Please help me decide: year round or traditional schedule?

[HSMom2One]

I have been considering a new schedule for the upcoming school year and thought I'd come here to get some input. Because I teach at a private school part time, it's been pretty easy for us to follow a traditional academic schedule. But lately I've been considering taking a shorter summer break (6 weeks in June and July) and then fitting in several vacation breaks during the whole year.

 

Out of a 52 week year we normally use 36 weeks (2 semesters) for dedicated school time. That means 16 weeks of the year are open for grabs, right? So if a family takes 6 of those weeks off for a summer break and another month off during December/January, that should leave about 9 more weeks of vacation time to use with discretion throughout the year. I keep looking at my calendar trying to decide how I'd break up those 9 weeks. I wonder if it would be a refreshing break for us to take a week of here and there, or if it would just get us out of sync.

 

I'm thinking a more year round school would:

 

(1) keep dd from being away from studies for so long in the summer, which causes her difficulty in retaining what she's learned -- especially in math.

 

(2) allow us to really enjoy the Christmas season.

 

(3) break up the doldrums that are so typical between January - March.

 

(4) give us a chance to incorporate more events and special projects throughout the year, and also more time for relaxation during otherwise stressful times.

 

During the majority of those breaks I will have to continue to work my part time job as a teacher, but it would still be nice to be getting a break from our studies at home.

 

I'd love to hear from others on how this may or may not work so well based on your own experience. What type of yearly schedule do you keep? I'd especially love to hear from hs moms that also work part time like I do, and I'm certainly open to suggestions.

 

Thanks!

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

[AdventureMoms]

Well, if you school 36 weeks, take 6wks off for summer, and take 4wks off for Christmas, that leaves you with 6 weeks of vacation time, not 9weeks. I can't really comment otherwise. :-D

[LucyStoner]

We essentially do year round now- my son likes a routine thus a very long vacation does not suit him. That said, we do take advantage of family trips, camping, scouting camps and daycamps in the summer to mix it up a little.

[momofkhm]

What type of yearly schedule do you keep? I'd especially love to hear from hs moms that also work part time like I do, and I'm certainly open to suggestions.

 

I don't work part time, but I can comment on year round schedules. The public schools around ehre have a year round option - they school 9 weeks and then are off for 4. There are 4 different tracks and 3 tracks are in school at any one time. I have lots of friends who do this and really enjoy it. But it isn't available for high school.

 

The private school we went to for a while does a modified year round schedule - school for 9 weeks, off for 2. This was good for the reasons you gave and it gave you time off at "odd" times for vacations. (Disney in October) They do this k-12. The graduates are getting into good schools these days so it must be working at the higher levels.

 

We school 9 weeks and are off for 1. DH thinks we have too much time off, but we enjoy it. One "bad" thing about the week off is that the outside classes don' have time off when we do and so we can't leave town. Or we do leave town and return for class. When class is once a week, it's hard to miss one. Right now, we've pushed our break back to everyone else's spring break so we have a week off with nothing.

 

Just to give you an idea of some different schedules.

 

I'd think it would be hard to be on break at home and have to work at the school. I also wonder about being on break at school and at school at home.

[Ellie]

We took off Thanksgiving through about the middle of January, a couple of weeks around Easter (I always get spring fever :D ), and a couple of weeks off in late August/early September (time for some Not Back to School field trips :D ).

[Jen in PA]

We take about 6 weeks off (from Memorial Day to Independence Day), and I think it gives a long enough chunk of time for me to get some non-school projects in without giving the kids enough time off to forget everything they learned the year before. We generally have another week or two off in August for family visits/daycamp, a full week at Thanksgiving, a two week winter break, and we have a week of spring break coming up. School is a bit lighter in the summer and in May (as we finish curriculum, I don't start new things past mid-April).

[desertmum]

We are schooling all year around. The weather around here means all outdoor activities between May-October are limited by the intense heat. The winter months is our 'summer' and you have to take every chance to be out and about even if it means school "light". Also, ds would quickly forget what's his learned if we take too long a break.

[HSMom2One]

Well, if you school 36 weeks, take 6wks off for summer, and take 4wks off for Christmas, that leaves you with 6 weeks of vacation time, not 9weeks. I can't really comment otherwise. :-D

 

You are so right! Thanks for correcting my math. :D

 

I don't work part time, but I can comment on year round schedules....

 

We school 9 weeks and are off for 1. DH thinks we have too much time off, but we enjoy it. One "bad" thing about the week off is that the outside classes don' have time off when we do and so we can't leave town. Or we do leave town and return for class. When class is once a week, it's hard to miss one. Right now, we've pushed our break back to everyone else's spring break so we have a week off with nothing.

