Year Round School Part 1

This is our third year homeschooling, and we have typically followed  whatever schedule the local public school is on. However, I have always liked the idea of a year round schedule. Until this year, I have not made that happen. We  always take off in the summer. Summer for us while fun, has always left us counting down the days until school starts back. (we start counting in June) The kids always ask to start school back WAY earlier than I had planned, so this year I went ahead and decided to start year round schooling.

Here are some Questions I have encountered, and answers about year round schooling:

1. What type of schedule do you follow? Year round schooling in homeschool may look different for many different families as it yields itself to whatever schedule works best for your family. We have planned a 6 week on, 1 week off, 12 week on 1 week off, type of schedule. However, that is subject to change depending on vacations, and field trips. 
2. Do your kids ever get SICK of doing school? Do yours? On benefit of year round schooling is that we have the freedom to speed up, or slow down as needed. If the kids are having an extra tuff day, we take a break. That said, kids are kids, and you so need to maintain some sort of learning environment even if they don’t know it’s learning. (LOL)
3. Do your kids feel left out in the summer? This is our first official year using this schedule. But, I know my kids are not left out of summer activities. Most kids spend much of their summer vacation watching TV, vegging on the couch, bored and unproductive. My kids will enjoy studying artists, going on field trips, doing science experiments, and things like that. Oh, and I bet there are plenty of public school kids that will be joining in on our “learning” fun.
4. Don’t you need a break? YES! everyone needs a break! I get this question often. I think what people don’t get about year round schooling, is that there are LOT’s of breaks, we just spread our breaks out to more convenient times.

I also get asked a lot about my Pro’s and Con’s, list. I will post the pro’s and con’s list for our family in Part 2.