How many days of school do you do in a year?

[MeaganS]

The last 2 years I've printed out a year calendar and put an "X" on everyday we did what I considered a full academic load. Not field trips or other educational activities, just bookwork. My goal was 170 days (the state doesn't care). We've exceeded that goal both years. Now I'm wondering what is considered normal and what you count (if you do) for older elementary/middle school ages. Also just for curiosity's sake. 😊

I started counting because I felt like I was maybe slacking and being lazy so I wanted some reassurance. 

[amiesmom]

We do roughly 180, but I do count field trips or other educational activities. In fact almost every Friday is a non-bookwork day for us, we have piano lessons, complete an art project, read poetry, do a cooking project, and clean (not always all of that). 

Our state doesn't make us count days. We get through all of our curriculum every year, so I'm happy with that!

[8filltheheart]

approx 172 full-day academic days plus additional days for trips/activities (K-12)

[egao_gakari]

I so consistently overestimate what we can get done in a day that I've taken to planning for 160 days (5 days/wk x 32 weeks). I don't know how many schools days we wind up doing in the end, because I'm not great at tracking when we miss days, but since I've been planning 160 full days we've gotten done what I've planned, with a few exceptions, by working late August-early June with 3-ish weeks off at Christmas. I don't know whether my kids are more distractible/less effective students than other kids, or whether what I estimate will take 4-5 hours of work would actually take most kids the 8-9 hours it takes mine. But I can't seem to plan shorter days for some reason, so planning a shorter year is how I resolve the issue! What doesn't get done on the day it was scheduled just rolls over to the next day.

I wish we did more educational trips/activities, but I'm honestly very bad at planning them. We went kayaking with manatees last year before Covid hit and that was a blast... but it also took twice as long to get there as I'd anticipated (still don't know how that happened), I forgot to pack water, snacks, sunglasses, and ziploc bags for smartphones so we had to purchase that stuff, and everyone was ready for a meal by the end of it but I couldn't find a restaurant nearby that had gluten-free options on the menu. I suppose packing for day trips is a skill that one develops when one does day trips frequently... but I don't do day trips frequently because I'm bad at them... 😵

[My4arrows]

I aim for 170 official school days, but we end up with more days when counting field trips, co-op and interest led learning.  

[LauraClark]

We're at about 180 and I count any field trip days (although usually it's half field trip half normal school day anyway).

[HomeAgain]

We do 100-144 lessons per subject, so it can look a little wonky when actually counting days.

[freesia]

We have to do 180 days by law.  That doesn't mean we do 180 days of every subject.  For some, when we finish the book, we are done.  We have a twice a month co-op and, pre-high school, if that's all that gets done (even if it's enrichment subjects), that counts as a full school day.  However, I have a tendency toward being "too" consistent even though I was a classroom teacher and know that every "school" day is not full of seat work.  So, after the early grades (grade 3 or so), I need to make sure I don't get too rigid about getting things done (I am a big believer in play based learning and limited seat work for the early grades.)

[8filltheheart]

22 minutes ago, freesia said:

We have to do 180 days by law.  That doesn't mean we do 180 days of every subject.  For some, when we finish the book, we are done.  We have a twice a month co-op and, pre-high school, if that's all that gets done (even if it's enrichment subjects), that counts as a full school day.  However, I have a tendency toward being "too" consistent even though I was a classroom teacher and know that every "school" day is not full of seat work.  So, after the early grades (grade 3 or so), I need to make sure I don't get too rigid about getting things done (I am a big believer in play based learning and limited seat work for the early grades.)

This is a good pt.  I should modify my OP and say a full day for K-5 is approx 1 hr per grade level.  So my Kers full days were only 1 hr.  1st graders were about 1 1/2.  2nd around 2 1/2, etc.

[Not_a_Number]

No idea, to be honest. We school year-round, so I assume we do more than we're required... but we do take breaks when convenient. Frankly, I've never tried keeping track. 

