving until the New Year.

 

9 weeks on, 3 weeks off, then 7 weeks off once

 

6 weeks on, 2 weeks off, then 6 weeks off once

[boscopup]

I use the Ruled Calendar from DonnaYoung.org to schedule breaks and holidays. You can write on the line what you're doing that week and see the whole year at a glance.

 

First, I decided on my end date for the "year". That would be the end of May. That way, when we are in high school (if we still school year round at that point), we'll finish at the same time as everyone else and won't have issues with testing dates and college applications and such. So our end date is the same as the local schools. This year, it's May 25. Then I fill in any planned holiday breaks such as Christmas->New Year and 3 weeks between the school years. I figure at the end of the school year, my son deserves a break, but I don't want a summer long break either. Plus, like the Florida person, it's too hot in Alabama for my kids to enjoy playing outside that much, so we might as well do school if we're in the A/C! They're getting more outside time during the fall/winter.

 

Once I put in all the breaks I knew we were going to have due to holidays and maybe family trips, I started at the beginning and just planned for a break after 6 weeks of work. So we'd do 6 weeks on, 1 week off. Then I moved things around a bit to make the holiday breaks work out so we wouldn't be 2 weeks on and then another break. If a break is close to a holiday, we might school a little extra and then let the holiday break be our regularly scheduled break.

 

So this school year, we started with June 20 (after 3 weeks of break from the previous year) and plan to end May 25. We have had breaks the first week of August, last week of September (that was our trip to the beach), then I had an impromptu-for-Mommy's-sanity break in mid-October (school didn't spawn this need), one week for Thanksgiving, and then the week between Christmas and New Year. After that, we'll have a break mid-February and first of April. All breaks are one week long. I don't do well with partial weeks, unless they're 4 day weeks, in which case we still get everything done and I just call it a full week. :tongue_smilie:

 

This school year, I originally started with 215 planned school days, which gave us PLENTY for taking breaks as needed. After my sanity break, for example, we were down to 210 days. Then December came and I forgot that my siblings were coming into town with their kids for my mom's birthday in mid-December (I don't see them very often, so we took the week off). Then the next week, DH and I were going out of town for an office Christmas party, leaving the kids. That was fun! :D So that week was blown off. And now it's the week before Christmas after blowing off the last 2 weeks, so yeah... we're not really doing school this week either. I'm taking the time to clean the house, since we're getting windows installed the first week of January (I'm thinking it might end up being light school during that renovation). So with the extra 3 weeks of December blown off, we're down to 195 days for the school year. My cover school requires 160, but I try to do at least 180 anyway.

 

I don't worry about curriculum starting and ending with our school year. I started homeschooling in January of this year, so we had some things like WWE and SOTW going into summer anyway. Then DS is accelerated in most subjects, so he doesn't take 36 weeks to finish a year of math. So what I ended up with was being in very different places across the board, which made it easier for me to not worry about it. I declared him "second grade" in June and didn't worry that we were still finishing up WWE1 or that we were about to finish up MM3B. We had nothing labeled "2" until August or September. Just didn't matter at all.

 

Hope that helps!

[LisaKinVA]

We school 6 days a week, most of the year. We will take breaks as we need to, usually not more than a week, unless there is something else going on.

 

9 weeks on and 3 weeks off (or some other rigid routine) just doesn't work around here. There are times we can go 12 weeks doing everything (why stop at 9 weeks, when everyone is happy and doing well just because the calendar says it's been 9 weeks?), and be just fine. There are others we hit 5 weeks, and are feeling burned out... or maybe we just need to do half-days for awhile, and there are some days that we wake up and I just decide to use the Principal's Privilege and just "call" school for the day.

 

We do well above what is required for school, and usually do not have any issues getting things done. Everyone is happier when we stay on the same general routine... but this way, neither snow, nor illness, nor the first "great" warm day is a problem with the calendar. The calendar does not rule our lives. It helps us manage things, but it isn't the final arbiter of what happens when.

[3peasinapod]

We do 20 weeks of school from the first full week of July through December. So we usually end up doing 4 weeks on, 1 week off with 2 weeks in December.

 

Then we school 18 weeks from January through May, taking off 3 to 4 weeks in June. It's all 4 weeks on, 1 week off. We rarely take days off just because. That's why we can only school 4 weeks with 1 week off. Otherwise, it wouldn't work. We only need to school 180 days, but we schedule more. We are a bit behind in math, so we'll use that time to catch up on that even if we're done with history and stuff.

