Summer break or no?

We aren’t that organized and have babies and younger siblings and tough work weeks etc. so we do some school on the weekends and throughout the summer, any time it feels not too hard for me to organize. That way when we have a 3 week stretch of absolute nonsense, acting out, baby not sleeping, husband traveling for work, we can just skip school until it becomes manageable again, without falling behind. My son has also been “finishing a grade” in March or April which gives me some mental cushion to catch up on electives/special interests, take a little break, or start the next grade early at an easy pace.

My MIL homeschools year-round, but basically they have intensive periods and light periods throughout the year, depending on illnesses, holidays, trips, weather etc. She does make sure her kids have started the next year by the end of September, which works for her as kind of a reset & refocus month. Every family is different though!

We do a homeschool group that runs September-May but our home part of homeschool is year round. My youngest just turned one so there's been a lot of little breaks instead of a couple big ones. I have a preschooler so I don't want to take a huge break and end up starting from scratch

@Kelsey I love this. That’s what’s great about homeschool, the freedom to go at your own pace. I love the phrase, “finishing a grade,” I’ve been looking for a term like this because grade levels are pretty nonexistent in homeschool and people keep asking me what grade my kids are and I just say what they’re learning. Thanks for this!! I may take a page from your handbook and try to be more go with the flow, I may be putting too much pressure on being organized and strict with the schedule of things. This is so helpful!!

@Rosalie This is great! I have also started our year by mid September and that seems to work for us as well. We definitely do the lighter period times, not doing certain subjects each week, etc. I agree that I also need a break between “school years” to reset, order new curriculum and things like that. My kids went to private school when they were just starting out and I was teaching at that school. I think my brain is just used to the traditional school year calendar but we are definitely more laid back with homeschool! 😊

@Christine love this!! I think a couple of weeks off in between the next level is a good idea. I’m really seeing that the older my kids get, the more I need to mentally go over new curriculum so that I can be able to teach them in the best way. Makes for a much smoother year! 😄

@Haley I definitely agree with this! My kids are elementary but we took a good portion of the summer off last year and it was just way too long. They didn’t really need to go back and relearn anything but I think homeschooled kids become very good at absorbing information faster and are able to move onto the next lever quicker because they aren’t having to wait for the next grade to continue. I found that my kids were getting bored during the summer because they love to learn and are so used to challenging their minds. We will definitely be taking a shorter break between school years this time! Thanks for this!!

Tried summer break with kindergarten year and won't be doing that again. School year round allows for more freedom.

@Kristen That’s a really great point!! We love having more free time. I don’t know why I’ve been so set on sticking with the traditional school schedule, I’m going to try to get away from that this time around. I don’t see it benefiting our family, especially as my kids get older so I’m excited to do things differently this time.

@Patty That’s a really great idea! More so focusing on taking a break from the curriculum than the actual learning. It also keeps their minds fresh. I hadn’t thought of games too much but that’s a really awesome idea, I’ll definitely try implementing that!!