[PeterPan]

Like you, I kept a log of what we did for the first couple years and found that we were consistently hitting 180+ days schooling year round and taking breaks as needed. At this point I no longer bother. Sometimes life kinda bites and gets in the way (hello, 3 months of HBOT daily, covid, lol), but still it will pan out, not worried.

Our state lists an hour amount that we legally sign saying we'll hit. I haven't looked in a while, but I think if you do 180 days X 5 hours you're there. And if you consider that even someone like my ds is listening to audio books or watching documentaries 1 ½ hours a day minimum, that means basically I'm doing 3-3 ½ hours of something worthwhile 180 days a year, very doable. Then I schedule my ds for at least 1 hour a day with people for his disabilities, that means I need to do 2-2 ½ hours a day with him, doable even with his ASD2.

[PeterPan]

12 hours ago, MeaganS said:

I started counting because I felt like I was maybe slacking and being lazy so I wanted some reassurance. 

I'm looking at the list of what your kids are doing and trying to figure out how you're getting there, lol. 

Have you done some standardized testing? Maybe that would make you feel better? If someone sat down to do a review with you (which is one of the ways we can do our year end assessments in our state), what do you think they would point out to you? I think sometimes we know our weaknesses and just need to have that kind of year end chat with ourselves and set some new goals. It's probably *not* that you haven't been doing enough but that you focused on important things and are ready for new goals.

[MeaganS]

1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

I'm looking at the list of what your kids are doing and trying to figure out how you're getting there, lol. 

Have you done some standardized testing? Maybe that would make you feel better? If someone sat down to do a review with you (which is one of the ways we can do our year end assessments in our state), what do you think they would point out to you? I think sometimes we know our weaknesses and just need to have that kind of year end chat with ourselves and set some new goals. It's probably *not* that you haven't been doing enough but that you focused on important things and are ready for new goals.

Oh, I feel pretty comfortable with where we are. I was just evaluating how I count days. I don't have to count at all, it's more for curiosity and so I don't feel like I'm being a slacker when we take off 3 weeks for whatever reason. For now, I only count book work days. I know most people include field trips and other educational activities, which we totally do, but I'm just keeping track of bookwork because for me, there was a definite inclination to rationalize work done that really wasn't as much as I thought.  Now, I'm in a better groove and routine and don't worry about that.

I'm a little confused at your post though. Do you think we're not doing enough? Because it seems to me that we do as much or more than anyone else I know. If anything, I feel like I should back off a bit. 😊

[Clemsondana]

Whether we register with the county or with an umbrella, we have to turn in something saying that we do 180 days, 4 hrs/day.  We have 32 days of co-op, which in elementary is only enrichment and in middle/high can be enrichment, academic, or a mix, depending on what you choose to take.  We've always counted co-op days so we have 148 other days to do.  We have never recorded more than 180 days, and it doesn't usually take more than that to finish what I plan.  I count field trip days if they fall on a day that we would normally be doing school, but I don't bother checking them off if we do a weekend trip unless it's part of a big educational experience (like a multiday road trip to see a particular part of the country).  When we do those, we do book work in the car or on the plane - in elementary the kids may do a couple of math lessons and spelling while we drive and then we see museums for a few days and all together it's several days of school.  We also sometimes do things that could count as academics on weekends or in the summer - a national park, museum, documentary watching, Science Olympiad competitions or practices - but I don't count them at all.  When the kids were small, book work might only be an hour or 2 so if I'd actually had to document 4 hrs I would have included watching PBS shows like Wild Kratts or Ms. Frizzle, playing with educational toys (games, puzzles, etc), outside time or karate class as PE, etc, but nobody ever asked.  As they moved into late elementary, middle, and now high school, the classes naturally take more time.  

