Do you Homeschool All year Round?

[GLOWAcademy]

Just Curious ,
I was wondering if anyone HomeSchooled all year round, or follow you local schools ?

[Linda...inOwasso]

Yes, we do. We take breaks here and there but I wouldn't dream of taking 3 consecutive months off at any time of the year.

[nancypants]

We keep a strange schedule. We start around late July and then take most of December off. Then we probably take a week in the spring off just for my sanity and we go until about late May. But the kids play outside a great deal in May because the weather is so unbearable for so long here and they spend almost no time outside, except for sledding outings and ice skating and infrequent snow play days. So the school days get progressively shorter as the weather improves.

[WTMCassandra]

I do "light school" in the summer--math, latin, some grammar--sometimes on alternate days. That way they don't forget everything. Yet, we bring our history/science to a close by the end of May and begin again in September. This way *Mom* gets a break from the planning-intensive subjects and feels a sense of accomplishment that comes with ending/beginning.

Of course, if we go on a trip or something, I let them off school altogether. But for no more than a week or two at a time.

[Amy in Orlando]

We go pretty much year-round here. I schedule in the public school schedule simply because it works for the older boys' activities and my younger sons' friends invading the house. We usually take 2-3 weeks in June and get back to school after July 4. We take quite a bit of December off as well. I ease up on history, latin and writing during the traditional, non-school months. It's worked very well for us.

[Laura Corin]

Otherwise we just take breaks when it suits us.

Laura

[GLOWAcademy]

:) Jacob does light stuff over the summer,
Alot of Natur walks, filming what he sees and him Narrates what he sees, he Gardens,alot of road trips like to a Dino Place in Glenrose where he can actually go down to the water, wade and look at tracks and such :)

[Jean in Newcastle]

This year we will school all year around because I was so ill earlier this year that I had to stop schooling at Thanksgiving. We resumed school-lite after Christmas. This week was our first week where we've been keeping up with a full school schedule (I'm getting my health issues under control). We'll see how everyone deals with spring-fever and summertime too. We may do school-lite on occasion to give ourselves a bit of a break.

[nmoira]

Year round, though we think nothing of missing days for special occasions and spur of the moment excursions.

[Kris]

We pretty much work all year, but we take time off when the opportunity presents itself. Most specifically, my husband is a truck driver and we never know when he'll be able to spend a few days at home. Originally, I tried to stick to a schedule even on those days, but now I've given up. And that's fine with me -- I think it's much more important that he spend time with his Dad.

[freethinkermom]

Year round. We take off when we want to for the day. Most days we are done around noon, which I would not be comfortable with if we took a summer break.

[Snickerdoodle]

Year round, though we think nothing of missing days for special occasions and spur of the moment excursions.

Yeah, that.

[Bee]

When we take more than a few days off at a time everyone gets bored.We take more days off or have lighter days in the spring and summer when the weather is nicer and there is more to do outside.

[Rhesa]

We take weeks off for travel or vacation, but I school through the summer, too. It's a little lighter (only math and reading). It also gives me the opportunity to finish up anything that we didn't quite finish during the year.

[Pster]

We try to school year round - and then just take off when life happens - .....hs field trips, trips to the museum, etc etc - some things wind up taking longer than planned! I figure if I "plan" to school every day and am not neurotic when other things come up - then it will all work out in the end! (it will won't it??? LOL) ;)

[King Alfred Academy]

We homeschool year round, but try to take holiday breaks when dh is off school. We need the structure during the summer, but are pretty relaxed during that time...if it gets done, it gets done. If not, then we had a great time outside!

[AmyinPA]

We take summers off. The season is just too short here to be inside doing school. But that said, I do fill our summer scheduls with lots of "educational" activitiies...plays, festivals, fieldtrips, vacations. Oh, and we do a lot of reading in the summer.

[Milseain]

Year round and we take off when life happens. We need the structure during the summer and most days we are done around noon. During spring and summer when the weather is nicer we school outside and we have been known to go to the park to do school. ;) We take two weeks off for vacation. A week at a time. One week is during the spring and the other is during the summer. :cool:

[Closeacademy]

We school year round taking 2 weeks off in May and 3 weeks off in December. We do 4 day weeks and throw in a fun week to break up things up and give our brains a rest about every 3 to 6 weeks.:)

[Anne/Ankara]

Yes, we go yearlong, but take shorter days when necessary. It gives us much more flexibility to cover the material to the depth we want.

[Shari]

We have four 10-week terms per year with two weeks off between terms, an extra two at Christmas. Our "new" school year starts in June. Works like a charm :)

[Baseballmom]

We try to do lite Bible, Math, Reading & Music over the summer. But, I need a break over the summer from the teacher intensive subjects. Of course, our plans don't always line up with reality. We are never quite as consistant as I would like.

