Homeschooled alum here! 🙋🏻♀️Planning to homeschool my little one when he’s old enough. I loved the way my mom structured our school year. She stayed home and all 4 of us kids were homeschooled through 12th grade. She structured the year by starting the last week of August and continuing the first term through the end of November-ish to Exam week, which intentionally coincided with Thanksgiving. So about 12 weeks per term. We often took nearly a month off for Christmas. With 3 terms in the school year, we finished in early June and had the rest of the summer off.
This sounds pretty close to what we do, but we do a full break every six weeks (or at least a mix-up, doing different things that week). A number of homeschoolers I know like to take all of December off. And then a good mixup when the weather gets warmer in the springtime.
Kate--you should do a post for Catherine about what you enjoyed from your education!
Some notes on our structure (my sons are 4, 6, and 7): M,W,F fuller morning work days. T,TH much shorter lessons. Monthly (or so) changes in routine on Thursday afternoons - outing, playdate, etc. We typically take at least a full week off at times not corresponding to public school breaks or holidays (to take a family trip or host out of town friends or family). We take a very light work schedule all June, July, and August.
Prior to this year, we trundled along year-round using a similar approach to your family: math, reading, self-directed history and science, board games, or a field trip to a London museum. Lots of play and time outdoors. This year we are using a Charlotte Mason curriculum structured around three 11-week long terms. We took a month-long holiday in December, and we just started Term 2. My boys loved the time off, but they were happy to return to our timetable of lessons this week.
In case you haven’t come across Idlewild before, the Organic Studies might be something your family enjoys (we loved it — terrific science and nature book recommendations here): https://www.idlewildandco.com/shop
Ha! I’ve been pursuing an every weekday approach with school this year for my 8 year old with the idea that I want to get him about level with his traditionally-schooled peers, but the almost two weeks we took off for Christmas was refreshing...so I suggested we take one week off every month. He is very into that idea, but I think we might try that and then also try doing a 4 day week and see what we like better.
He wants to take the summer off as school kids do, but I want to be able to take the occasional surprise day without feeling like we’re getting “behind”, so year round allays my concerns there.
And since any formal work we do is generally done by 9:00 am (early risers), we essentially have every day off. I’m looking forward to hearing what works for you! For now!
I was homeschooled (leaning towards unschooling many years). Most of the time Friday was reserved as a “catch-up” day. We’d read and finish anything we missed during the week and then go to park day with our friends. It gave space and balance to the week so even if you had a bad day on Tuesday, you knew you’d have the time to catch up and the extra motivation of friends to encourage perseverance.
We roughly based our calendar on the local school district although we had no issues adjusting it on the fly sometimes, or skip formal lessons for a day to go visit museums or other events. If the overwhelm was creeping in, sometimes we’d pare back to just a math lesson and reading time for a few days to unwind without fully losing our momentum.
My oldest is barely 4 so the very little formal work we’re doing is somewhat child-led. I’m encouraging a 5-10 minute lesson on weekdays, but if she’s having a hard day we skip, and if she wants to do a lesson on the weekend, we do it. At this point, I want her to get used to and enjoy doing directed activities. She learns more from chatting throughout the day and playing so we focus on that.
My kids are 9 & 12, both neurodiverse and with very different needs so we have to be very flexible. Both had significant school trauma so we tend to avoid anything formal which makes life a challenge for me planning! We don’t keep to school hours or have specific tasks each day as that doesn’t suit the kids but we try to make the most of every learning opportunity we encounter through our project activities - the kids have to see why we are learning something and that it has a use or purpose or they just switch off. We don’t have set work time and holiday time but respond to the kids showing us when they’re ready for something structured and when the learning needs to be more informal so we can learn constantly for a few weeks 7 days a week, then have a couple of no demand days. Over Christmas we took extra time with minimal demand to enable them to cope with the build up to Christmas but they actually chose to do independent learning activities in that time when they felt they could and we had some really interesting philosophical discussions and learned how to plan to achieve a result (something they struggle with). We also had a really good chat about the difference between irony and satire in the car on the way to visit family! For our family, the learning never stops as my kids are wonderfully curious, but it shifts focus from me trying to plan fun activities and days out that will provide the opportunity for us to learn about something specific to letting the kids relax more, consolidate and process what we’ve been doing and feel that they can discuss their opinions, ask questions and think about what next. I’ve noticed that they can actually keep going for much longer by being flexible and resting when we need to - we didn’t take a ‘holiday’ from August to December as the boys didn’t really want to but we did respond to the family’s changing needs and the seasonal variations. They are outdoor kids and much more motivated in the summer months so winter tends to be slower in the kids of things we do and the summer is full on!
