six weeks on one week off?

Discussion in 'Homeschooling' started by housemom4, Sep 1, 2010.

  1. housemom4

    housemom4 New Member

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    I have seen a couple people on here say they do six weeks "on" and one week "off". I was wondering exactly how that works. What do you about summer vacation or Christmas vacation? Do you not take this time off or do you change things around a little? I am contemplating doing this for my peace of mind, it would certainly be nice to have a week off to look forward to every few weeks :)
     
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  3. jakk

    jakk New Member

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    We started something similar this year but its not exactly 6 on and 1 off. We planned the following blocks of time off:
    Nov 8-12
    Dec 20-Jan 7
    Feb 1-11
    March 21-April 1
    April 25-29
    May 30-June 3
    June 20-July 8
    Then the first three weeks of August off.

    I planned our time off according to our family schedule. We have a wedding to attend out of state, we are going on a cruise to Mexico etc.. and I planned school around it.
     
  4. gizzy

    gizzy New Member

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    Check your state rules to be sure this is okay, but yeah, if you're a Year Rounder, its really great.

    Look, there are 52 weeks in a year.
    PS operates approximately 26 of them. HS operates many different ways.

    Personally, I like the idea of starting School in January rather than September and plan to start things like that for my class. Right now, we're doing minimal work and reading everyday (learning to read-4yo and maintaining our reading-6yo)

    Anyway, just look at a blank calender and count out 6 weeks, mark the 7th week in RED, count out 6 more weeks, mark the 7th with RED

    Now align that calendar to vacations and holidays. Just because school is in session doesn't mean that you cant take a day off. Just like kids get labor day off but go to school the next day. Sometimes you'll miss 3 days. Life wont end, they wont "fall behind"

    If you want to take some of the summer off, do so, just continue you 1234567 pattern during the weeks you are in school.

    We work Mon-Sun, ideally taking no days off, but do we have short days,? Yes.
    Minimal work days? Do we have off days? do we miss days? and take off others? Yes, yes, yes.

    You cant homeschool in a vacuum. You cant exist and do anything in a vacuum. Life happens, homeschool occurs.
     
  5. artsygirl

    artsygirl New Member

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    We're following a similar plan, you can see it here.

    Basically our schedule is this:
    Aug 23-Oct 1st (6 wks)
    Oct 4-8th off
    Oct 11-Nov 19th (6 wks)
    Nov 22-26th off (thanksgiving wk)
    Nov 29-Dec 17th (3 wks)
    Dec 20-31st off (christmas bk)
    Jan 3-Feb 4th (5 wks)
    Feb 7-11th off
    Feb 14-Mar 18th (5 wks)
    Mar 21-25th off (spring break)
    Mar 28-Apr 29th (5 wks)

    We're done by the end of April if we're on track. We'll still do things in May that I'll count for hours (we have to count 1000 hours, not days), but mostly field trips, library trips, day trips, fun stuff. No sit down work. We'll have daily evening reading. We will have the summer off until Aug 15th or 22nd. Summer always includes educational field trips, lots of reading, outdoors, etc...

    That's our schedule, we're trying hard to stick to it this year...
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2010
  6. Actressdancer

    Actressdancer New Member

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    We're year-rounders. I'm planning our school year a month at a time, so I can't tell you beyond the first week of October. But I do have a week off in September because we'll be in Pennsylvania. That's not to say we won't be taking advantage of all the unique learning opportunities in Pittsburgh. I'll even be tracking many of those things for our hours. But we won't be doing book work, for sure.

    I plan school around our lives. And I've found that it works best if I plan to go year-round. We take a lot of individual days off in the Spring. Summer is usually too stinking hot to do much outside anyhow, so why not take more days off in the Fall and Spring when it's nice and the outdoors can be enjoyed? It just makes more sense to me.
     
  7. DawnMcD

    DawnMcD New Member

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    We did 9 weeks on 3 weeks off last year with a 5 week summer break. Still achieved all the days required just on our own schedule. Around Thanksgiving, Christmas it got a little mixed up but we just rolled with it :D

    In case it is important my children where 15, 11, 9 and 7

    Here was our schedule last year.

