For those of you that take a break in the summer, how much of a break do you take? Do you just let the kids have a complete break from school work or do you throw in reviews here and there? Even when my daughter was in PS we tried to learn a few new things over the summer. Does anyone homeschool on a year round schedule with smaller breaks here and there throughout the school year, rather than one large summer break?
We have a reduced work load in the summer, just 2 worksheets a day, 3 days a week. They get off the week of VBS and the week they're at camp, then we go back to regular schedule (5 subjects, 4 days a week) on Aug 1. This gives me the option of a 4 day week or taking off whenever we feel like it.
We take a summer break from mid May to mid August and work on math a couple of times a week during the break.
VERY reduced load! Faythe and Phillip will be gone all next week. Faythe is volunteering at the zoo for about eight-to-twelve hours per week when she's home. They have a week of MAJOR setting up for Bible School, followed by helping at Bible School the next week. Then Faythe is going on a mission trip to Belize, coming home and joining the rest of us at a week of AWANA camp. So there simply is NO TIME for school!
We usually get done with our work in April. Which is actually wonderful because full on spring-fever hits the boys about then. We spend time reading, and studying fun stuff, plus all field trips happen for us during this time. Once the public school is out in May we are out completely and we have summer break till July when we do only a few days a week till about the middle of August when we start up again. We then only go 4 days a week which the boys really like as that 5th day is spent doing stuff they want to do.
We normally start slowly at the begining of August and then fully the 3rd week in August. We finish the school year sometime in May (this year on the 10th). I normally plan around a week at Thanksgiving and then a min. of two weeks at Christmas. The rest of the year we just take a day or two off here and there when we have something to do. Over the summer dd is doing a little latin each week as review (so she does not forget) and her daily reading. Other than that we just take it easy.
We do year round school with breaks during the school year and a break during the summer. Although the schedule during the summer is more relaxed. But the rule here is "If we are home, we are in school." We do our US geography (and recently Canada) through road trips or trips with dh as he travels with his job. My oldest dd (13 yo) loves to travel and also loves to take in the history/culture of where we visit. We spend a few months making maps, studying the economics of the area, the history, etc. and then plan the road trip. Coupling it with visiting friends/family and with hubby's travel makes it less expensive. We also have a tent that attaches to the car so we can camp when hubby is with us. So we take a road trip in the spring, before Memorial Day when the rates go up and after Labor Day when the rates go down. This can be tricky with the weather so we have to keep a close eye on that. I also try to take off a few weeks in the summer for either traveling or some special project. As another poster mentioned, we take off 2-3 weeks at Christmas, 1 week at Thanksgiving and have the freedom for 4 days/week if it suits us. HTH's. Kim in AZ
I did one summer break our first year and then when we started back in Sept. it took tell Dec. for DD to be able to handle all subjects, she pretty much forgot everything. I haven't done a summer break again, just off the weeks she was in a VBS somewhere. BUT last summer things where so bad for her and for me that I put her in a church camp for the whole summer, surprising when we started back things were good. Because we have gotten so far behind and we just got our curriculum so we will school all summer taking VBS weeks off. We will see how this goes??
We usually take June and part of July. Then do a light load through mid August. I like to have plenty of days available to take off as the need arises. But, we play it by ear. Last year we didn't start until the second week in August. It left me feeling more concious of getting our 180 days done. This year we are having to finish us history. I figure we have about 5 or 6 days left. After that, I plan on having the kids write a little most days. They didn't do as much writing as they should have this year. I also want to do some sewing projects with my dd.
well counting this week we'll have 9 weeks off. But we're not technically done yet. My son has one more day of math work to finish and then a final test to take to finish his math. THEN we'll be done for the summer. But we only take the summer off from formal curriculum. We're going to have themed weeks and gear learning and activities towards the themes. Nothing strenuous mostly for fun. We'll start our "real" school work again the third week of August.
Keep in mind, too, that DH is a public school teacher. It's very difficult to do serious school when he's home. We more or less quit when he's done, and start when he starts back. If he's off a day, we are kind of off, too.
Well, we're "officially" done today! That is, the girls are. We made 177 days -- close enough to 180! But DGS was home with his mom and dad more days than the girls got off while DH was having surgery, so he's got about two weeks more to go. I'm trying desperately to get done with his last workbook-and-a-half of math, one more workbook of LA, and I'm afraid that's about all I'm going to be able to get him to do. We'll have him again the week of VBS, but that's it until mid-August. I'm planning to start up on about the 23rd of August. Since we're private-schooling, Other People's Kids (and Other People) get used to having that whole summer off thing. When we homeschooled DS (DGS's daddy), we did school whenever -- evenings, weekends, holidays, any time I could get him to do some work, I did!
When I schooled all three we would do two weeks in the middle of summer, of what I called Summer School to finish up stuff we stopped in June. We have always had it set up so that we would stop today, my oldest son's birthday. he is 21 today! But I only have one schooling and at the moment two college 'kids' home and so we are still working because ds did not get to where I want him>He has to finish SOS and MUS the book work I can let him do sporadically through the summer when I think he has not had anything to do for a while lol. Not quite sure but we will get to the 10s books this week and I usually hold those off anyway. Sort of for a review in the first week before school starts back for us, when the College 'kids' will be back to working in school and ds and I will have time we will go over last (this) years work and review a bit then once we officially start back in September we will get the new years supplies out.
We started our school year the first full week of this month. Ems still takes days off to go swimming with friends, to camp, and more. Since most of her friends take the summer off, I have no problem letting her play hooky every now and then.
Even my PS kids do some work. Right now - my HS kids need to do Math & Latin or Spanish My PS kids so Math, handwriting, & Latin - depending on who it is Some have 1 subject others 2. In August - my 2 remaining PS kids will be in cross country - so my HS kids will start on more subjects and slowly add more in as we go. Reading is NOT optional in my house over the summer - and no electronics are allowed at the campsites we go to (only while we are traveling). Kindles are allowed - but for books only (they have kindle fires)
