Year round schedules?

[Gwenny]

I want to use a year-round schedule but I can't think of a good one. We are only in K this year and are pretty informal so far, but next year it will be more necessary. I was thinking 3 months on, 1 month off, but 1 month off seems like too long.
Any suggestions?
Gwen

[JudoMom]

Our basic schedule is this:

1 week off at Thanksgiving, 2 weeks off at Christmas, 1 week off in the Spring when my parents visit, and 1 or 2 weeks off at other times if we go visit extended family.

We also usually take a few weeks in the summer for a nice clean break before starting back full force. Once we hit our required number of days (end of May), we usually switch to a light schedule and the boys spend more time outside.

We typically school unless there is a compelling reason not to school, and we take days off as we need them (for example we had 3 child well checks on Tuesday this past week and they were early, so we took the day off because we were all cranky by the time we got home). Also, with the ages of my boys and the amount of subjects that are combined, if one of the older 3 is sick everyone gets the day off. I like having the flexibility of taking days when needed instead of having planned breaks.

[Trivium Academy]

We are 9 weeks on and 1 or 2 weeks off depending on if the break is near a holiday.

First Quarter: Sept 15- Nov. 14
Two Week Break Nov. 17-28th

2nd Quarter: Dec 29.-Feb 6
One Week break- Feb 9-13

Third Quarter: Feb 16-Apr 17
One Week Break Apr. 20-24

Fourth Quarter: Apr 27- July 3
Three weeks off

August: Unit Study Month

We have lessons Mon-Thurs with a light Friday then we take a field trip/nature walk.

[Closeacademy]

We do 4 days a week with Fridays for co-op/playgroup/field trips (so they still count). We take off December, 3 weeks in May and keep holiday weeks light because a lot of times there is just so much going on we can't get any thing done any ways.

We usually end up with 195 days. My recommendation is to go with the flow of your family. Is there a certain time that you take vacations, go places, do things, have holidays that are over-active, tend to get ill? Schedule school around those events.

Good luck.:001_smile:

[Shari]

Our basic schedule is 10 weeks on, 2 weeks off year round. Start counting the first full week after July 4, and it works out great!

[one l michele]

Leadership Education by DeMille. In it it recommends 2 one month vacations. I'm thinking for us it would be 2nd week in June through 2nd week in July and 2nd week of December through 2nd week in January.

[MeganP]

We used to do a 6-7 weeks on/1 week off with a month at Christmas and a month in the summer. I found that after 6-7 weeks of hs, dc and I all needed a break.

If you don't want a whole month at Christmas and the summer, just make some of the 1 week breaks into 2 week breaks.

[hjdong]

I do 6 weeks on/3 weeks off, tweaking here and there for holidays (7 weeks there, 5 weeks here). DS is 6. I found out the hard way to never, ever give him 4 weeks off. He gets bored. Then, he starts to pester. It's not a happy scene.

[siloam]

Our basic schedule is this:

1 week off at Thanksgiving, 2 weeks off at Christmas, 1 week off in the Spring when my parents visit, and 1 or 2 weeks off at other times if we go visit extended family.

We also usually take a few weeks in the summer for a nice clean break before starting back full force. Once we hit our required number of days (end of May), we usually switch to a light schedule and the boys spend more time outside.

We typically school unless there is a compelling reason not to school, and we take days off as we need them (for example we had 3 child well checks on Tuesday this past week and they were early, so we took the day off because we were all cranky by the time we got home). Also, with the ages of my boys and the amount of subjects that are combined, if one of the older 3 is sick everyone gets the day off. I like having the flexibility of taking days when needed instead of having planned breaks.

Like JudoMom, other than big holidays we don't have a schedule of off days. We take sick days and get thing done days and play days occasionally, but other than that we pretty much keep plugging away....

Heather

[WTMindy]

Our basic schedule is this:

1 week off at Thanksgiving, 2 weeks off at Christmas, 1 week off in the Spring when my parents visit, and 1 or 2 weeks off at other times if we go visit extended family.

We also usually take a few weeks in the summer for a nice clean break before starting back full force. Once we hit our required number of days (end of May), we usually switch to a light schedule and the boys spend more time outside.

