What's your year round schedule?

[ajfries]

I'm planning on starting my Kindergartener on a year round schedule, but I'm kind of at a loss as to where to start? We don't have a set amount of hours that we're working towards...our state (Washington) doesn't require anything, really, before age 8.

 

I like the idea of 6 weeks on/1 week off, and also the idea of using Fridays as a hands-on day but that would still very much count towards 'school'. I'd likely also take a month off in the Spring & probably a week here & there to coordinate with DH's vacation schedule. I know at his age he doesn't need a lot of structure...but I DO :) even if it means scheduling spontaneity. LOL

[Ellie]

We're official Off between Thanksgiving and around the middle of January.

 

A couple of weeks off around Easter.

 

A couple of weeks off in late August/early September (time for not-back-to-school activities!)

 

Random time off for visits with grandparents, mental health days, etc.

 

Otherwise, our schedule, when my dc were little, was thus:

 

Monday and Tuesday: official school stuff. No errands, no field trips, no doctor appointments, nothing, nada. Stay home. No talking on the phone for me, no crafty things, just...staying home.

 

Wednesday: Library. Every single week. Maybe visit friends in the afternoon, but nothing regular. Mostly just come home and read. Dc might do official school stuff if they're bored, lol.

 

Thursday: Field trip. Every.single.week. Usually just us, once in awhile invite friends if there's something I want to do that requires more than three bodies.

 

Friday: Clean house. All the laundry, dust the furniture, move the furniture and vacuum, clean the bathroom, change the sheets on the beds, everything. Once-a-month park day.

 

Eventually we morphed into KONOS--two days a week, KONOS activities, two days a week English and math. Clean house on Friday, once-a-month park day.

[skeeterbug]

Sounds like you've already worked out a schedule! What you've outlined sounds perfect. Give it a go snd see how it works for you. I've done 6 weeks on/1 week off and it worked well for us. You might find six weeks is too long or too short for you. We take a longer break over Chistmas/January because that's our summer. Friday is our homeschool group day and we've tried no school/projects/half-days on that day until we found what works for us. Doing one day of just projects/activities with a K'er sounds lovely. We also take off anytime DH has off work.

 

This is the perfect year for you to experiment with your K'er, so go for it!

[ajfries]

Sounds like you've already worked out a schedule! What you've outlined sounds perfect. Give it a go snd see how it works for you. I've done 6 weeks on/1 week off and it worked well for us. You might find six weeks is too long or too short for you. We take a longer break over Chistmas/January because that's our summer. Friday is our homeschool group day and we've tried no school/projects/half-days on that day until we found what works for us. Doing one day of just projects/activities with a K'er sounds lovely. We also take off anytime DH has off work.

 

This is the perfect year for you to experiment with your K'er, so go for it!

 

 

Well. That was easier than I anticipated :blushing: I guess I just needed to stop thinking and write it out! :laugh: Thanks for the vote of confidence!

[StartingOver]

We don't plan, we just play hookie as needed !

:coolgleamA:

[IrishMum]

We don't plan, we just play hookie as needed !

:coolgleamA:

 

This is us too!!

[Chelli]

I'm planning on starting my Kindergartener on a year round schedule, but I'm kind of at a loss as to where to start? We don't have a set amount of hours that we're working towards...our state (Washington) doesn't require anything, really, before age 8.

 

I like the idea of 6 weeks on/1 week off, and also the idea of using Fridays as a hands-on day but that would still very much count towards 'school'. I'd likely also take a month off in the Spring & probably a week here & there to coordinate with DH's vacation schedule. I know at his age he doesn't need a lot of structure...but I DO :) even if it means scheduling spontaneity. LOL

 

 

Our state doesn't require a set amount of hours either, so I developed a pretty easy system to make sure that we covered all of our material, but still let us be as flexible as possible.

 

Check out my blog post How I Plan Our Homeschool Year in my signature. It explains it. :)

 

.

[Farrar]

We've done different things... I think we're settling into start the new year in October, school until mid-December, take off until mid-January, school again until May, take off for a few weeks, come back and school until September and take off all of September. Not back to school activities, like Ellie said, and the general enjoyment of fall. I've found that we really need time off when the weather is best - May and September. September is also our birthday month.

 

We also just play hooky as needed, of course.

[blondchen]

I'm planning to do almost exactly what you mentioned. I think it will work well for us, since I love the flexibility to take time off when we need it and the built-in opportunities to get back on track. DH will have one day off during the week (either Friday or Monday) so that will be a light school day for us and we'll go full throttle on the other four, and use that fifth day to catch up on things that didn't get done, and/or to do outings and activities, etc. I'm going to try planning out six weeks at a time and then evaluate and adjust. I'm also planning a long break between Thanksgiving and New Year's, and then another in June. We're moving sometime this summer or early fall (don't know exactly when) so we may have to take a chunk of time off pretty early on, but at this point I'm getting all my ducks in a row and will start the first or second week of July.

