I don't mean taking breaks as in during the school day...I mean taking days/weeks off from doing any school? I have finally gotten to the point this year where I have everything down and things are running smoothly...BUT...I need to take at least 1 weekday off nearly every week or I get burnt out and the kids get angry with me. Is it normal to do this? Because we take off 1 day per week we end up schooling year round...which my kids are fine with, I just want to see when you all take breaks.
I think breaks daily , recess and lunch. but for time off I do as needed. Thanks giving Christmas, the usual stuff.. and when we are worn out from extra curricular activities or need a trip to see a relative in the past as well.
I have 4 scheduled breaks ... week for t'giving, 2 for xmas, and week for my parents' spring break so we can go see them (they're college admins). We also take summers for the library's reading club, summer camps, etc. Otherwise, we break whenever we want (or need), and then catch up as we go. With 1st grade, it's no big deal. I can see how missing days would be harder with more than one kid in older grades, though.
We take breaks when we need too. We have taken breaks just because we need one - like to just destress. And we have taken breaks out of necessity - my dad was in the critical care unit at Methodist hospital. We just kind of go with the flow.
I tried to schedule breaks but it's not working out, so I have decided to take them when needed. For example this week DH was home because work is slow, we are preparing for DD's birthday and school just isn't' getting done so we are breaking this week and then doing school the week of our scheduled break at the end of the month.
I try to schedule at least one field trip a month to break up the monotony. We also take days off when we need them and if for any reason I am worried about falling behind I will make up the time on a weekend when my husband is working.
The only scheduled breaks are for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. However, there have been several times that we needed to break up our week for errands, sickness, or just b/c I am worn out. I normally double up when I do that or I Saturday school. We have to do 180 days also. So I am not too stressed if I take a break here and there. I did spend a big amount of time filling in my lesson planner though so we make it up always that week. I have found that if I miss a Wednesday or a Thursday and I Saturday school then I am normally not stressed at all when that Thursday or Friday comes. It's kind of like giving yourself one of those teacher's days that schools give to let the teacher take care of her business. I use my teacher's days to catch up on cleaning, to catch up on grading, or to simply become a vegetable.
I don't have scheduled breaks during the week. I guess for the kids, their breaks would be the days I go to the gym during the day and they go to child watch. I have three but really it's still mostly my oldest that I am teaching all day during the weeks. I do have two long breaks for school. We are traveling for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and the kids will be staying with my parents for awhile. Then we are moving overseas so that is another break in our school year.
Since we start at the end of August, we take Labor Day off. We take a week at Thanksgiving, two weeks at Christmas, and Good Friday and the week after Easter. That's it! Occasionally over the past nine years, we've had an unexpected day off when I got sick and just couldn't go, but that's really rare. Public school here starts about two weeks earlier than we do, but the kids have off for every "holiday" that comes down the Pike! And they end ridiculously early in May. I can't figure out how they can possibly get their 180 days in! Today they're off for the parish Fair Day, and Monday they're off for a Teacher Inservice Training day.... so they're getting a four-day weekend. We're not, but I bet I don't see all five kids at school today or Monday.
We take breaks as needed. Sometimes, one kid will be taking a break and the others will be working. Or sometimes they will take a break from a certain subject. For example, one of my daughters is taking Pre-Algebra and it became clear that she needed some refreshers on fractions. So, she took a week off of her Pre-Algebra lessons and just did 15-20 fraction problems each day. Usually the breaks happen because we have to do something that ends up taking all day. That happened yesterday. We didn't get a full day in because we had to go to the grocery store, post office and library. Or like a few weeks ago we took a couple of days off because we were house hunting. For special occasions, like Christmas or Thanksgiving, we don't really take a full break. In summer we do take off about 3 weeks. We usually plan on taking a month off, however, after about 3 weeks, the kids are generally ready to have something to do again.
We will often do "modified schooling" which in our house equals math plus one additional subject of the kids choice. We do this on coop days because the kids are in "school" all afternoon. I don't think they need a full day. We take off on our monthly field trip days. And other than that we generally follow DH's college schedule. When he's off, we're off... but I'm thinking of pushing a little longer in math even on some of his days off so we don't get further behind. I'm not SURE we're "behind" but both my kids are about half a year behind grade level in Math, but we're doing horizons which many people say is advanced for grade... so maybe they're on track? Anyway, I'd like to get them up to "grade level" on Math. They are both strong in Math, so it shouldn't be difficult for them.
This is our third year homeschooling and my first with a real schedule. We are schooling year round this year so we take the normal holiday breaks. Since we live in town we try to take breaks close to what the public school kids do as far as the holidays go. For our scheduled breaks, I schedule 3 weeks of school on and then we take one week off. This gives me the incentive to keep going knowing that a break is soon coming. They will still have a summer break and we chose the month of August to take off since we have so many birthdays in that month and that also gives me time to schedule for the next year that will start in September. At least this is the plan for now. We aren't required to have a certain amount of school days here,but I do try to get in as close to 180 days as I can. We are right under that amount.. We have been sick the last two weeks so that has kinda thrown the days off but no big deal. We will just pick up where we left off. We did some school just not all that I "wanted" to get done.
We are off when Daddy is off, and then as needed. We are going to be off today because I have company coming and the house is a mess (so what AM I doing in here?? LOL) On Tuesdays we go to our church's ladies' Bible study. They have childcare including a homeschool class. We don't do homeschool at home that day, so it comes out to a 4 day week.
We school year-round. Our planned breaks are: Christmas - 2 wks, so we can fit in all of our celebrations Thanksgiving - 3days or a week, depending on where we're doing Thanksgiving & how much work I have to do for the celebrations Between grades - 1 month to plan & prepare Halloween, Independence Day, & our b-days if they fall on school days Other than planned breaks, we take breaks whenever we need them - if one of us is sick, if there's a family thing (funerals, etc.). If we're just feeling burt out or stressed, we do light schooling or what I guess could be called unschooling days. Light schooling would be where we do regular Math & Language Arts, then just do projects, personal reading, or watch educational videos. Unschooling days would be where we do no regular school work & just do whatever interests us that day - educational videos, movies, personal reading, projects, computer time, nature walk, play in the yard, etc. Even most of our scheduled breaks could be considered unschooling days. The kids use that time to follow their interests, read, and do projects or activities they've come up with. We also try to fit in field trips during some of the breaks.
Wow, I look like a slave driver compared to you all. We take off Labor Day, Thanksgiving and the day after, Christmas Eve (sometimes half day), Christmas Day (depending on where it lands on the week is whether we take more days off- usually about 3 days), Good Friday and that is it. If dad is working so are we. This way when he has a day off and wants to play so can we.
Thanks for letting me take a peek into your lives and when you take breaks. I think I have been needing more breaks this year due to having a baby and not used to dealing with homeschooling and having a baby around...I mean it had been 4 years since I had a baby! I guess I was hoping to make sure I was "normal" and not going to ruin my kids. Thanks!
We take them a lot, but we are year around. We just came off a one week break. We are starting back up on Monday.
This is our first year and we haven't got any breaks in our schedule except for Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We usually do not travel for the Holidays so it's just simpler for us to Homeschool while other kids are on vacation. However, I'm sure there will be days that we'll take breaks from being burned out.