We are definitely not year-round schoolers.  We start in early August, take a week at Thanksgiving and several weeks at Christmas for our fall semester.  We start back in early January and may take a few days over spring break, or not, depending on what standardized testing and sports tournaments are going on, and we finish in early May.  We do a lot of garden work and some camps in the summer.  I've also found that my kids don't get settled in to a break unless it's longer - if we just take a day or 2, we all piddle, which has it's place.  But, with longer breaks, my kids get more creative, do big building projects with legos or train tracks, and pull out the books they weren't sure they'd like.  My high schooler also likes to take care of some 'fun credits' over the summer - last year it was coding, personal finance, and part of PE, and this year it's finishing their fine arts requirement and working on horticulture and science fiction electives (classes that they chose).  

[Ellie]

14 hours ago, MeaganS said:

The last 2 years I've printed out a year calendar and put an "X" on everyday we did what I considered a full academic load. Not field trips or other educational activities, just bookwork. My goal was 170 days (the state doesn't care). We've exceeded that goal both years. Now I'm wondering what is considered normal and what you count (if you do) for older elementary/middle school ages. Also just for curiosity's sake. 😊

I started counting because I felt like I was maybe slacking and being lazy so I wanted some reassurance. 

My goal was never to do a certain number of days of "school." My goal was to educate my children. There are 365 days in a year; we are learning something on all of them, so in that sense, there are 365 days of "school." If I lived in a state that required a specific number of days (which IMHO is a silly requirement) I would check off that exact number and not one day more.

[Carol in Cal.]

I literally never ever counted.

I just wanted to make reasonable progress.  So that’s what I looked at.  Are we making reasonable progress?  And I wanted to create the space for creativity and imagination and self-led learning, so I looked at that, too.  and I wanted to ‘count’ all kinds of learning, and make them pretty efficient, so since field trips are great leaps forward in science and history generally, I counted those days as well.

I did ‘do the next thing’ type scheduling, and loosely tracked how many lessons in each area were done per week against some minimum standards that I thought were reasonable.  I counted a field trip to a science museum with a demo and a few hours of free study/free exploration/free play as 3-4 science sessions, because it truly was that.  (Fun, too!). Ditto field trips to living history sites—nothing makes history more concrete and memorable than seeing people, say, live in a one room adobe home, or panning for gold.

[MeaganS]

30 minutes ago, Ellie said:

My goal was never to do a certain number of days of "school." My goal was to educate my children. There are 365 days in a year; we are learning something on all of them, so in that sense, there are 365 days of "school." If I lived in a state that required a specific number of days (which IMHO is a silly requirement) I would check off that exact number and not one day more.

I agree it is a silly requirement.

I do think for some people there is value in making sure you are on track in some way or another. We all see or know those homeschoolers that think they are doing more school than they actually are. For me, counting days for myself was comforting rather than confining. It was like living within a budget and knowing that I had enough money to splurge on something I want versus having no idea how much money I had to spend on what I want, doing it anyways, and feeling guilty. I found keeping track freeing. I knew for a fact that it was OK to take off random days and we'd still be in a good place. My natural inclination was to slack a little more than not, and I didn't want to do my kids a disservice because of my laziness. My homeschooling goals are very academically-minded, so that may have something to do with it. I want my kids to be able to play, but that's not what drives my homeschool.

[Not_a_Number]

14 minutes ago, MeaganS said:

I agree it is a silly requirement.

I do think for some people there is value in making sure you are on track in some way or another. We all see or know those homeschoolers that think they are doing more school than they actually are. For me, counting days for myself was comforting rather than confining. It was like living within a budget and knowing that I had enough money to splurge on something I want versus having no idea how much money I had to spend on what I want, doing it anyways, and feeling guilty. I found keeping track freeing. I knew for a fact that it was OK to take off random days and we'd still be in a good place. My natural inclination was to slack a little more than not, and I didn't want to do my kids a disservice because of my laziness. My homeschooling goals are very academically-minded, so that may have something to do with it. I want my kids to be able to play, but that's not what drives my homeschool.

Yeah, I totally see that. 

We're also very academically-minded, but I tend to measure by outcome as opposed to by the number of days. Maybe just because there were MANY days I put in in school that resulted in no learning at all. Also, because DD8 attained literally negative knowledge in all her days of kindergarten 😉 . 

