I'm taking the next several months to expand on the ideas developed in a previous blog post titled 5 Things that Changed our Homeschool for the Better. I will dive deeper into the five areas discussed in that blog post. First up was Focusing on Building a Reading Foundation. This post focuses on our decision to pursue Year-Round Schooling.
I chose to do year-round schooling early on in our homeschooling journey. I was feeling overwhelmed by fitting everything in. You see, I was at a point where the girls and I were doing much traveling, and I mean a lot. We had taken a two-month-long vacation and took school with us. While we were checking boxes and doing things, I felt far behind. We were not going to "finish" in a typical school calendar year, from August to May.
We have traveled extensively and continue to do so with my husband's job. Fitting school into a traditional August to May didn't seem to fit. Also, my husband sometimes gets laid off around November to February. I wanted the girls to be able to spend more time with their dad during this time. The traditional school calendar didn't adapt well to this.
I just wanted to shut down and quit, I had felt like I was failing. Then I don't know where I saw it or read it, but the idea of year-round schooling popped into my head and stayed. I toyed around with how it would work and then looked at how it would work logically. I realized that technically we had (according to our homeschooling rules) 365 days to complete the required hours and days each year. Why not use that to our advantage?
Once I realized that we had 365 days and 8,760 hours a year to meet the 180 days and 875 hours required by our state to homeschool our girls, it was like a big weight was lifted. I changed our calendar from January to December for school. Doing so allowed us to combat the issues of spending time with my husband and eliminated the fear of not getting everything in.
Year-round schooling also fits into our math, reading, and spelling mastery approach. We didn't have to stop our curriculum just because the school year ended; it naturally rolled over as our year ran over and into the next. We can also start a new level of these subjects when we finish one, allowing learning to continue there. This also fits into other subjects we don't complete in a year; I then roll them over and continue learning. I set goals for us every year to complete, and usually, we can achieve them, but some years life gets in the way, and we don't, but the stress of having it done is now gone for us.
If you are curious, this is what our year looks like for us. We typically start our school year around the second or third week in January (depending on if we are traveling to a new job or travel to see family for the holidays). We end our traditional school work by Thanksgiving every year. Our core curriculum (Sonlight) we can typically complete in this time frame. I taper off and find a logical stopping place for our other subjects to end around Thanksgiving. The week after Thanksgiving, we begin Advent, where we have a family Christmas read-aloud and work on fun Christmas/Advent-themed crafts and projects. I also throw in some math reviews and all of our Christmas picture books. We do this until we finish for the year (close to or around the 21st of December). Now, before you think we don't get any vacation time and it is all work, it is not. We take off when we need to. We take off for sickness, vacations, appointments, birthdays, and other holidays. We don't schedule the time off; instead, we take off when we need to, for as long as we need to. It works itself out nicely.
Year-round schooling may not work out for everyone, but for us, it does.
As always, keep following our journey on our Facebook Page or Instagram. If you want more in-depth conversations, check out our Facebook Parent Group.
Also, If you want help keeping track of your attendance and hours for your school year check out this FREE PRINTABLE from our Home School Printable Resources.