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Year round homeschooling schedules for more than 36 weeks...


Colleen in NS
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Hi all,

 

I currently do a 36 week school year, year round. I am thinking of trying to spread the work in those 36 weeks out to anywhere between 42 and 48 weeks or so, so that our days are not so jam packed, and we have more relaxed time in the afternoons, instead of having to wait until a "break week" to have a chunk of time to do crafts, play games, puzzles, play for extended times outside, cooking skills, etc.. I guess I'm just trying to set a more evenly paced way of life.

 

I started playing around with this last night. For example, with LC1, there are 30 lessons which have been equalling 30 weeks. But I broke it down into a number of activities to complete for each lesson, which will take longer than a week, but spread it out in smaller chunks. And I figured that R&S math, with 170 lessons per year, will take 42.5 weeks with 4 lessons per week instead of 34 weeks at 5/week. We can also cut R&S English back to 3/week instead of the 4/week that we normally have to do to complete in 36 weeks. KWIM? I'll keep playing around with this in other subjects, too. With a 36 week year, I find that we spend all morning on the skill areas, and have to do science and history in the afternoons/evenings (when I'm tired and the kids are tired). If I can spread out the skill work, I might be able to fit the content areas (which include the skill area of writing) into the mornings. AND be able to take days off occasionally (as well as our normal vacation times, holidays, etc.) to do something else (that's why I said 42-48 weeks - I figure it's lots of flex time for sickness, or whatever).

 

So, I am wondering (cuz I like to look at how other people do things to get new ideas), if you spread your school work out over more than 36 weeks, how does your schedule look? Over a week and over a year? How do you like doing it this way? Do you ever feel like you miss out on the 'ole 16 "break weeks" or do you find you are more relaxed from having the work spread out? Any insight you can offer would be helpful.

 

Thanks!

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I love love love year round schooling. We take 2 weeks off school every 9 weeks. However if we are having a good ole time we just go ahead and do extra school on the breaks because the kids get bored really easy so we just concentrate on the areas they struggle with for ex: math in oldest son. He continues with that even on breaks. I also add a bit of flex time for sickness, vacations and holidays.

 

I feel much more relaxed with year round schooling. I am more laid back about school now. There are many ways to do it. Some take 3 weeks after 9 weeks of school or go three months then take a month off (this one is a bit too much for me and less flexible). So many different ways to do it. One year I took Fridays off only with major holidays off such as Thanksgiving week and Christmas week which was 3 weeks. I like my plan of 9 weeks then 2 weeks off.

 

Holly

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Well I don't try to specifically spread 36 weeks over a year. We just work through what we have and when we are done with a topic we either go on to the next level or take a break.

 

For example, after cover Aesop A I wanted to work on paragraph and outlining skills before Aesop B, so we are doing that. Ideally Aesop B should be done for 4th grade and we should start Homer in the Fall, but that isn't happening here. She will probably start Aesop B either this summer or in the fall, but I don't care because with our hsing year around she will either catch up or I will take time off to work on other skills, which will be equally important. It will work out.

 

So what would I do in your shoes? Decide what is a reasonable amount to do each day, what the child can absorb and what you have the time to do and do that. When you discover you are falling behind or when you are ahead of the ideal schedule, then worry about how to handle things. :D

 

Heather

 

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We do 4 day weeks and school year round. So we have a minimum of 45 weeks.

 

I actually only schedule off 2 weeks at Christmas, the week of Thanksgiving, 2 weeks in May or June and a week off in July. I also have floater weeks where I schedule fun stuff like lapbooks instead of regular schoolwork.

 

I schedule our schoolwork in units. Each 3 to 5 weeks makes 1 unit and I try to divide up the units with fun weeks or no school weeks.

 

With the units I pick topics that we want to cover for the month and break it up into manageable bite size pieces.

 

Next month our unit will cover the topics of: multiplication and division, chapter 3 of Minimus Latin, the phonograms ea, aw, ch, wh, ed, ew oa, and gu, and the states of matter. We will also be reading and writing narrations of Aesop's fables and reading more about the Colonial period in America.

 

When I spread things out I make it so that we do at most 2 pages of math per day and no more than 4 seatwork activities. It has been working very well for us.:)

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have not read the other replies so i may be repeating, but here are some ideas:

 

school 4 days a weeks instead of 5.

space your subjects so that you only do them a few days a week instead of every day. i.e., math 3x a week, science 2x, history 2/3x, etc.

take a week off after every 9 week period.

