I am new so sorry if this has been a thread before. we will start HSing on Dec. 1st. Do most of you run with the local school year, make your own schedule. we are considering do a sort-of 10-11 month thing. Abby has gymnastics 3 days a week for a total of 12-13 hours including the commute there and back. If we did a longer school year, so could reduce the school week. Any advice would be appreciated. She loves to do school work, she even loves to buy the "workbooks" at grocery/toy stores and does them for "fun"!! Is this a crazy idea. We have to miss lots of Fridays b/c of her competition schedule.....and Wed. is her long day at gym (5 hours) thanks amy
How old is your daughter? We have been loosely following the ps year because my oldest was in ps for 4 years and all her friends are either public or privately schooled. However my youngest is turning 6 in January and we have decided to begin her in "first grade" come February. This will mean they will have different schedules but that is ok because they are so far apart in age it won't matter. I'll just be teaching almost year round. We try and save Fridays for fun days. We do our art, Shakespeare, artist and composer study and any field trips on Fridays. That way Fridays are light and fun and if we need to skip a day we can easily do so. My advice to you is to just follow whatever schedule works best for you guys. If you need to be off on Fridays then take off. Maybe she can bring books in the car on the way to and from the gym since she enjoys her school work. Just a thought. I hope you find what works for you.
We school all year round. I just take days off when I want to. A normal week is usually 4 days on with Fridays off. However, in really nice weather--- October/November--- we take more days off. Of course, that's made up for during late spring, summer, and winter when it's too hot/cold to do much outside. I really like going all year round. I think more schools would do it except for the unbelievable costs in air conditioning that would have to be dealt with where we live.
Check with your state laws....we just need 180 days a year, but there is no set way to get those days. You can do year round wich just gives you shorter summer and holiday breaks or just whatever works best for you. I know a few people who do four day weeks and they seem to work well for them, and there is nothing to say that you couldn't have school on Sat. instead of Fri. Just do whatever is the most enjoyable and least stressful for you!
We generally run from late July/early Aug to mid-late May. The school system here starts in Sept thru mid-June. We don't like that schedule so we go with ours. In VA, we have to file paperwork and submit year end test scores so it works better for us to follow our schedule BUT we could do year round without much problem too. Since I've lived the life of a "gym mom"....I'd just tailor it to your schedule....more time in the down months (after the big meet season)....less time near the big meets and the coveted state meet Rhonda
We are in a completely different spot than you. I am only hs one, and we have a younger and older child in ps, and the hs one is in ps for band....so we are pretty stuck with ps schedule. Next year, with elder dd graduating, I am campaigning for younger ds to also be hs....then I will do more my own schedule. But then again, there is band....so we will see.
In Georgia, we are required to do the "equivalent" to 4.5 hours for 180 days, but that does not mean that your child has to sit at a desk for 4.5 hours--there are many things that can count as homeschooling, like watching a documentary or a field trip to the zoo or going to a renaissance festival or Stone Mountain on homeschooling day has special craftsmen showing how things were done long ago, like spinning. It is strongly suggested by veteran homeschoolers that the school year will be from something like September 1, 2008 to August 31, 2009. You don't have to use these exact dates, you could start on December 1 or January 1, but from experience I also advise that make your school year a complete year even if you don't plan to use an entire year, because you just never know what will come up. I take breaks when I need to and I do homeschool year around. I feel the best time for us to take breaks are in the spring and autumn because of the weather and greater opportunities for field trips at those times, but this year I had to help with ill family members, so I ended up taking about two unplanned months off this summer. On Georgia attendance records there is nothing that requires you to report the hours per day, basically as soon has you report 180 days, you have fulfilled your obligation of attendance reporting.
HI! Waving... We're not at 3 days a week yet, but my daughter's a gymnast too! (low level, this is her first competition year). She's not a USAG level yet...almost! She's working hard. I'm imagining your daughter's a 5 or 6 at least! Whew...lots of gym time! I count gymnastics as PE, for sure. I also count home meets b/c she volunteers as a flipper or a runner during the meet. A lot of her writing assignments end up about gymnastics too. We right now loosely follow the PS schedule. i used to be a year round schooler, but my evaluator said to at least give them SOME break. And she said it's okay to count camps and such as school b/c lots of subjects are covered most times. Even got to count her team camps this summer. Had her write up a paper about her experience that week. Video'd the performance, etc. I know in PA (similar to GA it seems) you need to track 180 days....in PA you can submit a form with 180 check boxes checked off as your "attendence" sheet and they have to accept it.