For us, the important thing is to keep moving the kids forward -- to be in the zone of proximal development, if I'm getting the lingo correct... At the point that we're doing that consistently year-round, I stop worrying about more artificial goals. 

[stripe]

1 hour ago, Ellie said:

My goal was never to do a certain number of days of "school." My goal was to educate my children. There are 365 days in a year; we are learning something on all of them, so in that sense, there are 365 days of "school." If I lived in a state that required a specific number of days (which IMHO is a silly requirement) I would check off that exact number and not one day more.

I hear you. I really do. But sometimes when you’re at home, it’s easy to be swamped by doctor’s appointments, housework, home repairs, sick days, cooking, and doing dishes, and progress can be so slow that nothing seems to happen. Then having some sense of what IS getting done is helpful to the mom=teacher, regardless of any oversight.

[PeterPan]

2 hours ago, MeaganS said:

I'm a little confused at your post though. Do you think we're not doing enough? Because it seems to me that we do as much or more than anyone else I know. If anything, I feel like I should back off a bit. 😊

Oh mercy no. Only if *you* are worried, those are things you could try. 

My dd hit a stage in her early teens where productivity went down. Sometimes it's good to keep pace to have that padding for life stuff later. But you know, if you want a break, take a break! 

[MeaganS]

22 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yeah, I totally see that. 

We're also very academically-minded, but I tend to measure by outcome as opposed to by the number of days. Maybe just because there were MANY days I put in in school that resulted in no learning at all. Also, because DD8 attained literally negative knowledge in all her days of kindergarten 😉 . 

For us, the important thing is to keep moving the kids forward -- to be in the zone of proximal development, if I'm getting the lingo correct... At the point that we're doing that consistently year-round, I stop worrying about more artificial goals. 

I find it very difficult to measure by outcome. For one, kids get blocks in some areas and take a lot longer than you think to get somewhere. I don't want to feel like a failure or put unnecessary pressure on my kids to meet an arbitrary goal that I set. I also don't have specific goals in many areas at this point in this age. Something like writing just needs to be worked on. Spelling too. Get a little better every day.

I also have a child with special needs and literally have no idea what level of achievement she will be able to accomplish. For example, she does TT for math. A program I have no respect for generally but which is what makes sense for her. However, even that was too much this year. We had to take a few months and switch to another program to help slow things down for a while. I didn't feel like finishing a given program or having a solid understanding of some math concept within a certain time frame was most important. But progress was made, however slowly. For me, measuring effort is more practical. 

[MeaganS]

3 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Oh mercy no. Only if *you* are worried, those are things you could try. 

My dd hit a stage in her early teens where productivity went down. Sometimes it's good to keep pace to have that padding for life stuff later. But you know, if you want a break, take a break! 

Haha, yeah. I can totally see that happening. I'm glad we have the freedom to work with our kids where they are. But nope, I'm happy with the amount of school and progress we're making generally. 😊

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, MeaganS said:

I find it very difficult to measure by outcome. For one, kids get blocks in some areas and take a lot longer than you think to get somewhere. I don't want to feel like a failure or put unnecessary pressure on my kids to meet an arbitrary goal that I set. I also don't have specific goals in many areas at this point in this age. Something like writing just needs to be worked on. Spelling too. Get a little better every day.

Oh, I’m not linear at all about outcomes. I just need it to feel like we’re making adequate progress in all the areas we’re trying to make progress in.

 

4 minutes ago, MeaganS said:

I also have a child with special needs and literally have no idea what level of achievement she will be able to accomplish. For example, she does TT for math. A program I have no respect for generally but which is what makes sense for her. However, even that was too much this year. We had to take a few months and switch to another program to help slow things down for a while. I didn't feel like finishing a given program or having a solid understanding of some math concept within a certain time frame was most important. But progress was made, however slowly. For me, measuring effort is more practical. 

I do teach the child in front of me 🙂 . Perhaps it’s that I have an unusually good understanding of my long-term goals and what lies on the zigzag path to achieving them.