Edited December 20, 2011 by 3peasinapod

[runmiarun]

We school year-round and take breaks when we need them. I don't think we've ever done a break longer than a week, though, and a full week off is very rare. But because of that, we do take unscheduled days off when we need or want to, guilt-free.

 

 

:iagree:This is what we do as well. We'll probably take the week between Christmas and New Year's off since it's a short week for hubby's work and we'll be going through grandparent detox. I've discovered that my kids don't respond well to the longer breaks. They enjoy having school everyday, even if it's just a light day of reading and math. That said, they're 1st grade and K4 so it's all exciting to them.

[Ellie]

Our Official School Year began around the middle of January. We took off a couple of weeks in the spring around Easter, a couple of weeks in late August/early September, and Thanksgiving through the middle of January. We could easily have taken off longer in the summer, but then we were only doing two days a week of Official School Stuff, so we didn't feel the need to take off longer during the summer. YMMV, of course. :-)

[paceofnature]

I use the Donna Young calendar and start off by marking any special time we want off (birthdays, planned vacations), public school February and April vacation days (my kids wanted to have those times off with their friends), then I roughly fill in 3 on/ 1 off for the rest of the year with an extra week off in December and 2 extra weeks off in the summer. Sometimes it turns into 4 on/1 off, but that is fine with us. I try to remain flexible during the year ~ if we need to take some time off for something, we just shift things a little bit. During the summer, I require that they do math and reading and then we do hands on science activities. The kids are usually finished with everything before lunch and will often invite their neighborhood friends to do the activities with them in the afternoon. Last year we had about 12 kids in the yard playing with cornstarch and water...it was great!

[ezrabean2005]

I put in all the breaks I knew we were going to have due to holidays and maybe family trips, I started at the beginning and just planned for a break after 6 weeks of work. So we'd do 6 weeks on, 1 week off. Then I moved things around a bit to make the holiday breaks work out so we wouldn't be 2 weeks on and then another break. If a break is close to a holiday, we might school a little extra and then let the holiday break be our regularly scheduled break.QUOTE]

 

This is what we do, but that schedule is still fluid. We don't take off more than one week at a time. When we are ready to start the next grade, we plan a one week break to "celebrate", allow for annual testing (state required), and for me to organize the next grade for that child. Then we're back at it.

[Mama2two]

We school year-round and take breaks when we need them. I don't think we've ever done a break longer than a week, though, and a full week off is very rare. But because of that, we do take unscheduled days off when we need or want to, guilt-free.

 

Same here. Snow days, zoo days, family trips, etc... are all done without guilt because we homeschool year round

[Tarreymere]

We don't have a real schedule, we just have a habit :001_smile:. We go year 'round, but we rarely take more than a couple days off. That way the kids know what to expect every day and also I don't stress about 'getting it all done'.

We do math and english every day. Two days a week that is pretty much it, except that the kids are expected to read the rest of the day (whatever they want to read). The other three days we do science and history for two days, health, art, and music for one day, and Latin all three days. It doesn't take long and doesn't interfere in any other activities we might get into. We also don't feel we need a 'break' from it. It is just our routine, like with bathing and brushing teeth and meals.

[MeghanL]

We take 1 week of per month. This allows lots of time for field trips, outings, dr appts, etc and still time to be "off" when dad is home (which is usually on a holiday week).

[alpidarkomama]

We went with a year-round schedule because having most of the summer off was really a waste here in Florida. It's often too hot to do much but stay indoors.

 

Same here in coastal Georgia. Summer is the worst time to go adventuring. But it sure is nice now! :) Loving our December. Much warmer than the past couple of years.

[Mommee & Baba]

We school year round so to say. We take breaks when we need them but I also have planned breaks that line up with public school breaks...so my dd's can play with their neighbor girl friend whom is the one person we allow the kids to interact with in our neighborhood. :p

 

It's so hot and humid here that taking that much time off during the summer is pointless as the kids are stuck indoors in the AC anyhow. We take 1-2 weeks OFF during spring to get the garden set and going and allow the kids some real outside time.

 

Our schedule starts us at the end of July, finishing the school year in the beginning of June, unless we've had to take off more than usual then we've been known to go until the end of June. Allowing us about 3-4 weeks of summer break. This gives me time to get the next school years subjects lined up, schedule the year and copy and get things filed and ready for the new year. So we do take a summer break but it's def. not the typical summer break. My kids tried the 2 month break and this house was TURNED UPSIDE down! Never again!! We do much better with 1-3 day breaks planned and occasionally I'll toss in a week off because we've got so much going on, but RARELY do we push our work BACK...we always get certain scheduled items done before the break occurs. The only things we end up doing as finishing up work at the end of the year are math tests, readings tests and review of what we learned.

