7 DIFFERENT Ways To Schedule Your HOMESCHOOL YEAR | Homeschool Planning Ideas
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- Опубликовано: 22 авг 2024
- When I started homeschooling, I had no idea there were different ways to schedule your homeschool year! I thought everyone just followed the traditional school schedule. I was wrong! In this video, I'm sharing 7 different options for scheduling your homeschool year. Bet there's at least one you haven't heard of!
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Hi friends! I’m Erin. I’m a homeschooling mom to 4 kids and we’re in our 8th year of this homeschool lifestyle. I love to share videos with tips about things we’ve learned along the way that have helped me out, as well as curriculum reviews and some heartfelt homeschool inspiration. I hope you leave here feeling encouraged that YOU CAN DO THIS!
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What kind of schedule do you like to follow? Were any of these ideas new to you?
Scheduling is why it is so important to know the homeschool laws of your state. Here in Rhode Island the law is "substantially equal to 180 days" of the state schools. "Substantially equal" is a nice big grey area that I love to swim around in. 😁 As a product of the public school system, I distinctly remember classes spent just watching movies (right before holidays), field trips that included a nearby amusement park, and school-wide assemblies that spent class time on who knows what. Obviously, we don't want to use state schools as our role model -- we can do WAY better than that in teaching our kids. But, I think it's helpful to remember that 180 days doesn't mean 180 days of formal instruction. We have a LOT of freedom in those 180 days! 😁
YES!! ❤️
Im in RI too! So weird reading a comment about our tiny state.
@@kat_9999 Hi neighbor! lol!
Im a former teacher turned stay home mom/homeschooler and as a teacher of primary age kids I saw the regression each summer. So, as a homeschooler we decided to do year round. My kids know no different - it takes 30-60 mins a day to cover the necessary work. We love this schedule as we take a couple of weeks off at Christmas and then usually most of July off. Otherwise we go week by week. The kids thrive on routines (and so do I, haha). Mine are young still - 1st and prek. Im figuring around 3rd grade Ill switch it up to more scheduled weeks off bc the retention level increases! I highly recommend doing what works for your family with the idea of switching it up if you see its not working...dont get stuck or compare bc your kids are the ones who suffer. Great video to open eyes to all options!
Absolutely agree! So important to switch things up as needed!
This is what I’m imagining for my kids for this coming year. I’ll have a 1st and pre-k as well.
I started homeschooling year round. My daughter has ADHD. She would forget everything by summertime. When I started slipping in hard worksheets or a quiz on previous subjects , she retained it better. I got frustrated because I’d have to basically teach a whole topic over again. When I would get half way finished teaching it again, she’d remember it lol 😂. Interactive binders in all subjects helped tremendously!! All she has to do is go back to her binder to remember rules. It saved me from repeating myself. It’s amazing because she remembers so many things because we made up poems, songs, and abbreviations for so many things. She’s in the 4th grade now and it’s funny to go back through her binder looking at 1st grade lessons lol 😂.
I recently met a mom who does 3 weeks on and 1 week off- I loved that idea.
She told me how she use to get frustrated and annoyed with her children during her period and since she stop teaching that week they all have been so much happier. I struggle with terrible periods and those are the weeks when I tend to loose my patience. I really want to see if we can switch this year.
I also moved our "school time" to the afternoons and the days started running smoother.
Ultimately home education is a lifestyle were we get to live and learn with our children- took me 3 years to realise that!
I love that idea too because my two girls started their periods and we all start at the same time within a couple of days.
Any suggestions for curriculums? 3rd year homeschooling and still trying to find what works… thanks!
Omg i love that! Period week is a nightmare around here as well Glad im not alone
I absolutely thought about the same thing! That week is awful.
I haven't started homeschooling yet but I'm planning to do 1 week spring break, 4 weeks summer break, 2 weeks Christmas break. The idea of doing 6 weeks on, 1 week off intrigues me.
Thanks for sharing! I hadn’t heard of some of these. We do a bit of a combo: 4 days a week, with Friday being our enrichment day; 6 weeks on, 1 off; and year round. Summer and Christmas is much more laid back/unschooling with some fun math to keep them sharp. It’s taken 6 years, but we’ve finally found what works for us! ☺️
Love that! Sounds like a great plan for your family!
