Question for year round homeschoolers

[Shannon in TN]

I'm thinking of adapting to a year-round schedule when I start teaching my 2nd grader next year and I was wondering what kind of schedule you use? Do you make your own or do you follow a public school's year round schedule?

 

Another consideration is that she'll be in an enrichment program that won't start until the fall (two days a week). Would I totally mess her up if she started her school weeks before the enrichment?

 

Thanks for the input!

S

[Arch at Home]

We school year round. Our work load is heavier during the traditional school year and lighter in the summer. This if partially because most programs are a limited number of weeks and I have given up trying to stretch thing out or fill in to fit a year round schedule. We take off a week at Thanksgiving, a week or so at Christmas, a week at the traditional Spring break, and as needed in the summer and other times of the year. My children do an 8 week enrichment in the spring and fall. That enrichment does not cover all of their subjects so we pick up subjects so as to fit my plans. For example, I want to complete have of their LA and Science books prior to Christmas so I break it into weeks and count backwards adding a week or two for slippage. Once in a while my kids question why they are doing math when everyone else is not. I just tell them that if we stuck to the traditional school schedule we would have to work harder during the winter to get it all done. They buy it and we go on.

 

HTH

 

Sarah

[JudoMom]

We go year round, although we take 2-4 weeks off around July.

 

We don't follow anybody's schedule, and I don't really set a schedule. We take off time when grandparents come to visit, and we take off time to visit grandparents or take a family vacation (this is usually 2-4 weeks a year). We usually take off a week at Thanksgiving, and we take off 1-2 weeks at Christmas. Any other breaks are unplanned. Sickness, doctor visits, and life eat up the rest of the time.

 

And she'll be fine if you start her before the enrichment program starts. I'd think it might even be beneficial so y'all can establish a routine/flow to your days while you've got extra time.

[KayT]

This year we are experimenting with 3 weeks on and one week off. So far we like it pretty well. Last year we took the month of December off and days or weeks when we wanted or needed to take them. Unless your state dictates otherwise, you can pick and choose your schedule to fit your own needs!

 

I'm not sure about the enrichment class...are they teaching everything or are you suppose to teach some of the lessons at home? If you are then you need to stay on their schedule for that class at least.

[Donna]

You can make whatever schedule works for your family. We school year round with 4 days a week from about mid-August until mid-May or June (depends when I've had enough). We do 2-3 days a week through the summer with a decreased workload...math, whatever history and science we didn't finish during the year, and fun stuff (logic/brain teasers/projects/etc...). I require reading every day.

 

Our schedule changes weekly depending on how busy we are. Some weeks we have to do some work on the weekends and some days we school at night to leave the next day open for whatever activities the kids have. Sometimes we "car school" or school while on vacation. When the boys were very small, a routine worked best for them but now they prefer not to have any sort of routine and my dd, who is still rather young, loves to just bring me her work "whenever" and do it when she is in the mood whether that is Monday morning or Saturday night at 9pm.

 

We take vacations/breaks whenever I need a mental health break, need to get things done, or have a vacation scheduled. Somehow it always works out to more than 180 days of school.

 

The point is...it doesn't matter when or where they learn. That is the beauty of homeschooling. You don't have to be tied to a school schedule in any way whatsoever. Nothing added later can mess you up because you have the rest of the day or week to do whatever you feel you need to "get done." If a schedule works best for your child, or schooling only in the morning, or learning at night, you can do any of those things.

Edited April 4, 2009 by Donna
forgot to add...

[Closeacademy]

We school 4 days a week year round and have a Friday Enrichment program. School is completely seperate from the Friday thing so we don't follow the schedule for it.

 

Basically, we will take off 3 weeks in May, 1 week in October, 1 week at Thanksgiving and 2-3 weeks off at Christmas. We may take time off at 4th of July, Memorial Day or Labor Day some years depending on what we have going on. If we take a vacation, we take all that time off as well.

 

It has worked very well for us and allows me to do short intense lessons and still make a lot of progress throughout the year.

 

I hope you find a plan that works right for you.:001_smile:

[rafiki]

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[G5052]

Once they finish their formal 3 R's in May or June, we go light until September. We have some light days the end of May where we test. They do another math curriculum at the level they just completed for 45 minutes a day, a grammar review workbook, a daily journal entry, some assigned reading, and we do read-alouds. If it's too hot to go outside, we do more read-alouds, science experiements, etc. I usually take off one day a week for yard work, cleaning, etc.

 

Needless to say, we do way over the minimum 180 days, which is fine. I'm not an educational factory.

Edited April 4, 2009 by GVA

[vettechmomof2]

we school year round and do not follow a schedule except for logging purposes. I log the times to turn into the super from july to June but otherwise we take off whatever days we want and extend for as long as we want.

