Anyone homeschool year round?

[mvillarreal]

Hi!

I have a son in Res. to Ref. and another son in LHFHG (and an almost 3 year old daughter). I am seriously considering going to year round school to ease the load during the "school year" and to prevent the summertime loss of information. Any of you do that?

I'm not sure how I would like to go about it, especially since our boys have such different amounts of days left in our current level books. Our older son has 24 full days left and our younger son has about 50 full days left. Our older son has been doing 1/2 days so his load is lighter and to help even out the days left for both of them.

Am I crazy thinking that we will actually do school in the summer when things are busy and we want to go outside and play? Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

[StephanieU]

We go year round. My oldest finished the first two guides in 11 months, but Bigger will take us 13-14 months due to my morning sickness and then the delivery of #4. Normally in the summer we go down to half speed for a month or two. It depends on our summer activities how long we go half speed. It allows us to take days off as needed plus a fall break, sprung break, and two weeks or so around Christmas.

[MelInKansas]

I go pretty much year round, but take it a little slower in the summer. During the school year, I do not plan many other activities and school is priority. It may get bumped for something else but I try to not let that happen very often. During the summer, we only do school if there's nothing else planned for that day, or sometimes we'll do just 1/2 day or something depending on what else is going on. I like schooling in July and August because it's crazy hot here and not that fun to go outside anyway unless you are swimming or playing in water. I take weeks off here and there also, as needed. I also don't switch guides at the same time, and I really like that. Having one child in a new guide at a time is much easier than starting off 2-3 of them in new guides all at once. So that's my suggestion, just keep them both going full speed if that works for you, so the older one will switch to a new guide earlier. I love this schedule. It truly frees me to make the schedule work for me. Fall is a super busy time for us and will be busier this year because my oldest can be on the homeschool volleyball team this year. Since I school in the summer, we are still able to get our 4 day/week guides done in about a year's time. I don't know if we could do that or not if we weren't doing year-round.

I like that there's not several months off. I think once I took a whole month off and starting up again was really tough! I think when someone finishes a guide I do give that person only a week off so I can prepare for the start of the new guide.

[rumkimom]

We plan to school during the summer this year...we have much more left due to all the 'days' we had to take off of HOD due to Dr/ortho appointments and such. We will have 2 or so weeks totally off but they may be different for each of the kids due to going to camp and such. I will let my daughter in RtR do half days again (5 boxes) instead of 7-8 boxes a day. The boys will go full speed as theirs does not take that long (LHFHG and Bigger).

I want my youngest to finish up LHFHG (we are almost done with Unit 19. The one in Bigger is almost done with Unit 17 and the one in RtR just started Unit 16. I plan to switch the youngest over to Beyond in Aug/Set whether he has completed LHFHG or not as he is ready for harder work. The one in Bigger I hope to switch at the beginning of Sept (I hope to have Bigger done)....that depends on where he is in the book. The on in RtR will complete her book in Nov/Dec. This way I split the costs and have to pay at different times (I already have everything for Beyond but only the guide & a few of the book that we already have for Preparing....but nothing for Rev to Rev).

Also I might have a friend who is interested in HOD but she can't afford it....and she would use LHTH (I have the guide but nothing else) for her almost 5 year old, Bigger with her next 2 (one with extensions....I have all of it) with her 8 & 10 year old boys and then her oldest I think would fit in RtR....and she would only have to buy some of the books as she could borrow most of them from us (she could have to get the guide, notebooking pages, Bible study, geography CD, Shakespeare and devotional books as we will still be using those). If she does choose to do this, I would end Bigger with my son quicker so that she could use it. She has 4 boys and is ready to pull her hair out and send them back to public school (one of the boys is a toddler and her oldest is a girl).

[mvillarreal]

Thank you all SO much! This is exactly what I needed to hear. Lots of things to consider that I hadn't thought of.

Thank you, MelInKansas, for pointing out the obvious about not switching guides at the same time. That makes so much sense financially and practically for me and general family sanity! I also like your idea to give the child a week off in between guides.

Rumkimom...I love your idea of book sharing! I would love to do that with another family, either being on the receiving or the giving end.

Thank you, StephanieU, for sharing your times and schedules. Congrats on #4!

Whoo-hoo! Thanks, y'all!

[Samuel'sMommy]

We sort of school year round. We have started a 6 weeks on 1 week off schedule this year and love it! For next year we will start school the week after July 4th and then go 6 on 1 off till Thanksgiving. Then we will have 3 weeks I think and then a 2 week Christmas break. Then back to 6 on 1 off finishing up around the end of May. So basically our summer break is only the month if June and the first week of July.