We have schooled 4 days a week year round for the past 5 years, but when I look back it seems we do our best learning in autumn and winter when we enjoy being at home and we are less busy with other stuff. So this year we are making a BIG change, knuckling down for planned 'school' September to middle of April, and then having 4 and a half months of summer!!! Yey!!!! We will spend the time out in nature, my daughter wants to do foraging and we want to grow our own food! Also we will still be doing lots of trips out and travel. I can't wait to enjoy all this knowing that all our bookwork is finished for the year 🥳
Year Round was GREAT when my kids were little and needed consistent structure, but now that my kids are older, they asked for a Summer break and just have time to play. This was a great playful summer this year 💗💗
Love the flexibility we have to change things up whenever we want to!
I'd like to homeschool year round, but both my kids really enjoy attending summer camp through our local ymca. Because of that, we homeschool the traditional August-May schedule. They do some great things, though. Weekly trips to the movie theater, nature center, and pool. Plus, weekly fieldtrips to different places, like the planetarium, discovery museum, zoo, etc.
I consider summer camp as outsourcing unschooling 😅
Love that!
We do 4 days of “full days” and then “catch up day” on Fridays. But most of our Fridays are for field trips and fun things
Love it! We are similar!
This is what we do too!!
I do the 6 weeks on, one week off. I do take 2 weeks off at Christmas. My girls like the summer break. We have done this for 5 years now.
The 12 weeks on, 5 weeks off sounds interesting.
I also am interested into looking at the 3 weeks on and 1 week off. 🤔
I love this. I love the idea of taking s long break between semesters and also still doing some work during the summer so they don’t forget what they learned and dont have that dreadful feeling of school starting up again, because it never ends 🤣
We homeschool mon-thurs. They love free Fridays is what I call it.
We start in august and get done in may, take a couple weeks here and there on the holidays. Take summer mostly off, the summer is when we do a lot of art and science projects, nature hikes, working in the garden.
Do what feels right for you and take breaks when you or your kids need them!
Sometimes it gets stressful but mostly I love homeschooling 💖 I love this channel it’s helped me a lot!
Junior year and child will work hard for 4 days to have a long weekend for interest led learning, we start in Aug end in early May. We LOVE to travel/ cruise and count that as school days bc goodness soo much learning is taking place. We want to foster the bond of our family, enjoying each other’s company while seeing what we can before the next big stage happens.
I’m an admin assistant from home and due to a massive project I have to commit to the last week of each and every month, we always school 3 weeks on, 1 week off. By using a loop schedule and schooling year round, it works out well and we are able to be so flexible.
That sounds perfect for your family!
We take our break from thanksgiving to new years. Some years we have done sabbath schedule, six weeks on, one week rest.
We are more a 6 week on, one off (although I’m not super strict with this since my kids are still little). We do a light summer nature study and lots of reading. I like the idea of 12 on, 5 off. Although I give my kids their birthdays off (and this year the whole week of their birthdays off lol). I love the flexibility of homeschool!!
I love homeschooling for so many reasons but the flexibility is one of my top “why’s”. We’re year round homeschoolers because we thrive on routine and it doesn’t take long at all to get everything covered.
This year we've decided to focus on spending time with friends as we haven't had as many opportunities due to covid. Ideally the 6 weeks on 1 off schedule will give me the ability to do some good planning but we tend to lean toward year round schooling with 4 days on 3 days off.
I'm really intrigued by the 12 weeks on, 5 weeks off approach. I'm going to go back and look at my plans to see if I can (and want to) try this out.
Me too! I love that idea!
we plan on doing a mix of a couple of these!
Love your ideas! We are year round. We school year round since both boys have autism. The oldest already graduated a few years ago but I continue to homeschool him with my youngest who is in 9th grade this year. We take less time off spring, summer, and fall. We take more time off in the winter. We follow a simple schedule for the high school years. Works for us
We are currently doing a relaxed preschool. I have been using your channel to glean information for the future and really develop a plan for when we do begin a curriculum. I was really interested in year round for many reasons but there are so many important summer activities we do. I realize more prayer needs to be surrounding this topic and a flexible mindset that we can try different options, especially as my children grow and might have their own input for what they might like to try.
Last year we schooled 3 weeks of each month in a unit stude format. Then we started our next unit on the 1st of the following month. At the end of 11 units we took an educational visit for 2 weeks and then a month off before we started again.
Year round for me means I have 15 weeks to allocate how I choose. For us this year it will be starting in August then school till November take 1 week for thanksgiving break. 90/185 days in then all of December off because we're moving so there is 4 weeks. Jan feb mar 70 days school then off 2 week april spring break. Apr may we have 30 days of school All of June july will be 8 weeks summer break.
