Summer? School or no school

[Momlife]

When does your summer start? Do you still school and not stop just move on to next curriculum? This will be my first summer so not sure how to go about it . I dont want him to forget what hes learned . What dou you all do ? Thanks!

 

[Garga]

When my kids were little we did school in the summer.  Then when my oldest was middle-school-aged, they realized that all the other kids had summer vacation that lasted for months.  There was revolution in their eyes.  🙂  I implemented a small summer vacation.

And once my oldest hit high school, I was more desperate than any of them for a loooong break, so we now take traditional summer vacation from sometime in May until late August/early September.

How old is your student?  

ETA:  Sometimes I have a student work on just one subject over the summer if I fear they will lose retention, but otherwise we relax. 

Edited March 18, 2019 by Garga

[wendyroo]

Our skill subjects (math, writing, Spanish, piano) continue through the summer, though I often change them up a bit.  So, this summer, all my boys (who will be 6, 8, and 10) are going to alternate their normal math with Patty Paper Geometry.  We are just reading novels in Spanish instead of focusing on any new grammar.  My 8 and 10 year olds are  going to work on writing descriptive paragraphs about summer adventures like going to the splash pad, camping, attending a baseball game, etc.

I'm scheduling the rest of our subjects in a loop.  That way, if we don't have anything special planned for the day, then we can easily do our skill subjects and then whatever is next on the loop.  OTOH, if we skip school to go to the zoo, then I don't have to worry about "catching up" later, because we just pick up where we left off on the loop the next day we do school.

As for when summer starts...probably mid-May.  That is just what makes sense for us.  Then about 13 weeks of "summer", though realistically I am only aiming for about 40ish days of school during that time.  And then "fall term" will start in mid-August.

Wendy

[Ellie]

6 hours ago, Momlife said:

When does your summer start? Do you still school and not stop just move on to next curriculum? This will be my first summer so not sure how to go about it . I don't want him to forget what he's learned . What do you all do ? Thanks!

We just moved on to the next thing. Of course, for several years, we only did Official School Stuff on Mondays and Tuesdays, so there was no sense in taking off the whole summer. 🙂 We continued going to the library every Wednesday, and doing a field trip every Thursday, and cleaning house on Fridays. Keeping a routine was important to us. There was still time for the dc to play with friends in the neighborhood.

We did take a short break in late August/early September when it was really hot and ugly. We also took off Thanksgiving through about the middle of January, and a couple of weeks in the spring around Easter.

[Holly]

We school year-round.  There is too much fighting and bickering if they get too bored.  We do take many days off for swimming with friends or park days, so it's really 3/4 days per week.  It also helps them remember subjects like math, phonics, and Latin.  Some years we've had a more laid back summer schedule, but that's gotten harder as they've gotten older. 

We tend to start new curriculum in the fall, except for math.  We start it in January for some reason.  🤣

Edited March 20, 2019 by Holly

[....]

3 hours ago, Holly said:

We school year-round.  There is too much fighting and bickering if they get too bored. 

 

Same here.  Our household deteriorates after about a week without "school".  We are mostly calendar-year homeschoolers.  We start our new school year in January, but we do end/start new stuff throughout the year.

Only bad thing about schooling year-round...dd17 is graduating a semester early, because she has so many credits. I guess that could be a good thing or a bad thing. 

[sweet2ndchance]

Education is a lifestyle for us, not something we do 5 days a week, 36 weeks a year. As such, we don't stop doing the same things we normally do just because the calendar says it is a certain month. We do take breaks, though ours are usually just a couple weeks long and we do it usually in spring and fall when the weather is nice enough to play outside all day. Plus hot, humid days are just as good as cold snowy days for getting something done inside where it is climate controlled. So it just makes sense for us to do our heaviest school work when we are "stuck" indoors due to less than ideal weather. Even when my young adult kids were little and still homeschooled, they understood that we did school in the summer when it was miserably hot outside so that they could have all day to play outside when it was beautiful out in the fall and spring and their friends were stuck inside at school. Plus, their friends often joined us for our lessons in the summer. I would often have 4 or 5 kids that weren't mine listening to a read aloud in the backyard in the summer or participating in a science project with us or asking if they could have a worksheet to work on too or some paper so they could do copy work with my kids or write a story or watching an educational documentary with us. I loved those days and didn't mind providing extra supplies for their friends at all.

[Mommyof1]

This is our first year HS. She is finishing up Kindy. I will be doing year round with her. Her school doesn't take long so we do it in the morning then park and pool in afternoon. 

We will be doing nature walks, zoo, other field trips, family bike rides, trips to the lake, summer reading program, Vacation Bible School àlong with phonics, reading and cursive writing practice, math and whatever else she fancies like science experiments. 

Outside as much as possible, is the goal.