[8filltheheart]

25 minutes ago, MeaganS said:

I find it very difficult to measure by outcome.

I am the same way.  When we first started homeschooling back in the dark ages, I didn't create a school calendar.  I found that we were actually less likely to take time off that way than having a calendar.  Now I create an academic calendar before our school yr begins.  THe kids and I really look forward to large scheduled breaks.  Typically we start in mid-Aug and go through about the 3rd week in May.  I schedule multiple full weeks off throughout the yr and 2-3 weeks at Christmas.  If we need to shift things around, no problem.  But, we all work harder to finish before a scheduled break and time down is long enough to actually be time down since we have more days. 

It can take a while to find a system that works well for your family.  We tried yr round homeschooling one time bc so many people find it the best system for their family.  We hated it.  I need a long summer break just as much as the kids do.  Putting your calendar on paper before the school yr might help you see the bigger picture.  It also helps me gauge how well we are staying on track to complete courses/objectives (which becomes a lot more important the older they get.)

[Ellie]

1 hour ago, MeaganS said:

I agree it is a silly requirement.

I do think for some people there is value in making sure you are on track in some way or another. We all see or know those homeschoolers that think they are doing more school than they actually are. For me, counting days for myself was comforting rather than confining. It was like living within a budget and knowing that I had enough money to splurge on something I want versus having no idea how much money I had to spend on what I want, doing it anyways, and feeling guilty. I found keeping track freeing. I knew for a fact that it was OK to take off random days and we'd still be in a good place. My natural inclination was to slack a little more than not, and I didn't want to do my kids a disservice because of my laziness. My homeschooling goals are very academically-minded, so that may have something to do with it. I want my kids to be able to play, but that's not what drives my homeschool.

But since you were academically minded, you planned out what you wanted to do each day, yes? So you'd be checking off what you did each, not keeping track of days.

[2_girls_mommy]

Off the top of my head, I have 180 days as the requirement in my state, but after many state homeschool convention workshops on the subject, I am ok with counting field trip days, teacher planning days (like convention workshop days, etc.) and sick days.  I mean a school doesn't shut down and not count days if my kid is out sick.  They don't add on to the end of the year.  So I note throughout the year sick days and dr. appts, and anything slightly educational we do those days (like a sick kid at home from public school who still does some homework and make up work the following days.) And I count those in my educational count.  When the electricity went out for FIVE DAYS in a freak ice storm in the fall, we were really living like Little House on the Prairie in freezing temps here.  We had maintenance work around the yard.   Cooking was fun for a few days because we kept the coolers outside in the freezing rain to keep the fridge contents cold and cooked inside on a caterer's butane burner.  We kept warm around a small fire in one room.  That took up a lot of our days just to get through the daily living.  But we had a lot of outdoor exploration, life skills, craft times to use things we had been putting off while I was busy working, and did what school we could.  DD16's school is a lot online, and there wasn't a lot she could do when she couldn't access her digital textbook even when the power was up, but the internet was still down for another week.  Because of Covid, the things we usually would have done like go to the library and do school there or a fast food restaurant that had regained power weren't possible because everything was closed.  So we just went with it.   I noted what we did each day, and I counted those for my school days for my little one.  We still read lots of books, did crafts, and ddi her workbooks when we had time and energy.  The older one of course, just picked up her lessons where she was once the power was on.  Her work is more about finishing a set amount of work/projects than days.  But she did the things offline that she could.   I finished our 180 days this past week.  Now I stop officially recording in our record books.  But dd16 is still working on a few of her things after work to finish up her requirements, if that makes sense.  And dd7 is just stepping into summer learning mode.  After a couple of weeks of regrouping the house and school areas, we will make summer learning goals lists (summer camps, summer library reading programs, museum children's days and storytimes and activities, swim lessons, tennis practice, etc.   We will just pick a day that we do some math practice and read SOTW's last few chapters, and add a summer bridge book or a summer camp journal or something for some summer writing.) I don't count those days.  But I don't worry if one of my 180 days wasn't as full as I thought it would be due to life, because we keep working on our own goals. 