We do 4 days a week, with a Life Skills or Field Trip day on the 5th day 👏🏻👏🏻
Sounds perfect!! We do something similar!
We started homeschooling after the pandemic started so going on 3 years. My 11 and 9 year old still remember summer break after going to public school. It’s been hard to convince them to do any other schedule. I wouldn’t mind a 6 weeks on 1 week off but I think I would get voted off the island if I implemented year round schooling at our house 😉
😂 Love it!
We are doing 6 weeks on 1 off, 4 days a week, year round. Long breaks for thanksgiving and Christmas.
This our plan too. Combining a few of the different schedules. We are homeschooling F-M then I work T-Th. I’m praying this plan works. We are going to do the 6weeks on 1 week off.
The 12 weeks on 5 weeks off sounds really fun, especially if you like to travel like our family does, but I think it’s probably better suited for older students.
So glad you are back on RUclips!!@
Thank you! 🥰
Interesting to hear the different ways to plan your schooling time! We have pretty much followed the school's schedule (except minus all the p.a days, strikes and shut downs haha). This year my husband has a new job as a pastor and so he takes Fridays off instead of Sunday so there was no way school would be taking place on Fridays. So we are trying out the 4 day a week thing! It's nice that we can be flexible with the schedule and make it work for us!
Love that! I would totally take Friday’s off too! Enjoy!
This is so useful!! I'm saving this for future use--some years I need to switch it up, and this is an excellent guide to refer back to. Thank you! ❤️
I kind of want to try the 12 week terms but it’d be so hard to be doing school when all our friends are on break! 😅
This will be our first year of homeschool with more structure. The 3 weeks per month was what I resonated with most. Thank you for showing us all these options
We like to start school in early August and be done by end of May since May is gorgeous where we live! And then take June and July off.
I love the 6 weeks on 1 week off 🙌🏼👏🏻 Helps me get a break and gives me regular breaks to reset the house or plan, or just not do any school. 😆
We do three weeks on, fourth week Friday and Monday off to allow for a four day weekend.
Love the 12 weeks on and 5 week breaks!
Love your channel for a while you are an amazing mother and I’m thankful for your channel . Thank you 😊
Aww, thanks Asheley! So glad you’re encouraged here! ❤️
This is our second year homeschooling at first we followed public school curriculum. Now we do 4 full days (Mon-Th) and 1/2 day on Fri. AR is VERY relaxed with homeschooling guidelines, but heavily stress that parent(s) assume all responsibilities. However we are enjoying it and have decided not to send our sons back to public school.
Last year homeschooling was so hard for us because I don’t have the time to plan well for our year due to family chaos. This year, I finally was able to have time to plan and we’re going to attempt the more year-round approach with sabbatical weeks (our child being kindergarten and our second being preschool).
Wishing you all the best! ❤️
Every summer I start planning to do the 6 weeks on and one week off. But then life happens or we need other days off. So then we never follow through. We decided to just continue with what we always do…take days off when we need them. We also school year round. On Friday’s we do a lighter schedule since they have piano lessons and we can add in our art and music. So in a way we schedule several different ways. 😂
The 12 weeks on, 5 weeks off approach piqued my curiosity! However, after implementing the 3 weeks on, 1 week off approach over the past few years, I'm not sure if I'm tough enough to handle 12 weeks on! Sometimes, after 3 weeks on, I just relish the opportunity to sleep in, do yard work and take the week to rest and recuperate my energy.
I have found that 12 week terms can feel very long!
I originally changed to 6 weeks on 1 week off after first watching you talk about it and it has worked for us as that's how I normally plan our unit studies. This new year I am actually going to try reducing them to a 4-week study to keep the focus and motivation, so I like the idea of trying 12 weeks or 3 terms, as this is how I schooled when I was younger and I have never really thought about using it in our homeschool until today.
we do a 6 week on and 1 week off, with time off in the summer!
We try to do 6 weeks on 1 week off. If anything comes up or we tire out early that day after core subjects we choose to make up group lessons in the summer and sometimes continue a short schedule of math as well!
This year we are transitioning from a flexible year round schedule to a structured year round schedule. We are schooling 100 days then 7 days off, then off from the week of Thanksgiving until December 31st. Taking additional days off for everyone's birthdays, New Year's Day, Independence Day, and Veteran's Day. My daughter (13) wanted to go to 7 days a week so who am I to argue? It also makes our days much shorter as far as school is concerned, but she really wants to learn all the things out there so who knows how long the days will actually be.
