summertime!

[smithical]

this fall will be our first curriculum-structured homeschooling experience, and i know i'm jumping the gun here, but i was wondering what you parents do with your kids during summer vacation?

 

do you school year-round with small breaks here and there? do you have "school-lite" in the summer months? or nothing at all?

 

just curious. :)

~liz

[Sophia]

do you school year-round with small breaks here and there? do you have "school-lite" in the summer months? or nothing at all?

 

Yes, yes, and yes :D

 

Depending on pregnancies, new babies, different activities dc are involved in, and other life stuff that crops up, we have done all three of the above.

 

I usually have a good idea at the beginning of the school year what we are going to need to do come summertime.

[VaKim]

We school year round, with short breaks whenever needed or wanted. :) Keeps us from having to do dreaded review every year. We can just keep moving along. Also, we can have breaks at other times of the year, and a lot more of them than if we took summer off.

[TN Mama]

Hi Liz. We are starting our homeschool in the fall, too, so we haven't gotten to a summer of hs yet. I will have one dd in school though, so I imagine we'll stick pretty closely to the school schedule. That is, unless I decide to take dd 5 out mid-year or something. ;)

[Closeacademy]

We school year round. I usually pull things way back to a minimum and then slow gear up to the next level adding new things in every so often. It has always been a year round thing for us but it was a decision based on the fact that we didn't want to do scads of review each fall to remember what we were taught last year before we could move onto this years material in math and language arts.

 

Good luck with whatever you decide to do. Some people follow the local school calendar very happily, some do fun projects during the summer or work on trouble spots like summer school and then there are those of us who school year round.

 

Hope you have a great homeschool journey.:001_smile:

[Adrianne]

this fall will be our first curriculum-structured homeschooling experience, and i know i'm jumping the gun here, but i was wondering what you parents do with your kids during summer vacation?

 

do you school year-round with small breaks here and there? do you have "school-lite" in the summer months? or nothing at all?

 

just curious. :)

~liz

 

We start school July 1 and school all year round taking weekly breaks about once a month. BUT nice days are always spent outside having fun exploring or just playing. My boys love imagination play and the slip and slide. Schooling year round allows us to have this fun time whenever we want or need it.

 

Some days are spent just doing art and music or writing in their nature journals. We enjoy the Green Hour activities and Sketch Tuesday. These are great summertime outside activities.

 

Welcome to homeschooling Liz!

[gandpsmommy]

First, welcome to the boards and to hsing! It's an exciting journey. We have been hsing for two years. In theory I love the idea of schooling year round with frequent, smaller breaks. But it just doesn't work well for our family in reality. And I also love the idea of doing a lighter schedule but continuing some schoolwork in the summer, but that also doesn't work well for us. We live in a climate where we are trapped inside all winter, and when the warm weather finally gets here we are ready to be outside. So, we take a three month summer break. Over the summer we spend a lot of time at the pool, play on the swing set and in the yard, ride bikes, get together with relatives, play with the neighborhood children, go on fun trips, go to bed late and sleep in, and just relax. We do still read and try to keep read-alouds going. And this summer we have been listening to history cd's in the car on the way to activities. But other than that, we take a big break. Then, in the fall, we will be ready to get back to work. I think the key is to determine what fits your family's style. My dd would be miserable if I made her do school in the summer, and she really retains skills/knowledge well, so having a long break isn't much of an issue for us. Dh is also on board with it. He feels that kids need time to just play. So, it works for our family.

 

We do like to take "field trips" in the summer that we might not have had time for during the school year. So far this summer we have been to a botanical conservatory, an aquarium, and a zoo.

 

Good luck!

[Pata]

We have continued math and reading this summer, but otherwise we follow a 36 week school schedule. We start mid August and end in early June. We take a day or two off here and there. We take a week off at Thanksgiving and Easter and for the month of December we do a Christmas unit study(this is in addition to our 36 weeks). Hope that helps!