 

Just to give you an idea of some different schedules.

 

I'd think it would be hard to be on break at home and have to work at the school. I also wonder about being on break at school and at school at home.

 

Point well taken on having a totally different schedule that others in school or hs'd. As far as teaching and breaking the way I've described, I wouldn't mind it at all. There are people at home while I'm gone and dd would not get lonely. We would keep her busy with other things non-school related. When the school where I teach is on break, I would truly enjoy having more focused time with my dd and would take advantage of that. I'm a little unique in that I love being involved in both hs'ing and private schooling. I have one foot in each world and somehow manage it well.

 

We take about 6 weeks off (from Memorial Day to Independence Day), and I think it gives a long enough chunk of time for me to get some non-school projects in without giving the kids enough time off to forget everything they learned the year before. We generally have another week or two off in August for family visits/daycamp, a full week at Thanksgiving, a two week winter break, and we have a week of spring break coming up. School is a bit lighter in the summer and in May (as we finish curriculum, I don't start new things past mid-April).

 

This is very similar to what I am envisioning for us, but we'd maybe take the full month of December off instead of a Thanksgiving break and then a Christmas break.

 

Well, I'm glad to see that some others are using this method successfully. I'm still not absolutely sure we'll do this, but I think it's a good option to consider.

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

Edited March 16, 2012 by HSMom2One

[MeghanL]

We start in September & school without a break until November. We do this because a) we are excited about all our new stuff and b) the first few months of school always seem to be really easy with review and such.

 

Starting in November, we take 1 week off per month. For November it's Thanksgiving week, December the week of Christmas...and then take whichever week I want to from January - July. This also allows me to have the entire month of August off to write my lessons plans for the following year.

 

I like this schedule because I feel that it discourages burnout. Every 3 or 4 weeks we get to take a week long break. During this time we can catch up on schoolwork if we had illness or bad attitudes, etc. I also schedule dr visits during this week and we are really active in our homeschool meetup group during this week as well. Oh, and this is also the one week a month that the house gets really clean :)

[HSMom2One]

MeghanL, that's an awesome idea! I'll have to give that some consideration as well.

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

[HSMom2One]

Anyone else want to chime in?

 

Lucinda

[cactus flower]

We are schooling all year around. The weather around here means all outdoor activities between May-October are limited by the intense heat. The winter months is our 'summer' and you have to take every chance to be out and about even if it means school "light".

 

 

Our hot summer isn't quite as long as DesertMum's, but this is what we do, too. Swimming is the only outdoor summer activity for us. We have picnics, park days, and soccer in the winter months. We get more school done in the summer, because we are inside more.

[happypamama]

I really like our year round schedule. I've done different things, but for this upcoming year, I'm just basing my plans on needing 180 days, and we'll work as needed and take breaks as needed. Probably that means we'll have several weeks in the summer of solid daily work, since it's too hot to be outside much anyway, and then we'll have several weeks in the fall, with some "let's skip school today" days when the lovely fall weather hits. Then we'll go light from Thanksgiving to New Year's -- I'm not entirely sure how that will work, because I don't really want to take seven full weeks off, but I want to leave more time for Christmas-related activities too. Then January and February (and March, depending on the weather) will be heavy school months, with April, May, and June maybe being lighter. I have to log 180 days in my state, so I try to get at least 15 days a month that I count as school days; 20 is better and lets us be done sooner (only for the state's purposes), but 15 is the goal.

[Occasionally]

Last July we started to do year-round, but since it hasn't been a full year I can only say that so far it's working well. We school 4 days a week, and can move that fifth day around to suit us. That means (since we're also in PA) we need to do 45 weeks to get our 180 days, with seven full weeks off.

[HSMom2One]

I'm fascinated by everyone's different approach to this. So many options! I'm glad I brought this up because I haven't even considered being this creative with our schedule before.

 

You guys are awesome.

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

[runmiarun]

We school year-round. My kids, even in our flexibility-driven life, love the routine of school and rotating their day around it. Granted, they're in 1st and K so we have the added bonus of built-in flexibility. We started as year-round while living at the beach. It was so stinking hot and humid in the summer that playing outside all day was challenging for mama. Plus, naps at 5pm were a pain. Fall, spring, and what passed for winter were our best times for being outside.

 

Now that we've moved into the northern part of our state, we'll be sticking with the year-round schedule. It's just working well for us. Plus, I have the added safety net that I KNOW I'm getting all their required school days in so I can stop stressing over that if one of them (or all or mama) gets sick or just plain too tired to school.