Break from Guides for holidays or continue?

[alhempel]

Everything in my brain says stick with the guides in order to finish by June. But my gut says my kids need a break. We are currently doing Beyond 1/2 speed with my 6 year old and Bigger full speed with an 8 year old. My 8 year old is starting to hit a rough spot were school is becoming long and drawn out. So I am thinking about stopping the guides between Thanksgiving and Christmas and continuing math and language arts( we use our own) and doing some Christmas unit or literature studies. Has anyone else done this? Does anyone have any suggestions. We would then restart the guides in January. This will be out of character for me to upset my plans but I need school to be fun again for my 8 year old.

[Nealewill]

We do take some breaks but not usually for that long of a period of time. We like to take a week of at Thanksgiving. I usually take between 2-3 weeks off at Christmas (the week before through the week after). Then we take another week off in February, April and hopefully done by mid May. We try to take breaks every 6 to 8 weeks so that my kids (and I) don't experience burn out

[StephanieU]

We did it last year with LHFHG. We took about a month off of HOD. I don't think it is an issue at all. I would check to confirm that you aren't stopping at a "weird" part, in the middle of a history story (most units end a story, but occasionally a story goes for a few units). And if you are part way through a storytime book, I would probably finish that as well. But otherwise, there shouldn't be any issues.

[Motherjoy]

We usually take off a bunch for the holidays, but I found that it was hard to get back into the groove of things, AND that we always felt "behind". This year, we are taking a week off at Thanksgiving after finishing our first 12-week term. We are taking 2 weeks at Christmas (though I really doubt that we won't do ANY school) and continuing until a spring break later on. This way, we're able to have a full Summer, and it feels so good to just keep plugging along and working hard. It feels so much better than it did when we schooled year round at a more leisurely pace. So, my advice from my experience would be to buckle down and keep going. Take some time off, but not much. Keep working, so when the spring and summer hit, you don't have to be a slave to school.

[MelInKansas]

Last year I had planned to keep going full speed until the week of Christmas. A week off for Thanksgiving and maybe 2 weeks off for Christmas. However, people got sick and it turned out that most of December we didn't get a lot of school done, maybe a whole week's worth (unit) in the month of December. This year, we are only 2 units from finishing Preparing so it's a natural break for her, and I'm about to have a baby so my motivation to push through is kind of low. Too many other projects to do. We will continue with reading and math, some extra writing for my oldest, and we are going to review some of the scripture memory we have done in the past. Anyway, I think you know your family best and if you need a break, take one. There are plusses and minuses to long breaks. Plus is you tend to come back with renewed energy and sometimes things that were hard become a little easier. The minus is that it's harder to get back into a routine and sometimes you have to re-adjust to the regular routine then. And no, you won't finish your guides as early if you do that. But I have let that go quite a while back. It's good to do but not always necessary, it's more important for each child to be learning and growing and doing their best, and they will learn a lot as you just live life and seek to teach them good morals and habits.