When will your school year end?

[dragons in the flower bed]

We take a break after the rains that initiate spring, when the sun is finally out and it's warmer than the long dreadful winter. We might break for a week or two then, or a month. We'll also take about a two week break in autumn when the intense heat dissipates and we can go out in the cool September sunshine.

 

For reporting purposes, our school year ends on June 30 and starts on July 1.

[Lovedtodeath]

My plan is to have school only half the time over the summer. Either every other week, or only 3 days a week. And our workload will be very light. Math, handwriting, and either science or LA.

[WTMindy]

I am debating about going year round or taking a summer break. I talked to a lady at my co-op and she said they definitely take a break because she needs time to just be mom. I totally agree with this, because it's exhausting sometimes. But I don't want my kids to forget everything we've learned!

 

They will be in first grade next year. Do you stop in may and start back up in august or sept.? Or do you go all year with breaks? Or would you do a break and only school one or two days a week to keep it all fresh? Help from the experienced hs moms!!!

 

Our official school year ends in June right before we go on our vacation, but when we get back we do summer school. :-) We keep up with a little math and Spanish. I usually choose one topic to study a little deeper (maybe plants, or maybe a history book).

[coralloyd]

We school year around, Mon. through Thur. However, we take many breaks, for week long camping trips in our RV. This last year we went to the Grand Canyon, we took this oppotunity to do lapbooks about the GC.

 

For this year we already have written into our calender, camping trips for the next 4 months, (beinging in April). My dh works at home so we can easily do things like this. Sometimes we'll take a little school work with us, on these trips.

 

This summer for Science, we are participating in a 4H gardening co-op. We'll have our own garden; we're required to journal about its progress and do some experiments along the way. So we won't have a Science "curriculum", for summer. We got all th materials yesterday to begin or sprouts. The girls are so excited :).

[Zoo Keeper]

We take the "normal" summer break; we also take 3-4 weeks off in Dec. so that we can visit out of state grandparents and other family. We also take a day here and a day there (about a week total) when I feel we are all getting burnt out. It all evens out to the 175 days required by my state.

 

During the summer break we still haunt the library and we read, read, read. Anything and everything. And then we talk about, write about it, cut/color/paste about it when the spirit moves. We also review last year's work every so often: we take out the books, notebooks, projects, etc. and look through it together; I ask questions, ("who was your favorite person we learned about in history?"), and give praise ("look at how much better your handwriting has become--what did you write on this page?"). I am pleased by how much they do remember and they are pleased with how much they did.

 

I'm not worried by what they might forget; their brains are wide awake and absorbing 365 days a year.

[momto2Cs]

We school from the first week of September until the first week of June. Summer is when I allow myself to explore my inner unschooly ways, though this summer I am asking ds to read 3 books (one per month) and dd wants me to teach her to read before she starts 1st grade in the fall. Other than that, we loved our more relaxed summers!

[Paula in PA]

We school year-round. This year we'll finish up about mid-June, take 4 weeks off, then start back up about mid-July. We don't do a summer light type schedule, we do our regular one.

[RhondaM.]

I think we are just about done. Or rather...I'm done. We've been inconsistantly schooling since July and we are STILL behind in everything.

 

But you know...in the last 12 months both of my parents died, I had breast cancer, bilat mastectomy and now upcoming reconstruction the first week of May...so...except for everyone doing a few more weeks of math (and my high school ds will do algebra through the summer) I'm done.

 

I've bought all my materials for next year, and they will start coming in over the next few days. Since I'm done with school I'll have just enough time to look through everything, make some plans and then it will be time for my surgery. After my surgery I'm just going to take care of me for the summer. We will start again early August.

 

However...I've ordered some really cool stuff from Timberdoodle to do over the summer. Corefx, Creative Express and Stop Motion Animation Set...plus the game Reaction for learning the periotic table and SOTW Ancients for my dd to listen to (over and over and over). (She has already listened to SOTW 2 and 3...over and over and over!!!)

 

And of course there will be reading and read alouds....and gardening...maybe swimming if we can get the pool set up.

 

So what is that...science (chemistry and nature study), reading, art, history and PE....

 

So I guess I'm not being totally negligent. :tongue_smilie:

 

Rhonda :)