What does your yearly cycle/rhythm look like?

[Grace and Granola]

We are just starting homeschooling this year, and it has never occurred to me that we would do anything other than follow the typical school year calendar. But I've seen mention of many different types of yearly rhythm, so tell me...what does your year look like?

ETA: Please choose one of the options that is the CLOSEST. Obviously, I cannot include every possibility, but do want to know which is closest to what you do!

[AAK]

I selected "other" so here is my explanation:

"officially" we follow the public school year. However, we take weeks off when we need to. Also, we still do "school" in the summer, but I use it for review and spontaneous education (ie unschooly stuff). When we went to ps I made sure they didn't fall behind during the summer, so my kids think of it as that. However, my oldest needs more review than she will admit (esp. lately as things have gotten more difficult) and she gets a bit "grumpy" about repeating stuff during the school year. Since we are "officially" on summer break, the review goes over better for her.

Also, during the summer, I fit it in around our other stuff. During the "school year" we follow more of a school in the morning routine.

Amy

[inky leeuhhh]

during the summer, we keep doing "school" but it mostly comes in the form of my reading lots of interesting books to dd, about topics that she is either interested in, or things i think she needed to review from the year before. this is of course on top of the day to day learning children are always doing naturally .

[kittywitty]

We kind of follow the "traditional" schedule but do "school" stuff in the summer and usually take a couple weeks/months off at a time depending on the situation-holidays and new babies and such.

[nov05mama]

I voted "We school 2 months on and one month off -OR- 3 months on and one month off" since it's more realistic to what we actually end up doing.

Typically, we start our school years at the same time the traditional & year round schools start here (this year in August). Since we take a 1-2 week trip to GA every few months, that's usually our 'break' from school. We still do field trips and learning, but none of our workbooks and materials. So it works out to be about 2-3 months 'on' and then about a month 'off' and we continue pretty much year round.

[MyLittleWonders]

I voted "other" - we school year round, tend to do the same things during the summer as the rest of the school year (though things like copywork and narration may come from history or science instead of being a separate subject in the summer to help condense time), and we go roughly two months, taking the last week of the second month off for a break.

My boys don't do well with too much time in a row off from school - and I find I need more frequent breaks (doing three months straight and one full month off wouldn't work for any of us). With our schedule, it's roughly 7 weeks on, 1 week off throughout the year. That also gives us extra time to take off the one-day holidays dh gets during the school year (he teaches), plus the full time off for spring break/winter break (even if it doesn't line up with our 7 week on/1 week off schedule). In all, we get about 38-40 scheduled weeks of school this way and it keeps all of us from getting burned out (with school or down time).

[zebrachick83]

"Other" schoolers here. This is our dd's first actual year this fall, since she'll be turning 6 in November. But our schedule is going to be the following:

November - April: Full School Curriculum (Math, Science, History, Reading, Art, Music) 8:30 am - 1:30 pm M/T/Th/F with Crafting and Library every Wednesday

May - June: OFF

July - August: Foreign Language, Math, Reading M/T/Th/F with Crafting and Library every Wednesday

September - October: OFF

I planned it like this, so that we'll do the bulk of our lessons in the winter, because I hate going outside in the cold. We'll be out in the spring and fall, when the weather is beautiful and inside some when it's the hottest. It sounds good in theory, but we'll see how it actually works in practice.

[sha_lyn]

We follow the typical summer calendar for our area, but here they are on a modified yr round schedule with a shorter summer and then fall, winter holiday, winter and spring breaks. It works for us because of camp and other activites that revolve around the local school year. However we don't follow the local schedule for breaks during the year. We usually take off a week in Early Oct, a month+ for Thankgiving-New Year, then a week in the spring.

[phathui5]

We homeschool year round, taking days off when we need to (field trip, family vacation, super busy errand day).

[elizawill]

we take summers off. our school years starts in mid august and runs through the end of may. we take time off as needed or desired throughout the year.

i was hoping we would do a little math and reading this summer, but that's just not happening honestly (although my oldest is reading books & magazines often). we have been traveling a lot this summer though, so it's not realistic for us to try and accomplish specific tasks. we're still learning & doing a lot... it's just not in the same manner.

i wouldn't enjoy schooling year round at all though, and likewise, others would dislike our schedule. just do what works for your family.