[theelfqueen]

My state requirement is 172 days of a minimum of 4 hours... or 688 hours. I tracked hours for a couple of years. I would hit that minimum in January from a late August/early September start date.... after those years I quit counting. I know I exceed the state minimum by a significant amount. 

[daijobu]

We school year round, with days off for vacation and camps, so probably 10 months a year * 5 days a week = 230 days.  

[Not_a_Number]

7 minutes ago, daijobu said:

We school year round, with days off for vacation and camps, so probably 10 months a year * 5 days a week = 230 days.  

Ooh, I've never done that calculation. I wonder if it's 10 months or 9 months here? We really don't bother calculating, although I'm sure it adds up to more than the normal school year. 

Although I'll say that I think not taking a long break saves more time than just the 3 months, mostly because kids don't forget as much if you spread out the breaks. 

[daijobu]

15 minutes ago, daijobu said:

We school year round, with days off for vacation and camps, so probably 10 months a year * 5 days a week = 230 217 days.  

I did my math wrong.  

[lewelma]

On 5/29/2021 at 2:46 AM, Ellie said:

My goal was never to do a certain number of days of "school."  My goal was to educate my children. 

Agreed. Beautifully said. 

[Dmmetler]

The first couple of years, I actively counted as part of my record keeping, and ended up with ridiculous numbers of days. Like some years we were close to 300 days of "school" of some form, because I recorded everything we did that was educational, and often the stuff that ended up being the most elaborate happened on weekends. Or Christmas, because that was when it worked out, and I wanted it in my record.  As we moved on, I stopped being worried about getting enough school in. And then we got to counting high school credits, which is a whole different bag of worms. 

 

[Momto6inIN]

We do 36 weeks of 4 full days/week = 144 days

We also do 1 day/week as a "fun out of the house day" where we do math and art and either drama club or speech and debate club or PE = 36 days

144+36= 180, which is what we have to record in Indiana.

The last few weeks are usually pretty easy, because we're getting done with many of our subjects before the end of the 36 weeks. Sometimes we do field trips or speech tournaments or intense drama tech weeks and those are usually just gravy and I don't count them as school, although if I lived in a state where I had to justify hours/days or something like that I certainly could and would.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Momto6inIN
eta: because years don't have 72 weeks ;)

[Not_a_Number]

20 minutes ago, Momto6inIN said:

We do 36 weeks of 4 full days/week = 144 days

Then we do 36 weeks with 1 day/week being a "fun out of the house day" where we do math and art and either drama club or speech and debate club or PE = 36 days

144+36= 180, which is what we have to record in Indiana.

The last few weeks are usually pretty easy, because we're getting done with many of our subjects before the end of the 36 weeks. Sometimes we do field trips or speech tournaments or intense drama tech weeks and those are usually just gravy and I don't count them as school, although if I lived in a state where I had to justify hours/days or something like that I certainly could and would.

Is it just me or does your year have 72 weeks? 😉 

[Momto6inIN]

4 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Is it just me or does your year have 72 weeks? 😉 

You're right, I should re-word that to make it clearer LOL

[Miss Tick]

On the flip side, I count days in part to keep from accidentally making school happen full-bore, all year. I don't want to burn any of us out. It helps me schedule work more appropriately, and makes me comfortable taking the occasional day off, since I can just tack it on the end. 180 days really feels like it is not quite enough.

Edited May 31, 2021 by SusanC

[domestic_engineer]

51 minutes ago, SusanC said:

On the flip side, I count days in part to keep from accidentally making school happen full-bore, all year. I don't want to burn any of us out.  <snip> 180 days really feels like it is not quite enough.

This. 
I just laid out my hopes for summer when we do school-lite, tallied up the ideal durations for each item, and .... yikes! It isn’t very light at all. Back to the drawing board for me. My kids should be very thankful for the 180-day law.   😛

[Shoeless]

There's no attendance/hours requirement where I live, so I don't track it.  We school year round and take breaks when it makes sense for our lives.  That's how it goes in the working world: your job is year-round, you get these holidays off, you take sick days when needed, you get X weeks of vacation to schedule more-or-less as you want.  

