What do you do when you start in the middle of the school year?

[HollyBee]

Hello everyone! I am planning to remove my kiddos (grades 2 and 4) from public school after the "winter holidays." Has anyone done this? What are the thoughts about beginning various curriculum(s) at that point vs. waiting until the beginning of the "official" school year? Meaning, if we started, say, a history program, I wouldn't think we'd finish it and be ready for a new one in August. I know we could just consider January the beginning of the next school year and go year-round, but I'm not sure my traditional-school-year-trained brain will go for that.

I'm not sure this makes any sense whatsoever. :confused:

I suppose that's a benefit of homeschooling--if we're not done with a program by the end of the school year, we can just keep on trucking until we are. I guess I just need reassurance and perhaps input from those who have taken kids out in the middle of the year.

Thanks!
Holly

[portland_hill]

Hi Holly,
I took my son out of 3rd grade after Spring Break, so not quite halfway, but well before the end. To ease into homeschooling we started with just math and history and lots of reading. We started SOTW1 with the activity book and went at our own pace, sometimes a chapter a day, sometimes one a week. That was one and a half years ago. We are now just about done with SOTW2.

For math he took the placement test for Singapore math and we just started him where he placed.

I'm also homeschooling my twin daughters. I think we're off on almost all our curriculum. We just finish and pick up the next level, no matter where it is in the school year. It's hard to overcome that school year mentality though, I'm a planner and would love everything to match up perfectly.

Hope this helps.

[iquilt]

Yes, it can be very hard to adjust away from the traditional school calendar mind-set but it can be done. We pulled our oldest after 2 months in K a few years ago, so not quite the same thing, but I wanted to encourage you to take some time "off" school before beginning at home. The transition may be a lot smoother if there is some time to assimilate to being home before beginning a curriculum at home. We are not exactly where we are supposed to be according to our curriculum choices; for some subjects we are "ahead" and for others we are "behind", but I believe it will all work out. This year we have switched to a 4 day/week school schedule that will be year round with more frequent breaks. HTH

[HollyBee]

Thanks Diane and Christina! Your input is definitely appreciated. :)

Holly

[melissaL]

I took my children out of school 1/2 way through the school year. we messed about for the first month as I tried to work out where they were academically, and as I looked over curriculum, then we started out with math, and English, adding a new subject every few weeks. this worked well,as we had time to settle into the homeschooling and de-school a little at the same time.
the first year we swapped curriculum a fair bit, as we found some of the things we tried just weren't suited to our family. eg. we swapped spelling programs 3 times, we switched from ABeka grammar to Rod and Staff. and after the first year, we switched math.

[Jen3boys]

We started hs'ing after the winter break. I started w/one subject (math), and gradually added more. My boys needed time to decompress from public school. I needed time to figure out what curriculum might work for us, and most of all I wanted the transition to be a happy, positive one. We did go to the library a lot and the boys did a lot of reading. I asked them to make a list of everything they were interested in. I decided doing a few subjects formally during the summer was the best idea for us, rather than following the traditional school year.