Year round vs Traditional school year

[jbsoil]

I'm sure this has been asked a million times, but I couldn't find any recent threads. Do you school year round or follow a traditional school year? If you school year round, when do you take breaks?

[GoVanGogh]

We school year round and take breaks when we need them or where they fall.

It seems like doctor appointments seem to fall together, so we might take a week off for those.

Awesome field trip options tend to come in waves, especially seasonal/outdoor ones, so we might take a week off from 'school at home' for field trips.

Family vacations are generally fit in around work and outside classes.

I sometimes take a break when life seems to be moving too fast for me and I need to reset my sleep/workout habits.

I really don't plan breaks out very far in advance so much as let them happen.

I count our school days and know roughly how many we need to do each month/semester to get through our school work.

[73349]

We school year-round, doing something different in our July/August session from the regular year. We have short school days and take few breaks.

 

ETA: Legally, a school year is July 1 to June 30, but I promote DS on Labor Day.

[Grover]

year round Jan - Dec, cos that's how our school system works here.  The schools here run 4 x 10 week terms (give or take - some are 9 weeks and others are 11) with two weeks between each term and about 6 weeks off over Christmas / New Year.  We mostly follow that although that mostly means *I* take that time off from organising stuff and they do lots of things on their own. 

[desertflower]

We school year round.  We take breaks around mid-Sept to October for play time outside.  Then take 2 weeks off for Thanksgiving.  Then take mid-dec. to mid-Jan off. 

 

[mom31257]

We do a modified year round because dh teaches school and we follow him mostly.

 

Begin around 2nd week of August

Week off early October

Week of Thanksgiving off

3 weeks Christmas/New Year break

Week off in late Feb.

Week off late March/early April

Done with most all school by late May

Do some school off and on in summer, mostly math, LA, and lit

[lllll]

..

[LilBearsMama]

We go year round. We take breaks as needed or when they fall around a holiday. Long breaks do not work for us. Promotion to the next "grade" is in September, but we file with the state in January and just go Jan - Dec. Makes more sense to me. :)

[Butter]

Traditional school year.  We used to do year round.  My older two are kind of bitter about that.

[HS Mom in NC]

When the olders were younger we did year round to avoid the extreme weather here.  We had lots of hs friends to meet up with regularly, so it was not problem. 

 As they got involved in activities with kids from different schools (church, archery, etc.) we started following the local school schedule more closely. 

 Now that it's just the youngest and her best friend across the street goes to ps and because I started planning an entire year with the 36 week file folder system several years ago we follow the school year to maximize my planning time and her play time with the neighbor kid.

 

[Ellie]

Children learn year-round, so it makes sense for our Official School Year to begin in January and in December.

 

We started around the middle of January; took off a couple of weeks around Easter; took off a couple weeks in late August/early September; Thanksgiving through the middle of January; and any other random days as needed for mental health. :-) We worked on things until we finished or got tired of them and then we moved on to the next thing. I did "promote" in the fall, for the sake of Sunday school teachers and grandparents. :-)

[MinivanMom]

We follow a traditional calendar. I like having the summer for planning time, the kids like to be off to play with their public school friends when they are on break, and we like to take advantage of summer camps and other seasonal offerings.

[OneStepAtATime]

Our plan is to do year round (and we tried this past year but kept having unexpected family emergencies interrupt our plans) but we intend to take one week off at the beginning of summer, shorter lessons during the summer and some weeks only 3 days a week if they are in lots of outside the house activities.  We also plan to take one week off during the middle of summer and two weeks off right before we start our full schedule again so I have more time to plan.  We take off time for certain holidays but basically just as needed.

[HS Mom in NC]

Oops, forgot to explain that when I did year round we took Thanksgiving to New Year's off and I did Christmas Pageant costumes for the children's church activities and I was in the church orchestra.

 

We did a lot of outdoorsy things in the spring and fall.

[texasmama]

We do a traditional 36 week school year for most subjects but stick in electives, extra classics for reading aloud, math enrichment/cementing of concepts, and working on specific skills that need shoring up, in addition to finishing up the year's undone work.

 

This year, for instance, my boys will finish history, science, geography, and logic by the end of May.  Grammar, algebra, writing, and independent assigned reading will bleed into summer.  I will also find some things to stick in our summer schedule, but I'm not exactly sure what that will be yet.  I will need to think on what they need to be prepared for 9th grade.

 

For little dd, I will hand her some good books to read and will likely continue Life of Fred, which she loves.  Everything else will be finished.

[sbgrace]

I school year round. I'm always willing to take a full or partial day off for visiting friends, vacations, doctors appointments, weather related fun, whatever. The year round schedule gives me that flexibility, and we never have to review last year's material. That said, we've never lived in a neighborhood with kids. I can imagine that would make things difficult perhaps. 

