Our School Year

I'm so glad that we are able to deviate from the norms and run our school year schedule in a way that works best for us. I don't know if you or I could stick with nine straight months of homeschooling. But I do know that we could not handle three months in a row off.

We both thrive on productivity, and we devote ourselves 110% to the things we do. Whether it's painting a picture or building a house, we have to fully invest ourselves in the research, planning, preparing and completing our projects. This makes us great at what we set our minds to, but terrible at taking breaks.

This is the reason we decided to homeschool in three month chunks, taking one month off in-between.

It works best for us to begin with most schoolers, at the beginning of September. Then we go hard until December 1st. We LOVE having the month of December off. We can dive completely into Christmas Celebrating with Advent devotionals, decorating, gift creating/collecting and wrapping, acts of kindness, and enjoying the outdoors with winter activities. Also, all of our public schooled friends have the last week or so off for Christmas, so we get to hang out with them during the days.

Returning to school January first works well because we have that "fresh start"/New Year thing going on. And it gives us something to look forward to after Christmas (because we get funky if we get stagnant).

By April 1st, we need to get off the carousel. Spring is starting to peek out and it beckons us to get outside and have free fun at parks, zoos, WLS, our back yard, bonfires, walking, cleaning up the yard and readying it for warm weather, etc... We NEED April off.

As for May, June and July; I don't know how we'd get through all of the summer months without being able to do school. There is just so much to do outdoors that is school related. Studying wildlife, insects, planting and tending to gardens, aquatics, and even just being able to go outside to do schoolwork...

August is a welcome month off during which we enjoy playing with our public schooled friends who have the month off as well, staying up late, going to the beach, outdoor movies, fairs and carnivals, etc...

and we'd never want to miss out on all the fun of getting ready for the new year of school with fresh books, art supplies, clothes, ideas and plans... it's SO MUCH FUN to get back into school with everyone else, and the nearing Autumn season in September, again.

I don't know that this will aways be best for us. But it certainly works now. And if we ever need to change it, we can.

Homeschool... gotta love it!