[Callimom]

Another "Other" here

We are unschoolingish relaxed homeschoolers and we do a lot of community based education, which can be influenced by the school year. We tend to take May, June, and September "off" because the weather is beautiful and focus on outdoor pursuits. We do some light schoolish stuff in July and August and lots of unit type studies based on activities in the community. We get back into an academic a groove for October and November and then bail for the Christmas craziness, get back in the groove from Jan to March/April with a week or two of February funk in there just for fun.

hth
Karen

[candycat]

Other.

Our school year has two terms - from the first week of August to right around Christmas. Then from the first week of February to the middle of June. July is our summer break and January is our winter break. (July will also be a time for short camps when the kids are older.) We take off for Pagan holidays (usually a long weekend) as well as secular American and Hungarian holidays. School Monday-Saturday, but Saturday is a half-day. There is also a Spring holiday and an Autumn holiday, each lasting about a week.

[Smithie]

This is our first year as independent homeschoolers, but I've decided to generally follow the public school calendar in order to take full advantage of the camps, etc. offered during breaks. Plus, our accountability association gives us an annual attendance form that runs August-July 2010-2011, and I have no desire to ask for special accommodations. That range suits us just fine.

Basically, I bought a little day planner, I'm going to log every day we do school and what we cover, and if the curriculum is completed at Day 180 we stop until Fall 2011. If the curriculum is NOT completed we will keep going, because ultimately what matters is making the progress, not how many days my state thinks we should be in school.

I have seen ds make huge strides in reading and math this summer, but it's all unschooly and I don't count it. It's just life

[gaudynight]

I counted us as year round, lighter in the summer. We are a LOT lighter in the summer though and my kids don't always realise it's actually school! Lots of reading, read alouds, trips, fun worksheets and games.

[mom2ponygirl]

I put other. We tend to do a lot of school in the summer once it gets very hot and hanging out in the AC sounds really good. We take off randomly in nice fall and spring weather when we want to travel or just goof off outside. We also tend to take off early in December to avoid the holiday stress on top of school. We start back early after New Year. However, my daughter is now doing more online classes so we get a bit stuck with the school schedule anyway.

[cheery]

While life in general is busy, as far as homeschooling is concerned, we follow a fairly light schedule all year round. Not more than 1 hour / day of sit-down "schoolwork" type activity and many days none. Depends on what else we are doing, more than what day or month it is.

[jrcronewillis]

I voted for year-round/lighter in the Summer, but in reality we go just as hard in the Summer, it's just different material. We continue with our regulars, but trade the Homeschool CoOps we do during the school year for camps and park days and special classes. It keeps the balance between keeping up skills and keeps things interesting.

Good Luck!

[sewchris2642]

With the girls, we did 3 months of school, one month off. School was Jan-Mar, April off, May-July, Aug off, Sept-Nov, Dec off. I was better at planning 3 months at a time instead of the whole school year. And we do a lot between Thanksgiving and Christmas as a family so I planned on having Dec off and worked the rest of the year from that.

With Dylan, he's in a charter school where he is home for part of the week and we follow the school year. The combination of classroom and home works for him but the long summers take a toll on him. If I could find a situation where he could be in a classroom part of the week and have year-round school it would be ideal.

[EviesMom]

This past year, we more or less did year round with 3 weeks on, 1 week off. That was fine in general, but in mid June, we had a bunch of family events (death in the family, stuff around that) and I've decided to just take the summer off this year. We are doing some smaller studies like spending a week at the zoo and doing related lessons, but they're much less structured than our regular lessons.

DS will also be in preschool this year, which means that we'll be tied to his school schedule at least a little this year (I homeschool DD while DS is in preschool; I did that starting in the Spring, and it's really been great for all of us). We'll start homeschool when preschool starts, we'll take breaks a little longer at Christmas and regular breaks when we'll visit relatives. But mostly, we'll go into September with about 3 weeks of schoolwork done over the summer, we'll roughly follow the school calendar, and I'm hoping to finish earlier this year and be done by June 1. June is such a nice month outside here and many private schools finish June 1 so the playgrounds and summer camps and such are running but not insanely busy yet with the public schools still in session.

Public school here runs right after labor day until the end of June with 2 weeks at Christmas/New Years, a week in February, a week in March, and a whole bunch of random days off here and there.

[kittie313]

Officially, we follow the ps calendar. We're using a virtual academy, so technically we have to meet certain requirements for schooling. However, we have taken days off here and there when we need to, and we take it easy on lessons from thanksgiving until christmas and we just pick up extra lessons on weekends and during other scheduled school breaks. Right now we're on summer vacation from OHVA, and I'm ready to get back to our routine already. I can't wait until out OLS is available again here in the next couple weeks............