We typically school unless there is a compelling reason not to school, and we take days off as we need them (for example we had 3 child well checks on Tuesday this past week and they were early, so we took the day off because we were all cranky by the time we got home). Also, with the ages of my boys and the amount of subjects that are combined, if one of the older 3 is sick everyone gets the day off. I like having the flexibility of taking days when needed instead of having planned breaks.

This is very similar to how we do it!!

[janainaz]

We do 3 weeks on and 1 week off. I plan out 13 scheduled weeks and leave 3 weeks open (for sick days, or whatever that might come up unexpectedly).

We do a 4-day school week. It works perfectly for us. Yes, a month is way too long. A week off for us ends up actually being 11 days (if we take our days off those weeks on a Monday and Friday). I can not imagine a 3 month summer break OR a month off.

[Martha]

we take a week for christmas, a week for easter, a couple weeks in June (sometimes all of June) and a couple weeks for the birth of a baby if that applies. other than that I don't schedule weeks on and off.

[AudreyTN]

The state of TN requires 180 days. That is 15 days per month.
We rarely take an entire week off... and we rarely "school" for an entire week at a time. So, as long as I get my 15 days then I'm happy. :)

[nmoira]

I don't schedule time off very far in advance: weeks are taken off for camps; we take days off on a flexible basis for illness, birthdays, field trips, etc.; we'll also take time off when we get a bit squirrelly. A little more time off has been taken every year, mostly due to camps. We don't take more than a day or two for major holidays (Columbus Day doesn't qualify as a major holiday).

[OhElizabeth]

We too do not schedule time off. Never seem to have trouble finding excuses for that, lol! We school unless there's a sensible reason not to. We take some time off around the holidays, which really sort of varies with finishing up our goals for that semester or that term. Instead of thinking of it in terms of days and counting (the way the state does), you might look at what you're trying to accomplish and give yourself breaks after you accomplish it. For instance, I tend to have semester goals for 1st and 2nd semester, so I know we're wrapping up the semester and ready to break when we've met those goals. In May I do what I call May Term, where we do something really out of the box that we don't normally get to, say a whole month of art projects doing multiple projects a day or maybe a unit study on animals or something. We take off June, because that is the month our state has its homeschool convention, meaning I want time to research and attend that. We school the rest of the summer (July and August) with goals for the summer. Sometimes we'll do an entire year's worth of science in the summer, etc. So again, we know our pace and when we can break based on how we're accomplishing our goals.

Your schooling schedule will change each year. K5 and 1st are still very loose, very low pressure. By 4th or 5th grade, you're doing more writing and you won't find yourself wanting huge gaps of time, my two cents. Skills are cummulative and you'll find yourself wanting to just keep going. But in K5 and 1st, sure, do what suits you! 4 days a week, 6 weeks on and 1 week off, it's all good.

[Melmc]

Thanks to everyone for posting their schedules. This is my first year and I finally realized a set on/off schedule just won't work for us (especially after I got sick a few weeks ago and spent four days in bed!) so it's good to hear others aren't locked in either.

[Ellie]

Our school year began January 1 and ended December 31.

We took off a couple of weeks in the spring around Easter; a couple of weeks in late August/early September (stinkin' hot weather, no AC), and from Thanksgiving to about the middle of January. We also took off any random time we wanted to (Disneyland in the middle of the week in early spring, for example).

Otherwise, we just worked on stuff until we were finished, and then moved on.

We officially "promoted" dc in September, just to keep Sunday school teachers happy :-)

[alpidarkomama]

Our schedule is, if papa's working, we're learning. :) During some of the Jewish festival weeks we'll take a little more time off for more recreational activities, but basically that's what we do year-round.

[swellmomma]

We are 9 weeks on and 1 or 2 weeks off depending on if the break is near a holiday.

First Quarter: Sept 15- Nov. 14
Two Week Break Nov. 17-28th

2nd Quarter: Dec 29.-Feb 6
One Week break- Feb 9-13

Third Quarter: Feb 16-Apr 17
One Week Break Apr. 20-24

Fourth Quarter: Apr 27- July 3
Three weeks off

August: Unit Study Month

We have lessons Mon-Thurs with a light Friday then we take a field trip/nature walk.

I haven't read replies yet so my apologies if this was asked, but if you first quarter and break end Nov 28 and the next quarter doesn't start until Dec 29 what do you do for the full month of dec? Or was this a typo ad you meant the second quarter start nov 29?