Year three for me, and I LOVE that 12 week option.
It sounds so cool!
We schedule around birthdays.
We start school the first monday in August take vacation when our local public school opens then school until October then off in December. We are usually missing our routines so still jump into doing school after being off 4 days. We did year round before but decided to give the kids July off this pass school year.
So I guess you can say we take off when we need to
I had the kids involved with the school calendar. I only have two so agreement might have been a little bit easier lol. We start the last Monday in September and work hard until December 21st. (We do have Halloween off and 2 days off for Thanksgiving). I originally had the school calendar as a base then we worked from there. We have 3 weeks for Christmas/New Years then its 4 weeks on - one week off until our last day on August 11th. I'm really excited to start. Friday I purchase the kids curriculum. So everything is going great.
Also, my Wild + Free group has grown to 16 kids including my two. Thank you so much for inspiring me to be active and reaching out to my community. You've become a true blessing in my life!! May God continue this path for you to keep inspiring more families to guide their children's educational paths!!
Oh! That just blesses my heart! 🥹🥰Thanks, Casey! I’m so glad that you’re finding your tribe and enjoying this homeschool life!
We do 6 weeks on 1 week off. It is our sabbath rest week. I schedule any appts & play dates during those weeks. I also plan for the next term during that time. Our week off usually lands around a holiday (Canadian thanksgiving, Easter, etc.) I love doing it this way. Give me something to look forward to push through towards.
The idea of X weeks on X time off is very alluring to me in theory. In practice though, my kids (& myself!) are so accustomed to bookending our traditional school year with a couple of their birthdays that I think making that switch would be challenging. Our family moved to MO from TN this summer and the state requirements we now have are surprising to me. Where we were used to the 180 day year, we now are required to track hours spent schooling each day. 1000 hours, split into 600 core & 400 non-core (with some other specifics woven in there). 🎵 Learning & Growing 🎵😅😉
Whoa! That feels like a lot! Megan from Pennies and Salt in in TN. Maybe she’s got some videos about how she tracks her hours! ruclips.net/user/PenniesAndSalt
It really has been a big learning curve. Thankfully, on Etsy I was able to find a "Missouri Homeschool Hours Tracking Log", made by another h.s. momma here in MO. It has some tips in addition to the log. God Bless her!! 🙌 ☺️
@@Crown_Club Oh I totally read that wrong and thought you said you moved to TN! 🤦🏼♀️😂 Glad you figured it out!
This year we are doing a 4 day school week!
So this year was our 1st year. With our oldest starting kindergarten. We just did all year learning. We are a military family and this last winter was our first time seeing snow so we had a bit of distraction. But this year we seem to have lots vacations coming up so we may have to do things differently. This was a great video for us at this time. Thank you so much
You’re so welcome! Love it! The snow is a beautiful distraction for sure. 😄 The beauty of homeschooling is that we can change it up whenever we need to! So even if we start one way, we can change mid year to whatever is a better fit for that time!
Wow!!! I didn't know there were so many options!!! I think we will probably do the 3 weeks/1 week off as I look at what worked last year. But, I feel very flexible in this area.
Great, helpful video! We are doing 6 weeks on, 1 week off but definitely being flexible even with that because we are going away for 2 weeks in January. If we need to go longer into June, I'm fine with that. We enjoy having about 8 weeks off in the summer to travel and go to the beach and to water parks.
Thank you so much for bringing up this topic, now i can think about it since i will be starting homeschooling next year.
I am from the conner most part of India, Meghalaya, Shillong, NorthEast and homeschooling here is a big deal, my friends goes like "WHAT!!" And some goes like "NICE!!" But their nice is just like for saying but they don't do it, but for me i have been wanting to do this but didn't know how but after doing my homework i found you guys and so many others who thinks just like me 😊. Thanks again and i will be around waiting for your videos.
This video was SO helpful! Thank you so much! 💕
This is such a great video. Thanks for sharing. We are 6 weeks on, 1 off, too
Great list! Really helpful!
So happy for this info!!!!
Erin, when you say 6 weeks on 1 week off, 4 weeks on 1 week off, and 3 weeks a month, how many days of school a week is that?
Most people do 5 days a week, but it could be whatever you want to do. If you did 4, it would just mean less weeks off for a summer break, for example. ☺️
@@TheEclecticHomeschoolerOk, thanks!
Thank you
My pleasure! ☺️
I'm just wondering if you do Distance Learning, or if you buy your own curriculum and have no formal teacher?
We have always done it on our own!