[Loowit]

We do traditional school year.  My kids are involved in many activities that are scheduled around the school schedule, and so trying to be different would be a headache.  When they were younger it would probably have worked better.  This summer my DD is going to be gone most of the summer working at a summer camp.  I also enjoy having a summer break.  It is usually the one time of the year we have decent weather for outdoor activities.  However, I have no qualms about taking an unexpected week off for something that comes up be it sickness, fun activity, or whatever.

[mamaraby]

Year round following dh's 5 days on/2 days off, 5on/3off rotation. We take a month off in June and another in December. We also do 6 weeks of school followed by one week off. Love it!

[SorrelZG]

We have done whatever works with the rest of our life at the time. This past year it meant taking summer off. In years past it meant schooling year round. This year we will have Aug. and Sept. off probably. Whatever happens, I "promote" in the fall and I don't plan far in advance for number of weeks on or days off.

[nobeatenpath]

We have been doing a modified year round - my husband was deployed so we schooled while he was away, took a large break in November to all go on holidays, and since then have had various breaks when he was on leave to take small trips or day trips (have to say using Homeschool Planner where it is easy to shift lessons out on the schedule has really helped this!) I will take another break when we drive down to Istanbul at the end of March, and then a modified schooling plan as it could be up to 9 weeks before we see all our belongings - but we will take enough with us in the car to have a pretty normal 'school' after a week or two of getting organised and settling in.

Then the fun starts - we have to see what my husband's new job is like, if there are well organised leave periods etc. If there are, I will try to plan a new school year around those. If not ... I will pretty much be schooling year round with breaks where we can get them as a family.

[....]

We've always schooled year-round.  We just take a break if we need it.  Working year-round also means my kids don't have to spend most of their day on schoolwork.  We're more flexible and not in a hurry to get through stuff.   

[SparklyUnicorn]

We school year round here and take breaks as needed or wanted.  I like it for the same reason mentioned by Evanthe.  Days are a bit shorter and we can be a lot more flexible.  We school 4 days per week at this point.

 

 

[mc26]

Year round, so we can do shorter days.  We are done by 1 most days so my kids can play tennis in the afternoons.  We take breaks when we need them.  

[Rebecca in KY]

We school 4 weeks on/1 week off, for 36 weeks. We start mid to late August and finish up sometime in June. I find that this helps us avoid burnout AND avoid forgetting things over long breaks. If something comes up, I just shuffle our calendar a bit. For example, we ended up visiting family in Texas for a week in January. It conflicted with my planned school schedule, so I just moved a couple of weeks around.

 

This year during our longer summer break, DS will read every day. Then we will alternate math one week, spelling the next, back and forth until we start up again. It'll take about 30-45 min/day. We do better with reliable structure and with remembering that school does indeed exist. :) This format also allows for time to play with PS friends, go to the park, go swimming, etc.

[MrsWeasley]

We sort of do school in the summer. I loosely plan to finish around Memorial Day, but any subjects we haven't finished bleed into summer. If once we've finished but the kids are bored, bickering, etc... I will use it as an opportunity to get a jump start on next year. Most of the hard breaks are around if we do something: camp, vacations, holidays, sick days, things I just want to do with my kids during the day....

[Amithy]

DH is a public school teacher. So, it works best for us to loosely follow his schedule. What this means, though, is that we start school 2 weeks before the public school kids because that's when the teachers go back. We trade those extra weeks for time off during the Jewish High Holiday season (a week or so in September or October) and sometimes an extra week off in January. School runs until mid-June for DH. So, we take a break basically from mid June to mid August. DD continues to read and do some math over those 2 months. We also do projects, summer daycamps, and family trips, which all tend to be "educational."

[kirstenhill]

We follow more of a traditional schedule, though we usually start our school year earlier in the fall and then end a bit earlier in the spring than the public schools in our area. We do try and do math and keep everyone reading over the summer.

 

Where we live summer is about the only nice time to be outside, so mornings are often spent at the park or tennis court, and afternoons at the pool. Most of our kids' friends (homeschool or public school) take the summer off, so there is lots of time spent playing with the neighborhood kids too.

[.Michelle.]

Year-roundish.

 

Our curriculum has a six-week cycle of lessons with the last week consisting of heavy review.  We do three weeks on/one week off with an emphasis on enrichment, then another three weeks on/one week off for just relaxing, appointments, etc.  We take about two weeks off at Christmas and at Easter, then have a five week mini-summer before starting up the next year.

 

[abacus2]

We follow a traditional calendar, although I like to start in late summer to leave time for a longer winter holiday.  We have several close family members that work in the school system. We like our schedules to be coordinated and we all need a real, don't even think about it, break from school.

[Maela]

We school year round, but:  1. about half-time during the summer and 2. with a light week every 8 weeks (for catch-up and planning).

[ScoutTN]

Traditional school schedule.