 

I use homeschool tracker to plan and I LOVE it! It keeps me on track.

[Rivka]

We don't have a set schedule at all, and I don't worry about trying to plan out a "school year." We school most of the time. This year we took a few weeks off to pack and move, so we're taking only a week at Christmas. Last year we took two or three weeks at Christmas. We take "spring break" the week of my daughter's birthday. We go on vacation in July and take a week off for that, plus usually another week at another point in the summer. It all depends on our schedule and plans. But I'd guess that we do school at least 42 weeks a year.

 

We promote our daughter to the next grade on June 1st because that's our homeschooling anniversary, but we start new curricula whenever it seems appropriate. Finish the old math book, start the new math book the next day (after appropriate celebration). Last year, my daughter asked for more history so we started SOTW 1 in January. This year, we'll be starting RSO Chemistry in January because of a similar request on her part. I think it's fun to start a new program in mid-year - it relieves the doldrums.

[Aurelia]

Like Rainefox, school here is mostly routine. DH and I work year round, so it makes sense for us to school year round, too. We take off a few days here and there, and a couple of weeks a year, but that's about it. Any more than a week and there's whining and groaning (not all from the student!) and forgetting stuff we covered prior to the break.

[Amy Jo]

I had an elaborate plan. It involved 5 weeks on, 1 week off with a break in February (when I usually don't want to do anything anyway). That got scrapped - there was nothing wrong with it - it was just to formal for us, especially with a 2 year old. (Everyone even had their birthday week off due to how my kids are spaced.)

 

The new plan is to school on most all days, and stick to routine. It's easier for me that way. Now to clean the 'school' room and find my desk....

 

We school 6 days a week, most of the year. We will take breaks as we need to, usually not more than a week, unless there is something else going on.

 

9 weeks on and 3 weeks off (or some other rigid routine) just doesn't work around here. There are times we can go 12 weeks doing everything (why stop at 9 weeks, when everyone is happy and doing well just because the calendar says it's been 9 weeks?), and be just fine. There are others we hit 5 weeks, and are feeling burned out... or maybe we just need to do half-days for awhile, and there are some days that we wake up and I just decide to use the Principal's Privilege and just "call" school for the day.

 

We do well above what is required for school, and usually do not have any issues getting things done. Everyone is happier when we stay on the same general routine... but this way, neither snow, nor illness, nor the first "great" warm day is a problem with the calendar. The calendar does not rule our lives. It helps us manage things, but it isn't the final arbiter of what happens when.

 

I am adding that word to our vocabulary around here. I'm also thinking of schooling 6 days a week, just to get shorter days and more routine. My life is easier when everyone knows what to do.

 

We don't have a set schedule at all, and I don't worry about trying to plan out a "school year." We school most of the time. This year we took a few weeks off to pack and move, so we're taking only a week at Christmas. Last year we took two or three weeks at Christmas. We take "spring break" the week of my daughter's birthday. We go on vacation in July and take a week off for that, plus usually another week at another point in the summer. It all depends on our schedule and plans. But I'd guess that we do school at least 42 weeks a year.

 

We promote our daughter to the next grade on June 1st because that's our homeschooling anniversary, but we start new curricula whenever it seems appropriate. Finish the old math book, start the new math book the next day (after appropriate celebration). Last year, my daughter asked for more history so we started SOTW 1 in January. This year, we'll be starting RSO Chemistry in January because of a similar request on her part. I think it's fun to start a new program in mid-year - it relieves the doldrums.

 

I love your view point. So many times I see starting something mid-year and start to plan how to finish 'on time'. I need to :chillpill: and :D

[4littleones]

We school year-round and take breaks when we need them. I don't think we've ever done a break longer than a week, though, and a full week off is very rare. But because of that, we do take unscheduled days off when we need or want to, guilt-free.

 

This is what we do, especially now that I am in graduate school and some times (esp at the end of the semester :001_smile: I need to do MY school uninterrupted).

 

Officially, we are doing 6 weeks on, 1 week off, but even then we do 'light school' - self-paced math review using another curriculum on the same level, reading, etc.

[FriedClams]

We semi school year round. In the summer we do math around four days a week. This summer we also did some writing and I assign a lot of reading. We start LA earlier than the "normal" year would start so I never feel pressured. We take off time here and there and we do light days when we need to. Not taking a full summer off makes our year very casual and less stressful.

