I plan a year-round school schedule (3rd Day of the new School Year!). I do a "sabbath" schedule of 6 weeks on and one week off with adjustments over November and December. I plan for a 40-week academic year, 4 days a week, for 160 planned educational days. Where I live I need 180 educational days per school year (Albuquerque, NM, USA). Field trips fill the last 20 days. It works for us, and most school days average 4 hours.
That's so nice. I would love to do the sabbath schedule but with my husband's teaching schedule, we just need so much more flexibility in the summer. And I'm glad that you can accommodate you state's requirements with an alternative schedule. So many people see requirements like that and then just do the school schedule, not realizing that you can do something different.
Great video! We started off homeschooling year 'round because my oldest didn't want to stop for the summer. I quickly saw the benefits and now wouldn't want to do it any other way.
It seems to me like the same people that tell me "I could NEVER homeschool in the summer" are the same ones asking "What learning should we do to prevent the summer slide?" Make it make sense. But hey, we all run things how we want to run things, which is something I think we all value about home education.
Im considering year round homeschooling, but maybe a much more relaxed schedule. I’m conflicted with exactly what you said, about preparing them for the future and little chance of them having summers off as an adult. Wouldn’t that mean it’s even more important now for them to have a childhood with summers off? The majority of people have had those fun carefree summers and then as adults we go on to working knowing the expectation is that we will have to work through the summer. Having had free summers for all those years doesn’t change that. The memories I have of my childhood summers are so wonderful. I’m conflicted that I’d be taking some of that away from my kids. Perhaps more of an unschooling approach would work for us during summers because we do love to learn everyday and find it happens organically. I do like the idea of being able to be more flexible throughout the year though.
Our summer schedule is very different than our fall schedule. Next week's video will go over what our summer school looks like. And they still gets lots of free time during summer. We typically have a rule that if we're home during the morning, then we do school. But if we're off (camping, travelling, playdates, etc) then there's no school.
But you got to remember it’s an hour a day if you want them to have more time for the day you can always wake em up early at 6am start school at 7am and finish by 8am and have the whole day open . Normal school is 8-9hours long everyday I think homeschooling definitely has more time to make memories and fun adventures.
