Non-Traditional School Year

[VisionaryMom]

Does anyone have a non-traditional school year?

We will begin homeschooling next year (K), and I'm working on pre-planning now. One of my concerns is that I have bipolar disorder. Though I'm stable, I know that I need to be prepared for some literal mental health days for me. Another thing I'm thinking about is that the winter is really bad for me.

We've done mother's day out for a year and preschool for a year. I've realized that there is a part of me that was depending on some short trips (and one long one to Georgia to visit family) in the dead of winter because I just don't do well with gray skies & snow despite my best efforts.

DS is enrolled in preschool (half-days) until the end of the year. We had snow days all last week. Today he's out for President's Day, and looking outside & @ weather reports, we're probably out at least Tuesday & Wednesday. I'm struggling with cabin fever vs. not enjoying "playing in the snow."

So (sorry that was long, but the background seemed necessary), this morning I thought that perhaps planning for a non-traditional school year would be a good idea for us. The worst time here tends to be mid-January to mid-February. Perhaps if we planned a trip or two during that time and then just planned for "play days" when we go on lots of playdates, open gym, etc., that would work better all around. Does anyone do something like that?

If I travel, it'd probably be to Georgia or the New Orleans area to visit family (free stays!). I know there's a lot there, and maybe doing more of a traveling school time for those few weeks could work. We will do structured Language Arts & Math, but maybe we could do those while traveling without any major hassle. Obviously New Orleans has plenty of educational opportunities, and the area of Georgia where I'm from would be awesome for environmental lessons.

I'd appreciate any thoughts. I'm trying to combine what everyone needs. DD is 3, and she's really into "projects" right now - usually something involving lots of glitter glue. DS actually enjoys workbooks, and he's insistent that if I'm his teacher, we have workbooks. I'm more unit studies-oriented, but DH wants something closer to school-at-home/classical. So I need to do what I can to make everyone happy.

[EmmysMama]

I normally just lurk here since my oldest isn't even 2. I just wanted to say NO would definitely be great for a "school trip". There are ways to work it in anywhere, of course, but with the Audubon Zoo, Aquarium of the Americas, the IMAX Theater (some great documentaries, the huge screen entices kids to watch anything, even "educational"!), Children's Museum, Insectarium, and WWII Museum ... that's five or six day trips right there. Museum of Art too, if they'd enjoy it. And they are all GREAT! Even after visiting relatives and going to their zoos/museums/etc, I still think NO's are among the best.

[PGTlatte]

I'm not sure we even have a "school year" here. I do homeschool lessons with DS1 year-round. We usually take a week trip to visit ILs in FL in February or March. Summer has more time out of doors than winter, but I still do lessons. We are involved with a couple of groups that have occasional field trips/activities year-round. "School" is really only taking 1-1.5 hours per day, so it's not something I need to plan an entire day around. Sometimes we do it in the evening. Sometimes we do it on weekend days. There are days when it doesn't get done because of an activity that takes half the day, or a bunch of errands I need to get done, health issue, etc. As long as we do it when we can and overall continue to make progress, I don't worry about sticking to a schedule.

The only way the concept of the school year impacts us is that I have difficulty dealing with the interruptions from neighborhood kids who are out of school for the summer or holidays, at times when we are working on school lessons, or when I have tightly planned our day around some activity and having them show up at the door throws us off. I am hoping I have remedied that with a "school in session - please don't knock" sign on the door.

[Geerbabe]

I think flexibility is one of the major benefits of home schooling! In the summer when other kids are off school my kids of course want to play, but we found we could often get an hour or two of work done in the morning before the other kids came knocking. Alternatively, the neighbourhood kids would sometimes join us for a project since by August they were usually starting to feel a little bored. I knew I was having a baby in April this year, so we just started in August and plan on taking all of April off. It's the best!

[VisionaryMom]

I would be for an all-year system, but DH seemed to think DC would burn out that way. As a kid, I would've LOVED it, and I think DS would. Still DH is more...conventional in his views on education than I am, so everything's a compromise.

[*Jessica*]

We school year-round taking off days here and there as we feel the need. It's worked out beautifully for us.

[kayla14]

We tend to take most of the winter off cause I get really depressed and have no energy.

[kgianforti]

We home school year round but I follow the public school schedule in regards to moving up a grade. Like in September, we are in the next grade (based on age). That will just keep reporting simple.

[kittie313]

I'm bipolar II myself, I know what you mean on the grey weather. We're enrolled in our state's virtual academy, but if we weren't I'd be taking winter as vacation instead of summer. For me personally, in the winter we're in survival mode just trying to get through the day with all basic needs met, and adding in lessons for OHVA just messes me up so bad that I can't seem to keep above water at the moment. I do what I can each day with history, science, art, health, and phonics then the husband picks up math and whatever I didn't do at night when he gets home from work. We're seriously considering leaving OHVA even though it works well for us purley because I can't function on a traditional school calendar, doing a full day of schoolwork in the winter like now (complete with a foot of snow and the inability to make my van move from its spot in the driveway) is just practically impossible for me. I get too down and unable to function beyond basic needs during this time of year. In fact, its 3pm and I'm thinking thank goodness its President's Day so I can take a nap and listen to my iPod instead of teaching (although I'm going to force myself to at least do phonics and health with the kids, and get the H to do math tonight)

[dannic]

The beauty of HSing is that you can do what works for you! We HS yr round. Or rather, I refuse to let the local ps schedule do our scheduling for us. We take time off for the holidays and some time off in the summer, like August. I make sure that we are having a fun outing the day the ps starts (camping, trip to the science center, ect)and then we really just play it by ear. Mom's sick? It's a movie day. Kids are sick? We'll just read. It's a beautiful autumn day? Spend it outside! we are super flexible *for ourselves* but we don't change our schedules for others.

[tanyalynn]

It seems quite common in my area (TX gulf coast area) to do more formal academics in the summer when it is so hot and humid (and nasty) and less in the spring and fall when it's beautiful.

[sha_lyn]

We used to take Mid Nov-mid Jan off and have a really short summer. However now we stick pretty close to the local school calendar because of girl scouts.

[Savoir Faire]

I live in Arizona, where the Spring is glorious. (Is Feb. spring? NO? Then why is my daughter asking if it is already Summer?)

Anyway, I have a friend here who homeschools May through December/January and takes the Spring off to enjoy the weather.

We're staring first grade in May and will be doing "year round," except we will just have breaks when needed...similar to what you are doing.