[G5052]

We just sort of fell into the year-round because my husband has health problems and we just had too many breaks, but I soon realized that it was a blessing because they didn't forget as much!

 

Now we do art, read-alouds, math review, Latin, and Spanish every day in the summer, and we'll have a week off here and there.

[Susie in SWVA]

We homeschool 3 months on, one month off. We are off April, August and December. Vacations, etc. mess this up a bit, but it is our plan. Our three summer months always turn out lighter than the rest of the year. We have done this from the beginning and I REALLY like it.

 

Susie in SWVA

[elegantlion]

We typically follow a public school schedule so ds can play with his friends. We start a week earlier in August, we normally take a week off in September. We do a light summer schedule to keep math and reading fresh. It is less structured than our normal schedule.

 

Welcome to the boards.

[K&Rs Mom]

We school year round, with short breaks whenever needed or wanted. :) Keeps us from having to do dreaded review every year. We can just keep moving along. Also, we can have breaks at other times of the year, and a lot more of them than if we took summer off.

 

:iagree: We happen to be off this week, because it was a logical break between animals & plants (1st grade science), and because the kids have tennis & swimming. We'll be back to our regular schedule next week, and probably take off for a family trip in September when outschools have started again and vacation prices drop. :)

 

I think it would be different if we lived in a state where we had to report a certain number of days or hours.

[abbeyej]

We continue doing *some* amount of work, but we change things up. It's not always the same sort of thing... One summer we did Calendar Quest from Brimwood Press and made scrapbook pages for each period we "visited". This year, I felt our American History studies hadn't gone as I'd planned, and I found what really *worked* for us late in the year, so we're spending our summer doing a more intense study of American history before we move on in the fall.

 

We do some math, but not enough, lol... Basically, by the time summer comes around, we need the *illusion* of a break -- some sort of change-up, something that doesn't require much planning or effort on my part -- but I want them still engaged in regular learning and we all get along better with a little bit of structure to our days. It's a good time for a simple unit study, or a quick overview of world history (to help remind us where all the pieces go for when we do longer, more in-depth history studies), etc, etc.

 

Our year really *starts* when dh's semester begins (he's a professor), and we start new stuff and new grades then. But we don't have a totally school-free summer.

[Paula in PA]

It just works better for us. We are doing a 7-week on / 1-week off schedule with 2 weeks at the end of the calendar year and 3-4 weeks at the end of June (between 'grades'). As dd gets older, this will probably change some, but I still prefer the year-round way.

[smithical]

thanks for all your input! i think i plan on always doing some sort of learning throughout the year, even if we decide to do a full summer break. it's always nice to get other ideas...

[johnandtinagilbert]

we school 6wks on 1 wk off, then that gets trashed b/c we take off 2 wks at Christmas, and public school spring break...hee hee....we school in the summer, but it turns out to be school-light, b/c if we finish something (like math or grammar) we don't start the new program. So right now, we're on our last week of grammar, we are having remedial/fun math (15-30min), full science, full history (at the last week), no latin, no spanish, piano. Easier so I can lesson plan for next year, we don't get burnt out b/c we break, and I account for 21 lost days in my planning....if we don't use them, we finish early, if we do use them, no biggie.

[Maisy]

I always *want* to school in the summer, but after we've done swimming lessons, girl scout camp, sewing camp, football camp, art camp, pastry chef camp, and a week or two of plain ol' camp camp, there's hardly any summer left to do school!

 

We read every day and frequent the library and its programs. But otherwise we just have fun. We all need a break from the daily grind!

 

And I have to scrapbook sometime! :)

[paula j]

I like to get some math practice in there but now that ds is older he has been really busy working odd jobs and doing boy scout projects.

[Targhee]

We school-lite in the summer, and take vacation whenever we want :driving:

 

Our umbrella school has a 36 week schedule from late August to early June (with the the month of December and a week in April "off") during which we have "contact" requirements. These 36 weeks are more structured and rigorous.