Mentally, I think of a new "school year" starting the Monday after labor day because that is when school typically started when I was a kid in 1970s/80s Long Island, NY.  I buy a stack of books the summer before each new "year" and aim to get through them before the next "year" starts. It's easy to see if we are ahead or behind. The year is half over and we're only 25% of the way through the book? Then we need to pick up the pace and/or re-evaluate whether completing this book in 1 year is a reasonable goal. 

Somehow it all works out in the end. We get through all the books each year and move on to the next thing on time. 

Edited to add: I have tried making a firm schedule, and it did not work for us. Sometimes we'd come upon a topic that we wanted to really dig into, but doing so threw off the entire schedule. It stressed me out and made everything feel like "school".  For us, a routine is more important than a schedule. 

Edited May 31, 2021 by MissLemon

[Brittany1116]

As many as it takes to do what we plan. Last year we did a rolling start and many extras and it took 225 days. This year we only needed about 170.

[Loowit]

When they were elementary through middle school I planned out 170 days, in high school 180.  I make up a daily schedule each year for each kid, but we don't follow it exactly, it is a guide to see that we are mostly staying on track.  We often will finished a few weeks early, because the kids can be on summer break when they have finished what was planned for the year.

I don't really track the days, like sick days or whatever, and I never mark them off on the calendar.  My state has a set number of hours we have to school, but I haven't really paid much attention to that because I know that we do at least that much if not more for educational stuff.

[lulalu]

I have no laws where I live, but I track our days. In case I ever put ds in a school, or anything happens. And so I don't do too much or too little. I homeschool because of our mobile life we have chosen. But we are very academic minded, and I have a tendency to expect too much. It has helped me to slow down and see what we have accomplished. 

I count field trips when I count days. We have done on average 180 to 185 days a year. 

I don't count our summer learning, but we still do lots of field trips, reading, projects, art all summer long. 

[purpleowl]

We don't have a required number of days or hours. The planning software I use tracks days, so I can tell you that we will finish this school year with nearly 200 days, and last school year was around 165, I think. Not every subject is done every day at our house. Like someone said above, I'm mainly trying to make sure we're doing what I consider a reasonable amount of work/content over the course of the year.

[Ellie]

On 5/28/2021 at 10:54 AM, stripe said:

I hear you. I really do. But sometimes when you’re at home, it’s easy to be swamped by doctor’s appointments, housework, home repairs, sick days, cooking, and doing dishes, and progress can be so slow that nothing seems to happen. Then having some sense of what IS getting done is helpful to the mom=teacher, regardless of any oversight.

My goal would have been to complete the things I thought were worthy for us to do, regardless of how many days that would take. Checking off those things would give the sense that something is getting done. Housework did not take away from our Official Learning Time, as I factored in regular household responsibilities when scheduling. If there were sick days, then we'd just do the next thing the next time we did Official Learning Time.

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

I’ve never counted before, but just for grins I flipped back through my planner. We ended up doing lessons on 170 days per year during 1st & 2nd grade. This is with a move (one international, one in-state) each year, so it will probably increase for future years. It’s more than enough. 

Edited June 23, 2021 by Shoes+Ships+SealingWax

[BlsdMama]

365

There isn't a single day in which we don't read, discuss, or watch something educational.

By law we must state we will "do" school a minimum of 145 but we don't have to keep track.  If it's a weekday (year 'round) unless we have special projects, my kiddos do math.  I doubt there are but a couple dozen handful of days that they don't read and while I don't mind fiction, I do mind drivel, so there's that.

[kiwik]

The NZ school year is four 10 week terms with 2 weeks between and 6 weeks off over summer.  I have a kid at school so we stick to that.  There are statutory holidays that use up some though.  If we are doing a US based course we have th that over our summer break.