[Jenny in Atl]

Year round with lots of small brakes for field trips, holidays, camps, and just days you need to kick off early or can't get started.

[Jennifer in MI]

We do "traditional" schoolwork over the school year. During the summer, we do one lesson of math and grammar/week. We also usually pick up another unit study during the summer. One year we did music and composers. Last year we did the K'nex building lessons. This year we'll do art and artists.

[kalanamak]

But I probably would anyway! School takes a back seat to get togethers, as kiddo is an only and I know he needs to be around his peers, until we are three days behind. Then we do school no matter what.
Maybe when kiddo is older and can budget his own time, and I don't have to on hand 100% of his school work, we can be more feast and famine, but for now, it is a steady diet, pretty much.

I believe the stats on how long it takes kids to pick up math in the fall after a summer off. I remember that distinctly.

[M&M]

Year round. We don't have to record days so we take off when we need a break or a vacation. As our family has grown, it gets harder to get everything done "on schedule". We get our best work done in the winter and then take a spring vacation then back to work lite in the summer and full force in the fall.

[Philothea]

This will be our first summer, I intend to take it easy and do "light lessons" that can be cancelled or re-arranged based on what we are doing for the day. I can see us doing a full day on a rainy day or a day we have to stay home for some reason.

I can already tell that my son is someone who thrives on constant review. His enthusiasm for schoolwork is so strong though, that I wonder if he will want to do more this summer.

I plan on doing a few unit studies as well. It is a nice time to schedule a series of themed trips.

We take breaks when we have a new baby (#3 won't be the last), we also take all of our religious holy days off, plus the kids get their own name day, birthday and baptismal days off (if they like).

[Riverfront Headmistress]

I teach math and grammar during the summer months; Bible devotions are done year round - other than that, I take a breather.

[jmgconner]

We school year round, taking days off as needed and any days DH is off work.

[MelissaD]

I see my friends getting all stressed out because they have to finish their math by June 1st; so glad that isn't us!! We go year round, taking big breaks to travel at major holidays and a couple times in the summer. If I'm giving my kids a literature-based education (whole books, living books, classical, ykwim), how could I take 3 months off? We try really hard to live a learning lifestyle, not just "do school" at home.

Melissa

[Elizabeth TN]

but I think I am going to do year-round school. It will definitely be lighter school work in the summer. We don't have a lot of friends who homeschool, so I want the kids to be able to play with their friends who go to school. We will still do something, though.

[Jill, OK]

We do school year 'round...but I'm more likely to be flexible when local schools are out, and opportunities with friends arise.

With as much as we've had going on, these years we've been homeschooling (babies born, moves, deaths/illnesses in the family requiring travel), there's really no way to not just take breaks when they're necessary. Being able to pick right back up again with no pressure to finish by "X" really helps, and is probably one of the biggest reasons we've been able to accomplish goals.

[mysticamethyst]

We do but we take breaks whenever needed.

[angela in ohio]

We HS 6 days, year-round, wtih just vacations at holidays and 2 weeks in the summer. We consider it part of life and are trying to show dc that with our schedule.

[Tressa]

No. In Florida we did. It was too hot in the summer to do much of anything else. Now that we are in Washington we take 2-3 months off in the summer to enjoy it. I am also in need of a long break by that time. We are pretty strict during the school year.

[Faith]

We school year round and take breaks when we want thru the year. Also, we take the month of December off every year. It works well for us. Oh, and we don't school on Friday's either.

[Amy in NH]

Yes.

We have to in order to get some semblance of a full school year worth of teaching due to a custody/visitation calendar.

But really, I think it makes more sense to school year round and take shorter breaks throughout, so that there aren't issues with loss of retention.

[Lori C, Texas]

We have started to school all year. We just have to many things that just pop up that we need those summer months to stay on track.:)

[GLOWAcademy]

Ok I was wondering If you do Homeschool all year round how do you go about how many days you take off and such? Currious because DH and I was thinking of doing it since Jacob Likes to do school work, Even over the summer he will get books out and work things.

[JudoMom]

Ok I was wondering If you do Homeschool all year round how do you go about how many days you take off and such? Currious because DH and I was thinking of doing it since Jacob Likes to do school work, Even over the summer he will get books out and work things.

We do take July off, just because I need the break.

But every other day we school unless there is a good reason not to. If someone is sick, or we have a doctor's appointment, or I'm way too grumpy, or we have company, or it's the holidays, or we travel, or Daddy's home, we take those days off. We seem to get plenty of breaks this way. I've never scheduled breaks because life seems to give them to us regularly with 5 young boys.