 

Even though K year can be very light and laid-back (ours was), I think you are wise to set some kind of schedule for this year, even as just a trial run. I experimented a bit last year for K and I'm so glad - it gave me a feel for what worked for us without having any pressure, and I am more confident in what I want to do for this year when there's more at stake in having my stuff together!!

 

A planned structure with flexibility is the best of both worlds for me. I need to have a plan, but being able to easily adjust it while staying on track for the year is very important for my sanity.

 

HTH!!

[Mom2TheTeam]

I don't have a pre-set plan. We just school when we aren't doing something else. LOL!

 

We take days off for appts and playdates and randomly because my younger kids derail us. We have 4 "full" days a week and a light day, but the light day is usually used to catch up on what we missed during the week. We take off for camping trips and vacations. We take off around Christmas, but probably not as long as some. We basically use the year round schooling so we can be relaxed about schooling.

 

Our school year goes from July 1 - June 30. So, as long as we are done with the "year" in that year, we are good. :)

[Emagine]

We do year round. Prob more than most but I find my kids work better and it averages out in the end. My kids are spectrum kiddos and live off routine. I struggle with myself on when and how to do more breaks with out letting the weight of it crash on us. I would be open to ideas.

 

We are to do the normal 180. We do more. I wish I could figure out a good spacing. Some days I just want to not be the teacher lol.

 

We begin Jan 1. Yes NYDay. My kids look at it as the first day of the year, you can not begin on day 3-6-8 etc. unheard of to upset that balance. And we truck!

 

We do 4 days of subjects with Friday being our catch up, light day, errands etc. I call it sometimes our Unschooling Coping Skills Day. I have a very hard time to figuring out breaks otherwise. We take a week in March for Vacation. We take 2 days in May for Home School Days at Great Wolf Lodge. Same in September, which also falls on one DS birthday. June, July we do 3 day weeks. M/F off. Aug back to it. Halloween is our official wind down time. We take it off and do a couple of days here and there till the week before Thanksgiving for routine and retention. I refuse to do any schooling, unless we left off struggling from late November through December.

 

I would love to find a happier balance. The weeks on and weeks off I have not figured out through the year because I want the Holidays to be stress free. I am open to suggestions :)

[lots of little ducklings]

We just finished our first year homeschooling our kindy, and I went into the year with very little vaca time actually planned. Instead I had about 8-10 weeks available to "pull from" when I needed a rest, and it worked great for us. I ended up dropping to half days between Thanksgiving and New Years (which for Kindy meant we dropped everything but calendar math and reading), then taking an occasional few days for sickness or just rest/play/yardwork/hooky, and now we are enjoying a break so I can plan for next year. We plan to do school over the summer, too-- I had originally thought we would limit summer school to just science but the kids are gettting antsy with too much free time, so I think I may get a jump start on other 1st grade subjects. I'm usually very type A about schedules/lists/deadlines, but I'm really learning to appreciate the flexibility of homeschooling. It's great!

[Walking-Iris]

We start a new year and new books/levels etc mid August. My kids do take some of June and all of July off (birthday month and we tend to get pretty active outside in summer), but by August they are tired of the hot weather and tend to be ready to start some activities. We take a couple weeks at Xmas, a week at Easter, and any long weekends we need to take for other holidays, trips etc.

 

We do some school type stuff even in summer however. It's just a way of life and it's strange to stop doing all things. So math, reading, some fun art or science projects, nature study etc we continue in summer.

[Love2teach0307]

Our year round schedule starts the Monday after 4th of July. We take two weeks off in the fall, the month of December off, two weeks off in March and the month of June off. That leaves approximately 40 weeks to get in 36 weeks of school. I didn't start out this way; we actually burned out and needed the breaks then. It helps us tremendously to step away and come back refreshed (and the house reorganized). I also organized our subjects into either 12 weeks studies (like history or science) or 6 weeks studies (like geography or nature study) so we can rotate what we are working on. Besides Bible, Memory and Math we are not working on every subject every week, but I have to plan it out or it doesn't get studied. My oldest is going in to 5th and it has taken me this long to really figure out what works for us. So don't feel like you have to figure it all out right now. Plan your work and work your plan, then see what actually works.

[Julie Smith]

Our year round schedule is, If Dh is at work and we are at home then it's a school day. We school a teeny bit heavier at the start of the week since we have activites during the later half of the week. I suppose that having so many school days is what makes it possible to have very light days.

[homeschoolkitty]

someone suggested to start at christmas and look at vacation schedules then take 3 wks off. then look at thanksgiving and give yourself a week. then Easter week and July 4th. then you start counting your 6 wks from December up and down. next yr for easter for us was a 7 wk and 5 wk, just where the family vaction/time off work.

but it works out nicely from off 4th of July wk on. we have to work out an Oct break still and hubby off days and super busy work seasons.

