This is the first year we have done a year-round schedule. I didn’t think I would like a year-round schedule because I enjoy having a lot of time in the summer to get ready for the upcoming school year. Large summer breaks were not good for our foreign language studies. It would take a bit of time to review the things forgotten during the summer. As a result, I decided to give year-round schooling a try.
My boys who are currently age 10 and 12 were a bit ambivalent about year-round schooling. They liked the long break in the summer, but after about 3 weeks or so they would start getting restless and more bored – another reason to try year-round schooling.
So this past year we started our school year in the middle of July in 2013. I planned for our school year to end in the middle of June in 2014. We did the same number of days that we typically do, but they were spread throughout the year. Most of the breaks we took were a week long. I think the longest we had without a break was after five weeks of school.
The other day I asked my boys what they thought of a year-round schedule to see if they wanted to do it again. They both quickly agreed that a year-round school schedule was better. They love all the breaks!
So this summer we will have a 3-4 week break before we start the new school year. The extra weeks of summer break will be spread across our school year to give us tons of breaks throughout the year. I think our longest break was a week this past year, but I had planned on 2 weeks at Christmas. We took the extra week of Christmas break and had two spring breaks to match my husband’s schedule.
The only downside is the lack of planning time. I used to spend much of the summer preparing for the upcoming school year because I prefer to piece together a lot of our studies. Now, I have to start earlier in the year in order to be done on time.
Have you tried a year-round schedule? What do you think of it?
We are continuing in the summer partly because we didn’t finish our My Father’s World curriculum, which I started in January, but also because without some kind of structure and planned activity, my kids quickly fall into bickering and whining. But we are doing a much lighter than normal load (this is also an experimental period, where my daughter is home from public school, so I’m testing this out to see how well I could handle BOTH kids home, to determine if I want to homeschool her in the fall), and we’re doing some unit studies from KONOS mixed in with the geography stuff from MFW. It’s rather haphazard, and I don’t know what I think of it yet. We aren’t doing any ‘serious’ math, but more math ‘projects’, like graphing things, or money-tracking, cooking, with a few math fact drills using iPad apps a couple times a week. I might do some ‘new’ material a few times this summer, but not going to go progressing through the textbook like the regular year, I do want them to have at least half the day as ‘down time’, to play. We’re using IEW for writing this summer, but also in a more ‘light’ way. Doing the videos and the initial assignments, but not doing ALL the assignments, so it ends up only being a couple times a week.
Is it totally weird that I’m a complete stranger and following your blog/FB and commenting? I love what you’ve posted on your blog, and I just feel like I can relate to your teaching goals so much! 🙂 I don’t know that many homeschoolers in ‘real life’, so it’s so helpful to hear encouragement and questions and ideas from your posts! My kids are a few years younger than yours too, and it’s so helpful to see what resources you’re using for various subjects. I’m not comfortable enough yet (since we only started homeschooling 6 months ago), to piece together my own things, but I feel like I’m ready to branch out. We got a Chemistry book a few months ago since my 10yo son expressed interest in Chemistry, that was my first break away from just following MFW’s curriculum. We’re also trying to do Chinese, but it’s not very systematic, since I don’t yet have a book. Just watching videos on YouTube, and trying to remember to speak at home (I speak Mandarin, but can’t really read/write, and my vocab is not too advanced, but I can do everyday conversation). OK, probably too much information from a complete stranger!
Thanks so much for the comment Elaine! I must say that you sound like you are doing very well. My first year homeschooling was a disaster for the most part.
Thanks! That is encouraging to me. I still have doubts about whether I’m doing the right thing, or doing this right, etc.
My son goes to a private school Labor Day to Memorial Day. That’s 3 months off for summer break! I agree with some of your conclusion, so I have always planned regular time in the summer to practice certain skills (math and writing being the primary ones) and our bedtime read-aloud time turns into living book time (histories, science, poetry, etc). Sometimes I even purchase homeschooling curriculum to make things a little more organized and hopefully fun – Life of Fred, Disney Typing to name a couple. This year we are trying Teaching Textbooks after a sample online got him excited about math. I think if we were homeschooling, I would use a year-round schedule too.
We homeschool year round. It gives us the flexibility to take a break whenever the unexpected happens or family arrives in town, and lets me avoid the guilt of “we aren’t getting enough done”! We veer toward unschooling with some structure thrown in, and it just doesn’t seem natural to put the books away…learning is every day!
We did year round schooling part of the time when the two olders were still in school. It happened quite naturally with around a six week break from mid May to around first week or so in July. I liked it because July and August are so hot in the south and no one wants to go outside and do anything. Now I drive a school bus and have my 12 year old daughter left- she thinks when I’m off, she is automatically off. I can’t seem to convince her otherwise but it would be nice to school some of the days with out having work to worry about.