[WTMindy]

We do school year round, but we also do school lite in the summer. We take 2-3 weeks off in December and we ususally travel 3 weeks during the year. I usually take a week or two off in August to deep clean the house and gear up for the next year. I'm a believer in just plugging away. :)

[Mrs Mungo]

My husband is military and that plays a big part in our schedule. We may take off a long weekend that he has off or take off a couple of weeks when he comes home from a deployment. On this recent move we were doing a very limited amount of school for 6 weeks. We'll take off some time here and there in the summer when we have visitors. In short, yes we homeschool year-round with breaks as needed. No, we don't follow the local school's schedule.

[Kalah]

Living in the desert, we school through the summer and take the month of December off. We take off 2 weeks around each boy's b-day (just 'cause the weather's usually nice then) and another 2 weeks in August for mom to regroup. Totals about 42 weeks of schooling all told. 6 weeks are light unit type studies.
More than 4 weeks off in a row and my darling boys grow horns and tails and start looking for something to destroy! LOL

[readwithem]

We tend to keep going year round, but we also travel during the "school year" - we're never behind but not really "ahead" either. We just go on to the next thing.

[prairiegirl]

Usually, we school year round and take week breaks when we need them. Last summer, though, I was so stressed about getting the yard and garden work done that we took the summer off. I think we will do that again this year but still do some lite schooling, mostly math.

Julia
mom of 3 (8,7,5)

[JeanM]

We have been taking summers off, although that doesn't mean that all learning instantly stops. We do lots of reading, exploring new interests and I still require a little math practice each week, just so it doesn't all go out the window.

Jean

[Tia in Wa]

We did not school last summer:(. It took forever to get back on track. So now we are schooling year round and we take breaks as we need. We will take a week in spring along with the ps so my kids can go stay with their cousin. I LOVE not stressing about finishing with everything by June.:D

[*anj*]

Yes, we do. I usually do it to keep up the continuity. This year I will do it out of necessity because we've had a very difficult school year.
But I do think it's always a good idea to at least have school-lite.

[TexasRachel]

We do year round because it's just too hot during the summer. I figure April and October are better months for playing outside and we'll take a break then. We also take a couple of weeks off during December. This year it was from Thanksgiving to January because we moved and the amount of stuff DD forgot was huge. Never again.

[momo4]

When we lived in a warmer state we did, just because we took more time off in the winter, but now that we live in a state that is just about freezing every day of the winter we get more done and I am really looking forward to outdoor free time. We will still do a few subjects just so we don't get rusty.

[Paula in PA]

This year we did 7 weeks on, 1 week off, starting in July. I had planned on 2 weeks at the end of December/beginning of January, but that ended up as 3 when I got sick. We'll continue the 7/1 until about mid-June, then take another 2-3 weeks off.

Paula

[mcconnellboys]

I tend to stick pretty close to what our schools do, as my children like to play with a lot of neighborhood children and engage in a lot of summer activities that might be more difficult if we were still also trying to formally school all summer.

The summers absolutely fly by, and I do all my planning then, so I'm not sure how I could school all summer, too.

Regena

[Darcy in FL]

I prefer to do the year round thing but at this point-- we are pretty much following the school year schedule. My children have so many friends in our neighborhood that it just seems to work better (for now) following that schedule. We certainly will do some school things over the summer but it won't be full school days!

[Holly IN]

Ok I was wondering If you do Homeschool all year round how do you go about how many days you take off and such? Currious because DH and I was thinking of doing it since Jacob Likes to do school work, Even over the summer he will get books out and work things.

For 2 years what we did was take the whole month of December off then took the 1 week off every 9 weeks. At another time we went with 9 weeks with 3 weeks off. Personally I like having the whole month of December off then take 2 weeks off every 9 weeks.

Now we go by TOG units which is usually between 8-9 weeks then take 2-3 weeks off depending on the month ending of. We also take the day off when dh is home.

First of all you need to see what your state law requires. Mine requires only 180 days of school. So you can go with that or in my case I just school as usual to my schedule and still get about 200 days of school or more.

You can go with whatever your curriculam is and see where you want a break for yourself to plan or gain sanity back for yourself. There are so many ways of doing it.

HTH

Holly

[Quiver0f10]

We started schooling with September-June, then when we were in Maine we did Oct - July so kids could work harvest. Now we are August -May to stay with my college age kids. We did try all year one year and it just didn't work for us. I need summer to rewind.

[Holly IN]

I forgot to post my reasons for schooling year round....

The first two years of homeschooling it was a battle to get the kids back to schooling at home when summer break was over. The 3rd year I decided to give it a try with schooling year round with breaks throughout and it worked out great. No more fighting or tears since then. We do not school in all subjects in the summer. We keep up with Math, reading and writing. Science and History only happens if there is a need. I tend to do more gardening in the summer and the kids help me with it as well as learn about plant life. However this year we will do history throughout the summer because we are behind due to my surgery from last year. We are still playing catch up. It will be a light school in the summer though.

Holly