 

 

[LisaKinVA]

We play hookie as needed, do better with a standard every-day routine. June & July tend to be really busy here, but we still have school 4 days/week. Our "official" year begins in September. We take 3 days for Thanksgiving, a week for Christmas, and then whatever else we need. There are times we need to travel, or I may be working, or there is some special event we are working on (and often, I don't know about the extra commitments until they are upon us)...and I don't sweat it, we just take off the time we need. This actually allows me to relax. When I tried doing 9 weeks on, 3 weeks off (or variations), I'd freak when our schedule got messed up...and it always got messed up. I was often stressed out. Now, I don't stress nearly as much :D

[Coco_Clark]

We just finished our first year. I did 4-6 weeks on and then a week off from September-June. The variance because sometimes a holiday made it a convenient week to take off, but never less than 4 weeks or more than 6 without a break. That rhythm is what I needed to destress and plan ahead.

 

We school Monday-Friday. But we are an ACTIVE family. We leave the house T-F at 9:30, come back in time for lunch and then school from 12:30-3:00 or 3:30 while the baby naps. The only reason we stay home Monday mornings is because that's the day I clean, ha!

 

Summers are "lighter". Just the three "r's" and interest led pursuits. An hour-hour and a half every other day or so.

[boscopup]

We start somewhere around the end of June or beginning of July, ending in May when public schools end. I print out a calendar from Donna Young that shows each month and has a line next to each week. I then write in planned breaks. We do family vacation around Labor Day, then an extra week off to recover (last year was Disney, so we needed that recovery week!). Then we take off a week at Thanksgiving, 3ish weeks at Christmas, a week for my birthday in March. Then we take off any other days that come up, or I blow off school when the weather is really nice. We end up with a planned break about every 6-8 weeks, but if I need a week off for sanity or just to get the house cleaned, I'll take it.

 

Fridays are light because DH has every other Friday off, and sometimes he takes the kids on little trips those weekends ( aquarium, zoo, etc.). We don't have any trouble getting a week's worth of work done in 4 days, since we're just doing elementary grades.

[Soror]

Same as others here, during the year we strive for about 6w on/1 w off, trying to plan around holidays and such. I generally want to school more at the beginning of the year, around August- lighter in Nov/Dec, heavy again Jan/Feb, lighter March/April, heavier in May/June or something like that. We seem to go in cycles of heavier and lighter work and like others like to take time off when the weather is nice, as long as we make progress and meet our local requirements then I guess we are are good and thus far we have.

[happymomofboys]

I've done it several ways over the years. Our school year is July-June and 3 weeks on/1 week off was great when they were younger and using Sonlight. We're using Tapestry of Grace now and I found this past year that I didn't like taking such frequent breaks. It seemed to interrupt the flow of the TOG units sometimes. I think next year we'll switch to 6 weeks on/1 week off or we may just take longer breaks quarterly at the end of each TOG unit. I haven't decided yet.

[Mom0012]

Until this year, we did math and grammar over the summer along with some free reading. This got us a little "ahead" in those subjects. Then we would start ramping up our schedule, adding in a new subject every day or two around mid-August. September through November, we would do a full schedule and then in December, we'd be back to just math and grammar and reading. In January, we'd be able to cut grammar down to 2-3 days a week and cut back on math some as well. Now that we have languages in the mix and I've figured out that my son needs to practice writing over the summer, that schedule no longer works, but it was great while it lasted.

[Berta]

Our routine seems to change each year. We started our year the first week of June. We normally wait til the end of July/early August but It gets too hot in the summer to be outdoors in the middle of the day, so we do a lot of school work during the afternoons. We use the AM to do our errands outside of the house. We slow it down between Thanksgiving and Christmas and take most of Feb and March off. The winters are mild here and this is when we take our vacation time. We also play hookie as needed. Our state requires 180 days and we have yet to have a problem trying to get them all in.

[BugsMama]

Add us to the "play hookie when we want to" camp. We tend to take off April, August and December, and work the rest of the year. It works well for our family.

[happypamama]

Our schedule looks like this:

 

M-F, regular schoolwork, taking off all birthdays/our anniversary/DH's few holidays, plus times when the grandparents come to visit (and especially with a baby, there will be times when schoolwork just doesn't happen). One day a week is for errands, including library, and for young kids, I'd do Friday as a light day. (That's also co-op day sometimes for our family.)

 

Other than that, we start around July 1. This year's plan:

-take off about three weeks in August for our new baby's arrival

-take off a full week the week of Thanksgiving

-take off the two weeks before Christmas and the week after Christmas. (We'll probably have some special readings/projects/activities during the weeks before Christmas, and they'll count as school days but won't count as far as advancing our math or science curricula, if that makes sense. For my older kids, it'll be a nice break, and for my preschoolers, it'll be plenty of learning.)

-take off the full week before Easter and the full week after Easter (hopefully similarly to Christmas, with Easter activities)

-finish by Memorial Day and have from then until July 1 off completely. (I'm LOVING this so much this year. It's been a gentle, slow spring, so it's not too hot yet, and the kids are outside a lot during the day. It was really great to go away for a mini-vacation at Memorial Day and know that we were done for the year and had completed our state's requirements.