    Sept 8 - nov 6 (9 weeks)
    Off nov 7 - 29 ( 3 weeks - thanksgiving fell in there)
    Nov 30 - Dec 18 (3 weeks)
    Off Dec 19 - Jan 3rd (2 weeks - Christmas)
    Jan 4 - Feb 12 (6 weeks - this combined with the 3 weeks before Christmas was the 9 weeks)
    OFF feb 13 - March7th (3 weeks)
    March 8 - may 7th (9 weeks)
    OFF May 8-May 31 (3 weeks plus memorial day)
    June 1- July 30 (9 weeks)
    OFF July 31 - August 3rd (5 weeks)
    we did move around some of the summer weeks but the above was the plan.
    so we ended up doing 36 weeks of school.

    This year we are modifing it a bit to do some 12 week stretches and some 9 week stretches so we can have a slightly longer Christmas and summer break.

    I love having these 3 week breaks throughout the year! Lets me have time to relax and still time to plan a bit too without trying to fit it all in at once.
     
  8. heartsathome

    heartsathome New Member

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    There is an article in Home Educating Family Magazine about it. It is called" Sabbath Schooling". We are totally on board with this and it has re-energized our family.

    This will work perfect for us. We will do 6 weeks of school, one week off. Take 4 weeks off in Dec and then take 6 weeks off in summer.

    The author of the article's blog is wonderful about describing how it works for her family:
    http://angelinainlouisiana.blogspot.com/2008/10/scheduling-our-weeks-and-days.html
     
  9. gwenny99

    gwenny99 New Member

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    We typcially do 7-8 weeks on, one off, but it's not fully off. It is our opportunity to do unique projects, finish any projects or assignments we are working on, do field trips, play learning games, watch educational movies, etc.
     
  10. pecangrove

    pecangrove New Member

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    We do a rough 6 wk on/1 wk off... Meaning that one on term may actually be 7 weeks, but the next may be 5... we make school fit to our schedule. Since we have only the 180 day regulation, we can school year round if we choose, and what ever days we choose.
    So we end up starting in late July, take a week for Thanksgiving, 3 weeks for Christmas/New Years, and about 5-6 weeks for summer, with the 1 week breaks mixed in.
    As long as you follow your state guidelines, you can do whatever you want.
    Isn't homeschooling great!?! :)
     
  11. crazymama

    crazymama Active Member

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    Ok, first of all, Gizzy is WAY off, public schools in most states operate 180-200 days, if you do 180 days for 5 days straight it's 36 weeks, but we all know that they have this day off and that one too.. so they usually are in session for 40ish weeks.

    Now, we do a 9 week on schedule with a break after it.. twice a year it's a week, once a year it's 6 weeks and once it's 8 weeks...here is how it looks basically.

    We begin our school year the 2nd week of July (this year it should have been July 12th.. but we weren't sure we were homeschooling so we are off this year... but I will still show how it should have been for us). After 9 weeks we take one off, then 9 more weeks brings us to the week of Thanksgiving. We take off from that week through New Years, starting back on the first Monday after New Years. We go 9 weeks have a week off, do our last 9 weeks and end our year mid May. We then have an 8 week summer vacation.

    This year we should have schooled:
    July 12th- Sept. 10th (m-f)
    OFF Sept. 13th-17th
    Sept. 20th-Nov.19th
    OFF Nov. 22nd-Jan. 3rd (6 weeks... we have 3 Christmas babies in our house, all but the youngest.. so we NEED this off to prepare for the holiday and their birthdays on the 20th, 28th and 29th of Dec!!)
    Jan. 3rd-March 4th
    OFF March 7th-11th
    March 14th-May 13th Finished.

    Summer Break next year will be (should be.. if we get enough days caught up by then ;) ) May 16th- July 8th and we will start our new year on July 11th, 2011.
     
  12. MonkeyMamma

    MonkeyMamma New Member

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    I don't have any sort of set schedule. I used to do 12 weeks on, 1 week off. It worked ok but things come up and then I'd stress about getting it all done. Now we just work when it works for us which makes us year rounders I guess. We do about 36 weeks for each school year though. We moved end of May begining of June to a new town so we took off the whole month of June, then we did school work in July, then in August we ended up taking off again until my oldest dd started public high school on the 23rd. Now we are at it again and will probably go until Thanksgiving taking a week off here and there. I am trying to decide if we will take the whole month of December off or not.
     

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