[mom4him]

We school year around. I try to to the 3 R's every morning that we do school (4 days a wk, I always take Fridays off and we use this as catch up on the house). We get in History or Science 2-4 days a week depending on our weeks schedule.

Our year looks something like this: We start our school year mid Aug. right after or shortly after the Sturgis Motor Cycle Rally(Nothing is normal in our town that week). From then through the end of canning we basically do the 3R's in the morning and canning in the afternoon. I take the whole day if I need. My two help me with the preserving and I have come to realize that this is as educational as sitting at a table working in a book. Depending on how my produce is running we might get a lesson or two of History/Science in on an afternoon in every week. I take off the week of Thanksgiving, 2-3 weeks at Christmas(depending on how much time I took off for canning) and the week of VBS in June. I also take off a day here or there when needed. We have had a lot of snow the last couple of weeks, ps has been out and we have taken a couple days off for the kids to just go play. I try to take off from the middle of July through the middle of Aug. but this year I might take off a little bit more as I have a lot of painting to do and we will be refinishing our hardwood floors. This might mean some additional time in June as the weather is going to have to be right for both of these.

It has taken me quite some time but I am finally learning to relax a bit, be consistent with school but also take time when I need to. Our schedule doesn't look like anyone elses because they don't live in our home and live our lives.

You will find what works for you.

[The Girls' Mom]

We are moving to year round schooling too. I've got the next two years 'scheduled' out, just to see what it would look like. (I know we won't stick to it, it was just to give myself a picture)

 

Anyway, I was able to get our required 180 days in, and have a week off every month, more in others. And I still have several days to play with...I feel like this will give us much less pressure to get everything done by a certain date. When we finish with one thing, we'll just move on to the next :) I don't think that you'll be doing her a disservice with her enrichment classes either.

[AudreyTN]

I don't have a set schedule either. I just know that we have to "do school" 15 days each month in order to meet attendance requirements. If we have 20 days one month then we can take more time off somewhere else. 15 days is the minimum.

[Paisley Hedgehog]

nm

[Haiku]

Our schedule is roughly four weeks on, one week off year-round (4.5 days per week), although we take two weeks off at Christmas and time off for other things as the need arises. We have a somewhat lighter schedule in the summer (no history or science). I schedule 40 weeks of school and don't worry if we don't get them all completed. We move on to different things at different time depending on how soon we finish various things. The only things I worry about keeping on any sort of schedule are history and science, as I want those to correspond with grade level as described in TWTM.

 

I don't see why it would have any effect on your child to start your school year before an enrichment class starts. My kids view outside activities as outside activities, and they don't impact our homeschooling or vice versa.

 

Tara

Edited April 4, 2009 by TaraTheLiberator

[razorbackmama]

We school year-round with a way short summer break (just a couple of weeks) by doing school 4 days a week. We take a week off at Thanksgiving, 2 at Christmas, and a week in the spring. We don't really set a particular schedule for other breaks - if something comes up (visitors from out of town, for example), we just adjust for that.

[Melanie]

We have school six days a week all year round - unless we're on a break! :D We generally take most of September and December off, and we take mini-vacations here and there throughout the year.

[Caroline4kids]

We do half-days, until lunch, almost year round only taking out time to travel cross-country to farm our ground.

 

I use a timer for all lessons which last appx. 10- 25 minutes. This encourages the habit of concentrated attention. When the timer dings they move on and pick it up the next day. We are CMers.

 

We probably do classes 49 weeks out of the year.

[skaterbabs]

We do four days a week year-round, and just don't worry if something come sup to prevent school from happening on any given day.

[Samiam]

We school year round. We start our "new" grade level, around August, when the rest of the world is going back to school. But we do not start EVERYTHING at one time. I stagger the start times, meaning we might start Math and Writing this week, next week we might add in Grammar and Latin, next week we added in History, until within a month or so, we are up to our full load.

 

This year, for the first time, I staggered it even more. We did not start Grammar or our new writing program until January. This is knowing that we would be working on these programs all through summer, and would still be done by August to start the "new" grade level.

 

So by Feb-March, we are starting to finish up some of our programs, some we are right in the middle of, and some we are just in the first half.

 

I like that when we start to finish up some things in March, our load lightens up just a tad, so I can add up some "extras" that we didn't have time for. For example, this year, in beginning of March, my son started working in a Test Prep book, just a few pages a day, to get him ready for the Stanford testing....not teach him for the test, but just get him familiar with the test format.

 

Usually, I like to have a lighter load in the summer. We almost always do Science in the summer, as this lets us slow down and really get into the experiments. By June, early July, we will have finished up most of our core subjects. I know my son will be doing Grammar, Writing, and we will be starting our two year study of American History.