My DD is only 5 yrs old and competing Level 3 gymnastics. the gym time I have quoted includes her travel time to and from gym (45 minutes each way times 3 days a week) it's just became too much and we have actually begged her to quit gymnastics and she cries herself to sleep over the idea. So, for now all we know to do is support her whatever it takes....it's her passion. I am totally so very unathletic is funny LOL so this is very weird for me! I was planning to finish out her k-5 year (this year) with the regular school schedule and next year for 1st grade, extend the year so we can adjust to traveling for competitions, and a horrible schedule Wed. at the gym! thanks for understanding! the support here is AMAZING!!! So glad I found you guys!
maybe you could do something in the car to take some of the pressure off...lots of people do 'car schooling' don't they? Maybe listen to audio CD's that relate to something you are studying?
We don't have any schedule requirements from the province. We school year-round. Generally school days are Mon-Thurs. We only school on Fri-Sun if I feel like we're "falling behind" where I feel we should be. We take days off as needed, for sickness, field trips, vacation, whatever.
Wow! That's great! My daughter didn't start gymnastics until she was 6 1/2. She's so tall we were afraid to encourage her to into something in which we thought she would not succeed. She has succeeded. The two "inhouse" comps she did she took first all around, and first in many individual events. The gym owner always talks about how long and lean and graceful looking she is. Thankfully, her practices are twice a week, long, but only twice a week! Her comp schedule is about 1 a month right now. once she moves to a USAG sanctioned level it will be about 2 a month. Also, our gym is one where we host a lot of the meets, so we don't have to travel much!!! Only 3 of the 10 this year will be travelling longer than an hour! YAY! Homeschooling gives you an amazing amount of freedom! They were just doing team shots earlier in the week, and all of the moms were complaining about their girls and how they get off the bus, go right to the gym, etc. etc. I had to laugh, I encouraged them all to homeschool! LOL Didn't go over really well at all! My niece is a USAG 6 this year, so I have the advantage of having my sister show me the ropes as far as being a gym mom. Our gym doesn't require homeschooling, so there are a lot of girls in the higher levels that go to PS. I can't even imagine how they do it! My neice is at the gym 4 days a week. She BEGS my sister to homeschool her but my sister just thinks she wouldn't be a good teacher. I know it's hard to find good gyms, so I won't even encourage you to go looking - I'm sure the training is worth the commute. I love the suggestion of audio stuff in the car! Okay....hope you have a great team year!!!!
Gym Mom, My PP has been a Gym Mom and Homeschool Mom for years and, finding a schedule that works depends a lot on the dynamics of the rest of your family, as well as your plans for education on the future, as has been said. One nice thing about hsing for us is we CAN travel during the week, or book appointments and lessons/training during hours that are not as busy, etc. But we go loosely with the area schools, since we have one in PS, AND DS at home will have the same summer break, etc. as his teammates and friends. Plus, we are still considering him going back into school at some point, and we want to retain SOME structure. As for working in the car, we do that a LOT. We have a DVD in the car, and bring books all the time. Krista, Off topic, but...NICE avatar! Go Phillies! We are usually Sox fans (me White; ds Red), but Phillies are our NL team. Sunday night's game was awesome. My youngest ds (the homeschool one) goes to a trainer for baseball that is retired from the Phillies. Congratulations to them! I think the parade sounds like a perfect field trip. Miller
thanks! we love our gym and it's worth the commute, i am going to get our car DVD working so hopefully she can watch some educational DVD's while we travel!
We go mid August to mid May for preschool (sorry I didn't catch the age of your daughter) because the curriculum we use is that time period. Plus, i believe all kids need a break no matter what age.
We loosely follow the southern hemisheres school times ( Jan-Dec)- so the opposite of all the kids here. We tend to start in Feb and have a week or 2 off in March/April (Easter). Then continue until end June "ish", then take 2 weeks off. We take another 2 weeks off in Sept/Oct, then finish early Dec. As the weather is decent here at that time, we like to take most Dec off, all Jan, and part of Feb. We school over summer here, as it is too hot to do anything else. We travel a fair bit, so also take time off when traveling- which I dont schedule in. ( too hard to know when we are traveling) We also aren't accountable to Ministry of Education here, or back in Oz.
I have tried to school year-round, but it doesn't work for us because we're busy in he summer. This year, we did continue with history (mostly reading aloud) and my oldest REALLY needed to get her science finished before she started the next class in the co-op in September. My husband teaches in the public school, so that keeps us pretty much on their schedule. We don't school on the weekends, unless something didn't get done.
We do year round - granted we "test" for Virginia in the spring to submit the test results - but we usually "get those over with" in March/April so we can just get it out of the way My 9 yo dd just started gymnastics - we have never had time and I put her in. I'd love it if she did it more - but I truly think her gift is with animals. Make sure to check out your state regulations before anything else. BTW - we got the kids portable DVD players last holiday season for $50 each They work great!! And usually the library has a bunch of dvd's for the kids to watch. Also - an MP3 player with books is a GREAT friend My daughter LOVE listening to books and stories and sometimes follows along with the book - but mostly sits and listens.