[Penelope]

We homeschool year round so we can more time off at Christmas and at times when the weather is nicest.

 

We might go 3+ months before a break, and then another time it might be 6 weeks. It all depends. We still end up doing more days than are required by our state.

[...................]

For me...

 

I just do 4 days a week year round plus one week for Christmas, 2 weeks when my dh has vacation, and one month off in the summer. But I don't even count it out precisely. I Pretty much take off whenever we need to!

 

Last year I did something different and took extra time off in the summer. It had its nice points but I don't plan to do it again.

[LMD]

Like Rainefox, school here is mostly routine. DH and I work year round, so it makes sense for us to school year round, too. We take off a few days here and there, and a couple of weeks a year, but that's about it. Any more than a week and there's whining and groaning (not all from the student!) and forgetting stuff we covered prior to the break.

 

Yep, this. We've had this week off completely, after a couple of lighter 'introduce 2012 material' weeks - and I can tell from their behaviour that the lack of structure is starting to affect them!

 

I got DH's work schedule for 2012 and my calendar. Blocked off the weeks he's home, marked his Rostered day's off (because we never get work done when he's here, and usually it takes another day after to recover! So I plan half weeks in those cases) and looked at what was left!

Then I looked at our curriculum and how many weeks approx we'd need to get through it and filled the blocks, leaving a break about every 4-6 weeks for catch up/sanity/extra projects.

 

It looks like this - remembering that I need the structure to keep my mind focussed, how this plays out in reality is much more flexible! There is 1 week off between the terms:

 

Term 1: Jan 16 - Apr 4. 8 weeks, 3 full weeks of break at different times in there.

 

Term 2: Apr 16 - Jul 6. 9 weeks. 2 weeks of breaks plus 2 half weeks.

 

Term 3: Jul 16 - Sep 21. 9 weeks. 1 week of break.

 

Term 4: Oct 1 - Dec 14. 9 weeks. 2 weeks of breaks in there.

 

Then about 4 weeks off over Christmas/New Year. That gives us only about 35 weeks of official school, but we still do school on the breaks, they're just permission to go lighter/unschool/field trip etc...

Now, we'll see if it works :lol:, but I can think straight with a plan in place! Plus it was fun to do. :D HTH

[foxbridgeacademy]

We take a 4 week break from mid June to mid July, both have birthdays then. We also take off from thanks giving until the first of the year. One week in the Spring and one week in the fall.

[Shellers]

I'm planning on homeschooling year round. I have noticed my son forgets things after a long weekend. I don't see us taking more than two or three days off in a row.

[DragonFaerie]

We haven't homeschooled year round but I am toying with a variation of it for next summer. I'm calling it "homeschool lite." We'll finish school for the year around the last week of May. Then, I plan to continue with math and languages (Latin for DD and Spanish for both) throughout the summer. I'll probably have DS continue working on spelling, too. All totaled, it shouldn't be more than an hour per day, give or take.

[2_girls_mommy]

We start every new year in August. We start fresh with whatever we can at that time. So if we finished spelling workbooks in May, they will not open the new ones until Aug, etc. But we are likely still working in our math books in May and June and of course SOTW (It is way too long to finish in a 9-10 mo. school year!)

 

We take July off completely every year. It just works out that way because we have so much going on in that month, and we need a break before we start the next year and new curric.

 

We school 4 days a week and 1 day at co-op most of the year. Co-op starts in Sept. and ends in April. That means for Aug. and May we have 5 day weeks.

 

We take field trips and days here and there throughout the year whenever we want. So some weeks will be 3 days of school at home, 1 day of co-op, and 1 day of field trips.

 

Often we will do some work on field trip days or shopping days or sick days/dr. appt days. We rarely take a whole day off.

 

We take a week at Christmas or so, but still work if needed. (Right now dd is working on a report that she didn't finish...)

 

Last year we took a spring break for a full week.

 

The main goal for me is to be half way through the math and texty type things by Dec. I do that by breaking up what I want to do each month to get there... 16 lessons in math and English a month usually get us there. As long as we are halfway through most things (depending of course if we had to slow down for a child to work through problem areas) then we are staying on track.

 

If we don't finish something, we just pick it back up in Aug. before moving on to the next level if I feel we need to. If it is just the end of the math book and I feel we have covered the main objectives we may move forward. This is a judgement call depending on the student and the material.