do most of you start "the year" in september?

[kristin0713]

It seems that is the norm among homeschoolers...or is it? I guess not among the unschoolers? My DD turned 4 in February and I pretty much have picked out what we are going to do for pre-school "next year" and I'm wondering if there is any reason why I should or shouldn't start everything sooner. I think she is ready for the programs that I've chosen. Starting our new curricula in the spring or summer every "year" would go along with her age and even give us a jump-start for when life throws curve balls at us. Just kind of thinking out loud here. Any thoughts?

[cappuccinosmom]

Why not start now?

I can't think of any reason either.

Our official curric (through a cyber school) starts in September. But our homeschooling is so much more than that, so we do things when we're ready, or when they arrive. Both my school age sons found the required K4 course super easy and blew through it in two months. So they both ended up starting K5 in November. My oldest started 2nd grade in January 'cause that's when he finished first grade and we wanted to continue learning (I love the flexibility of the cyber school).

[PGTlatte]

Our oldest would have gone to first grade this year. School started on September 1. I started our "homeschool year" the same day, for two reasons:

First, the girl next door went off to first grade on the bus and our son didn't and he felt odd about it. He had previously been teased by a different neighbor kid that he "didn't know anything because he doesn't go to school", and I wanted him to feel like his homeschool was every bit as much of a serious big-kid thing as it would have been to go off on the bus. The first day of school is hard to not notice here - we live in a cul-de-sac and the bus stops at the mouth of it and on the first day, three families of parents and their kids were all gathered outside to see their kids off - it was a big deal that we couldn't not notice going on - so I felt I needed to make a big deal about DS1's "first day of first grade" as well. And it was kind of cool how ready he was to get to work after the bus came each morning for the first two weeks ! So starting a new routine at the same time as the neighbor kids worked out well for us.

The second reason is for record-keeping. It's not required here, but I choose to keep pretty detailed records by date and subject of what we do. I think starting school on the same day as our district looks good on paper...but I have no plans to stop for the summer, so our "first grade" records will continue up to the first day of school next fall, when I will start a new set of records for "second grade".

If I have new materials I really don't want to wait to get into, since I'm not stopping for the summer, I would go ahead and start using them. On the other hand, if I have something I want to introduce, either a new material or a new routine, and it might be helpful to have the beginning of a "new school year" to use as a dividing point to start something new and to add a little oomph to it, I might use the beginning of the school year for that.

[kittie313]

We start our school year in June. See, our state has a Sept. 30th cutoff, and if I started our school year in August or September like our ps does then I'd "feel" obligated to start my youngest (who has a Sept. 3rd birthday) in K based on that cutoff and then I'd feel guilty if we held her back. However, starting in June I feel more comfortable with holding her back because she's not close to 5yo when we start. But that's just me............

[moominmamma]

We don't really do anything by grade levels. For our umbrella school we are required to document a "learning year" that begins in September and ends in May. However, learning for us is a year-round proposition, and my kids are as apt to be in the middle of a chunk of curriculum in September as they are to be beginning something. Our natural learning year follows the seasons, with spring being a time of great bursts of new growth and energy, and winter being fairly dormant. Which puts us sort of upside down from how schools do it.

Miranda

[mom2ponygirl]

My dd does occasionally do online classes or co-op classes that follow a school year. We tend to just do what we like when we like. LOL

[skueppers]

We have twice-yearly portfolio reviews here, so we'll obviously be doing those based on the school calendar. Kids are also registered with the county as homeschoolers based on their age-based grade.

None of this has much to do with what we study and when.

If you and your kid want to start now, I can't think of a reason not to.

[2xy]

Well, technically, we're unschoolers. But I have to send in a progress report and attendance records in June, so I pretty much keep to the public school calendar.

Plus....my kids' schooled friends are free in the summer. Trying to get anything schoolish accomplished practically guarantees that the phone or doorbell will be interrupting us. Nice weather is brief here; we have 8-9 months of cold, snow, wind, and rain to spend on book-learnin'. The summers are for outdoors and the beach, not textbooks.

[MamaMonica]

We've gone part time to parent partnership programs for the past few years, and their classes start in Sept. so we do. Before that there was no real start or finish. We tend to do more academics in winter when the weather is miserable and are outside more in spring/summer/fall.

[Savoir Faire]

We started "the year" in May...just because that seemed like a good place for us to do so.

If you aren't going to school, don't see the need to let the school calendar dictate what you do

Also...a lot of this depends on where you live. Here in Arizona, you're not going to find many people playing outside when it is 115. That's why we have the rest of the 8 months of glorious weather for outside activities.

Most people I know here school through the summer and take breaks around the holidays or in Spring.

[sbgrace]

We start our school year in my kid's birth month (which is spring).

[luvmybaby333]

Well this is my first year homeschooling, but I'd have to say no. We took an extended break after the winter holidays because I was dealing with some health issues. As such, we'll likely be studying through the summer. I don't foresee us "starting" anything special in September. It will probably just be a continuation of whatever we're currently working on.

[kgianforti]

We home school year round but we run our "grade level" year September - May because I have to report to the school district. That is just easier for me. But if we finish grade level work prior to May, I continue onto the next level of work even if it's before September.

[elizawill]

we start school in mid august and stop at the end of may (next friday). my state requires a portfolio, record keeping, etc. so taking the summer off is a great time for me to relax, regroup, and prepare for the fall. plus, my kids have a lot of friends in public school & we travel a lot in the summer.... so having this time totally free of requirements is nice. they'll still learn of course - i just won't have to keep track of it.

if your dd is 4 though & you want to do preschool with her, certainly start whenever you want! i only follow a schedule because i prefer it, but many homeschoolers do things completely different. that's the beauty of it

[elizawill]

Originally Posted by mom2ponygirl

My dd does occasionally do online classes or co-op classes that follow a school year. We tend to just do what we like when we like. LOL

our co-op is similar. our last class was yesterday & the new semester begins aug. 20. in fact, many of the homeschool classes shut down for the summer here... not sure why. it works well for us though, as we choose to take the summer off as well.

[meetoo]

We start in sept. I like summers off and I kinda like the excitement of "back to school" That's just me though.

[StormySar]

We start right arount the time schools do, for our official start, but we also school throughout the whole year so it's not a big deal to go 'back' to school other than perhaps new books, supplies, goals, etc.

[shoefairy3]

We start our new year July 1st. Really we dont ever quit. I just use it as a starting/stopping point to pack up past works etc and box away for storage. Plus my kids like to be "graded up" even though we really dont work on set grade levels

[CherryBomb]

I homeschool dd1, dd2 goes to public school (she has special needs we feel are best addressed there). So I planned dd1's school year around the local school corporation, so that dd1 and dd2 would start at the same time, have the same days off and vacations, etc. Our co-op doesn't start until September.

[accidental_hs'er]

Sort of...

Our activities start up for the year in September. We have a co-op, French lessons, art, gym and many more activities that basically follow the school calendar year.

School-work is a year round thing for us. Actually, we take a long break (like most of December and January) in winter. I find we have a lot of time and energy to do things like math or science work when the days are long and sunny. With a break in our other activities, we do an hour or two of work most days during the summer which still leaves us with plenty of time to play.