 

As far as time off, there is no schedule, we take time off whenever we want to. A week at Christmas, all family birthdays, field trips, a day or two at Spring Break (only cuz of the neighborhood kids knocking at the door), a week here or there during summer for summer camp activities, 3-4 day family quickie vacations, etc.

[coralloyd]

We school 4 days a week, year around. We take our breaks when we want. We have an old RV that we travel in. For the next 3 months we have camping trips planned (2 of them are a week long). We will still read on these trips, but take a break from other school work. Last year we went to the Grand Canyon, and we did lapbooks about it while there, instead of our regular work. We take a couple weeks off during Christmas time; to do crafts, bake, ect. My dh works at home so we take time off when we feel like it.

[Shannon in TN]

Wow! Thanks for all the input, everyone. This is definitely helpful.

[ciyates]

We HS year round. During the traditional school year we have the month of December off and Spring Break. During the summer we do 4 days a week. Summer is also when he learns a lot of practical things like how to set up an electric fence, how to change the oil, and how to repair the lawnmower. If he has to sit and listen to his dad explain it and then reproduce it himself I count it as Life Skills. We do not have to track time so if it take him more than 2 hours I count it for a session (not the whole day). I also add in all the things he learns at Boy Scouts in as Life Skills.

[2cents]

We go lighter in summer to take advantage of the library reading clubs and summer activities and take more time off during the winter holidays. We do math all year round but scheduling the other curriculum is staggered throughout the year and this way we usually do a couple of sciences and language arts curriculums per year.

[TxMama]

I plan on doing 9 weeks of school each quarter. We then have 4 weeks for breaks as needed or wanted each 13 week period. I don't pre-plan breaks except for Christmas so we have a lot of flexibility how and when to take breaks.

[LanaTron]

I have a couple of older kids, and all four of my kids are in very active scout troops, plus my elder two are in band. Dh works full-time, plus part-time on the weekends, and I just got a part-time job, as well. Needless to say, I often meet myself coming and going.

 

So, I use a "loop" schedule, and try to get at least 3 full days of schooling in per week, every week. If things get especially busy, as they just did during GS cookie season, we take a week or two off.

 

Our new year starts in October, but I may move that up to September, depending on how far along we are in our texts.

 

Also, we get a lot more done in the summer, more like four full days per week, but we take weeks off for scout camps, and this year we're actually planning a family vacation.

 

I have tried various plans like "x days/weeks on, x days/weeks off," but it never really works, as I feel too much pressure if we don't get the number of days/weeks done before the break. I am a free spirit at heart, so the looser schedule makes me happier.

 

Oh, one last thing...I use very little curricula that takes much planning on my part...mostly open-and-go stuff here, so that makes my free-form school much simpler.

 

Good luck with your planning.

[usetoschool]

We just do school every weekday, all year around. We don't start until 10 or 11 in the morning and finish around 3-3:30. They spend a lot of time playing outside in the morning so they are tired out and ready to start work. Sometimes they come in and tell me they are tired and ready for a break :001_smile: We usually go out of town on vacation for 7-10 days in the spring, the beginning of August, and the week after Christmas, but otherwise we just keep moving forward. If we finish one thing we move on to the next level or book or whatever. My kids remind me about random federal holidays and the public school schedule but my response is generally something to the effect of "who put them in charge of us, why should we work on their schedule?" And I certainly never hear the opposite when we are at SeaWorld and the rest of the school district is at school... "mom, we should be in school, everybody else is" :rolleyes:

[Osaubi]

My kids are young, but it is better for our family to homeschool year around. We are heavy during school time, and lighter during the summer. I also allow a lot more child lead learning in the summer time, but we always cover the 3 R's.

 

We take off as we need it, and around holidays. Sometimes it will be a day or 2 at other times it will be a week or more. Depends on what is going on, and attitude (from them and me!).

[brehon]

We school year round as well, roughly (very roughly) on the quarter system (i.e., 9 weeks). Needless to say, life happens. I don't keep us on the local ps schedule and I don't do "school lite" in the summers. In fact, our new educational year falls roughly in January. We take time off when needed/wanted - by both students and teachers. ;)

 

Just make your schedule fit your life. Personally, I wouldn't even let an enrichment program dictate my family's schedule and life. Have fun experimenting and remember, if something isn't working, feel free to change it!

[bbsweetpea]

We do year round.

 

We take about 4 weeks off in the spring and late summer because of my work schedule (I manage a 2x a year consignment sale). During those 4 weeks we still work on things but don't have a "set schedule". I try to have more outside the home activities during this time for them.

 

The rest of the year we work 4 -5 days a week with a week off in June (we do a camp that week), July (drive to visit family so learn on the road), a week off in November, 2 weeks off in December.

 

My kids don't usually notice the break because during that time we are so busy with other things that there is no real down time for them.