 

if you still finish up early, which we always do, you can either just jump right into next years work or have some other lesson planned. for example, i am planning a unit on elections for the end of summer. you might choose to tackle something else, like health or another elective type course. or you could just do daily review with new workbooks, etc. or you could prepare a reading list and have your kids do activities to correspond with their books: book reports, collages, dioramas, power point presentations, or whatever else you or they can come up with.

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I schedule 46-47 weeks. Some subjects like math we just continue on with the next book whenever we finish one book. Subjects like spellling, I give them a couple of weeks off in between books. June is a light month for us, math, reading, practice and languages (latin and spanish) are daily and then we finish up the art and science projects that we didn't get to during the year. We start a new school year the first week of July.

 

Karen

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I just did ours in spreadsheet form. Because we started ourt year in January, I did my best to create a lighter load for the summer--and include lots of science. I posted the spreadsheet on my blog if you want to have a look. It's a bit lopsided because we're planning a big three week trip in May, so I decided not to take a break between now and then, otherwise, I would.

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How long each year? As long as it takes, I don't aim for a certain # of weeks, but we do have a division between grade levels- a start/stop date we aim for.

 

9 weeks on, 1 week off

For us taking two weeks off is too much, we lose our rhythm. Plus, behavior problems creep up with too much time off, after taking almost two months off last summer I decided we needed less time.

 

4 full days a week with a light Friday

We have a light Friday because it is our "interrupt" day, it is when dh will say, "Let's get out of here" or something else happens. After being frustrated with everyone in our lives cutting into our time on Fridays, I decided to try to keep Friday an "extra day"

Finish by lunch-time

This helps everything work for us, taking time off doesn't really matter b/c our lessons don't rule our life (anymore, lol). We quickly condense or skip unnecessary work if we're past lunchtime. There are days that we intermingle play time with lessons: one lesson then a 15 min break, one lesson then a 15 min break and our day lasts longer but we like it every now and then. I have younger children though, 7 and 3. Some of those days are 1 lesson then a chore, 1 lesson then a chore, lol!

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We do a 39 week schedule. Our year starts in September. We take a week off in the autumn for a family holiday, two weeks at Christmas, two weeks at Easter, four weeks in August and a two-week trip to see grandparents at some point. That gives us a couple of weeks of leeway in case of disaster.

 

Best wishes

 

Laura

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It was good to read how you all do it.

 

I think I'm ready to let go of the 36 week/year idea. As my oldest grows and we gradually add in more stuff, I find that the 36 weeks has become more constricting and the days get fuller. I don't like that. Although I will say that starting off with a 36 week plan helped tremendously in planning the year and making sure we went through, say, the whole math book or the whole grammar book in an evenly paced manner.

 

A couple of years ago, a 4 day week worked great. It has grown into a 5 day week, with Fridays being light, but the other days are fuller than I want. So, I'm going to keep playing around with how to stretch each subject area out over more weeks. I think I can maneuver it so that we do most things in the morning hours, and have a silent reading period in the afternoon, followed by an hour walk (PE - I'm inspired by you, Laura! :)), and then another big chunk of time for free play/crafts/games/puzzles/more outdoor play before supper, chores, and read aloud before bedtime. This would be my ideal. And I was inspired by reading about how the Swann family did this.

 

IthinkIcanIthinkIcanIthinkIcan, LOL.

 

I guess my quest these days is to balance the academics and other life stuff more evenly over the year, instead of trying to jam everything into a smaller chunk of time.

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I think I can maneuver it so that we do most things in the morning hours, and have a silent reading period in the afternoon, followed by an hour walk (PE - I'm inspired by you, Laura! :)), and then another big chunk of time for free play/crafts/games/puzzles/more outdoor play before supper, chores, and read aloud before bedtime. This would be my ideal.

 

I'm feeling very slug-like. I fell hard about ten days ago and have been resting my knees ever since. It's time to get back to walking. The boys are still roller-blading demons and Hobbes just took his first Karate exam.

 

Best wishes

 

Laura

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Science, for instance, is a summer-only subject. This takes the pressure off finding time/inclination for experiments and stuff through the regular year.

 

During the summer, we continue to work on math and reading, albeit at a slower pace.

 

I plan for exploration of new subjects during summer. That is, I *don't* plan them; I just plan to explore the ones that come up.

 

We love the structure that schooling gives to our days, even if we only school for an hour our so. Neighborhood kids know that we'll be free after lunch, unless we call them earlier.

 

hth!

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