I often get asked what a normal homeschool year looks like for us. This usually comes from those who are thinking of homeschooling their kids and are curious what it may look like for their family. For 7 years we did it a certain way, this year, we switched it up a bit and I think we’re all going to love the change.
But as a side note and a word of caution before I dive right in here…
What works for us, may not work for you. A lot of discussion and prayer both with my husband and friends has helped us find this new schedule and one that we love so far, at least for this season. That’s one of the wonderful things of homeschooling — if it doesn’t work forever, that’s fine, just focus on this season and how you can find and keep your priorities in check.
We used to homeschool during the regular school month : either mid July through mid April or August through May. I found that we were missing out on some of the perks of homeschooling because I was so focused on keeping that “traditional school schedule” and only letting out for breaks when area schools did. It wasn’t fun and definitely didn’t allow the fun, flexibility that homeschooling can offer.
I have a good friend who has been schooling her kids year round but not doing school at all during the months of June or December. Those were their busiest months (as they are ours, too) and they just couldn’t keep up. She told me that by having their schedule this way, it allowed for more longer weekend outings and trips, and that she could relax a little bit and not be so stressed about getting those 180 days in the same months like the public and private schools do.
So, we gave it a whirl this year. At first, my oldest (who just finished up his 7th grade year) wasn’t looking forward to it. He was sure I was going to assign more school work. When really, it meant we could relax a little and enjoy some of the perks that come with homeschooling. This schedule allowed us to:
- Do activities and outings in our town when everyone else was still in school so we could avoid crowds and enjoy the cooler weather before schools let out.
- Add things to our school that the kids found interest in. If they wanted to spend a little extra time on a certain topic of subject, we could dig deeper and have fun with different units or studies by doing extra curricular activities or projects. We didn’t feel rushed.
- Take more weekend trips without our schoolwork. We love to travel as a family and this allowed us to take more long weekend trips without hauling our school work with us to try to “get it all in”. Who wants to go on a weekend trip and take school with them? Definitely not us! When we did have to take our school with us before switching to this new schedule, we ended making those long weekend trips not even enjoyable because we were trying to get our book work and other items completed while traveling.
So, our new schedule consists of schooling year round and taking off the entire month of June and December. Now this year our boys wanted to finish school early to have an extra few weeks added on to their summer break, so they worked hard to complete it and did just that!
We’ll start back the first party of July, take off extra days throughout the upcoming school year and finish up the end of May.
It works for us. It may not work for you, but I want to encourage you to look into what you’re doing now and see if it’s working. If it is, great — so great! If not, don’t feel discouraged and don’t feel like a failure. Pray, ask advice from friends and your husband, and try something new. You can always change it up again if it doesn’t work for you. That’s one of the joys of homeschooling.
{I’ll be sharing our homeschool curriculum choices in just a few weeks. Until then, you can browse some of our favorite homeschool resources and products HERE}
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