Our whole family benefits from a break, a season to learn primarily in other ways. Swim team, camp, VBS and lots of leisure to follow our various interests makes summer a good, less intense time of learning for us. We love the summer and come back to our school year refreshed.

We do play lots of math games and always read, read, read!

[My3girls]

We school year round. We have a catch-up week every 6 weeks. We take off a week at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day. In the summer, we do "summer schedule" which is much lighter to allow the girls to play with their ps friends and go swimming, etc... The new school year starts when ps does for the sake of promotion.

[Mommy_of_4]

We school yr round and just take breaks when needed.

[hollyhock]

I like the idea of year-round, but we do a traditional schedule. I need and love my summer break and so do the kids. Summer is when I can do house projects and garden and we can swim in the pool, help Dad on the farm - all the things we just can't do in winter and when school is happening. The down side is that they do forget some stuff, but I've been surprised that it hasn't been a bigger deal and it doesn't take too long to get back into the swing of things in fall.

[Mom22ns]

We followed a traditional schedule. We set our own schedule each year, but it is similar to the local schools. As a pp said, my kids have been involved in activities that follow the school schedule and it would have been a major pain to do otherwise. Not to mention, summer camps, mission trips, vacations, and friends being out of school in the summer would all lead to us being extremely unproductive. 

 

My kids much prefer to school on a schedule similar to their friends. If your kids friends will primarily be other homeschoolers, this may be less of an issue. But my kids never made any close friends among homeschoolers, they were all in B&M schools. It really was an issue.

 

That said, we have taken major vacations during spring and fall most years to avoid crowds and get off-peak prices. We love having the flexibility of creating our own schedule!

[KrissiK]

I would prefer to school year round, but we do it traditional because of the neighborhood kids. They're all in brick and mortar schools and heaven forbid that my poor children are stuck inside doing math while the rest of the world is shooting baskets! (I understand, I'm not bagging on my kids! I'd hate it, too, if everyone else were on vacation and not me!)

[mamaraby]

Traditional. Honestly, I think having long and complete breaks from homeschooling is a factor in my lack of burnout.

See, and I found the opposite. Last year we basically did the traditional schedule and even managed several weeks off in December, but I was really struggling come February and barely made it to May with my sanity intact. I had to take every single day of our summer break off in order to feel more myself. Which meant no planning and made things a bit hectic the first part of the year. I only just finished our science plans for the remainder of the year last week which was a real bummer.

 

This year, February and I are friends. I've even been able to start tackling planning for next year.

 

It's funny how that works. I totally credit my 6 weeks school/1week off schedule for the lack of burnout this year. :0)

[Miss Marple]

We chose to do our own schedule mostly because it worked best with dh's career.  I *hated* the thought of being locked into someone else's schedule.  Once I had one in college it was a pain to try to get everyone on the same page with vacations, etc.  

 

When the boys were young we schooled 6 weeks on and 1 week off.  We took the month of December off.  We schooled light in the summer and took about a month off then as well.  That worked great for my sanity, my housekeeping, and the boys' motivation to work.  

My feeling is that if one chooses to home educate, choose the schedule that works best for you.  For some that might be a traditional schedule esp. if you have kids involved in ps/private school activities as well as some that homeschool.  For others of us, a non-traditional schedule allows for more family time.

[Brianna]

We started school year round for a few years but the kids friends tend to stop by during breaks so we take longer breaks during the summer. I would prefer to stay year round :)

[IsabelC]

Our schooling is more or less year round. I don't feel in any way obliged to imitate the school year, but sometimes we end up doing less regular schoolwork during school holidays because of there being so many other things to do, namely organized school holiday activities and catching up with schooled friends. Other times we actually do more schoolwork during the holidays, because when extracurricular activities stop for a couple of weeks it can be a good time to catch up on things we didn't do earlier. So it can swing either way, but we never stop completely, we just change the balance between formal schoolwork and enrichment / informal learning activities.

 

The main advantages I see in Year Round schooling:

• It suits us to maintain a fairly predictable daily and weekly rhythm, without any major breaks. If we stopped doing math for several weeks, we'd be back at square one when it comes to the kids resisting it.
• While there are always natural ebbs, flows and plateaus in learning, we prefer to avoid the pattern of going at it intensely until everyone is exhausted, then stopping for a while, then repeating. That's how school seems to work, at least for the younger kids.
• If the kids are making slow steady progress, they keep progressing and don't forget everything over the break. It's so much more fun doing the first few lessons of a grade in math when the kids haven't had a month or two off to forget everything they learned the previous year.
• When we largely ignore the school year, it reduces the pressure on the parent/teacher to shoehorn everything into years and terms. We can still have an overall plan of what we'd like to cover in a year, but we aren't scrambling to 'finish the book' by a certain date.

[Mystie]

We do 6 weeks on, 1 week off, December off, and June off. Our new school year starts in July. I love it!