We have tended to follow along with the school district schedule, because that's what our co-op does. That said, they had a built in flex week or break every six weeks where the workload was significantly lighter. Now that we've stepped out for this next semester I will probably just stick with the school schedule, but I've thought a lot about just going year round (ish) and taking a full week off every 6 weeks. The six week mark seems to be where everyone feels a little crispy and could use a change of pace. A friend of mine is a pastor's wife and this is what they do. It builds in enough wiggle room for them to meet attendance day requirements but also have plenty of wiggle room when her husband is spending almost the entire week at church (Advent, Lent, Christmas, Easter). I like this idea of having the school schedule serve the family schedule, but it's tricky when you participate in something that is tied to the regular academic year. If we ever got land I think I'd want to take a couple weeks in the spring and in the fall when garden work was more plentiful and then do a month in July when we're all hot and bored!
Homeschooled alum here! 🙋🏻♀️Planning to homeschool my little one when he’s old enough. I loved the way my mom structured our school year. She stayed home and all 4 of us kids were homeschooled through 12th grade. She structured the year by starting the last week of August and continuing the first term through the end of November-ish to Exam week, which intentionally coincided with Thanksgiving. So about 12 weeks per term. We often took nearly a month off for Christmas. With 3 terms in the school year, we finished in early June and had the rest of the summer off.
Wow, your mother sounds like quite a woman! Thank you for sharing your structure, it sounds like a lovely balance of work and play.
This sounds pretty close to what we do, but we do a full break every six weeks (or at least a mix-up, doing different things that week). A number of homeschoolers I know like to take all of December off. And then a good mixup when the weather gets warmer in the springtime.
Kate--you should do a post for Catherine about what you enjoyed from your education!
I’d love that!! How would I go about arranging that?
Me too - great idea Rachael! Kate I’ll send you an email.
Splendid!
I forgot to mention that we usually finished our Exams within 2 days and had the rest of that week off.
Some notes on our structure (my sons are 4, 6, and 7): M,W,F fuller morning work days. T,TH much shorter lessons. Monthly (or so) changes in routine on Thursday afternoons - outing, playdate, etc. We typically take at least a full week off at times not corresponding to public school breaks or holidays (to take a family trip or host out of town friends or family). We take a very light work schedule all June, July, and August.
We also usually take about 4 weeks off prior to Christmas:(2 weeks prior to Christmas and 2 weeks after)
Prior to this year, we trundled along year-round using a similar approach to your family: math, reading, self-directed history and science, board games, or a field trip to a London museum. Lots of play and time outdoors. This year we are using a Charlotte Mason curriculum structured around three 11-week long terms. We took a month-long holiday in December, and we just started Term 2. My boys loved the time off, but they were happy to return to our timetable of lessons this week.
In case you haven’t come across Idlewild before, the Organic Studies might be something your family enjoys (we loved it — terrific science and nature book recommendations here): https://www.idlewildandco.com/shop
(Some of the picture books are tricky to source in the UK, but most can be accessed via YouTube read-aloud. Even my teen enjoyed them!)
Ha! I’ve been pursuing an every weekday approach with school this year for my 8 year old with the idea that I want to get him about level with his traditionally-schooled peers, but the almost two weeks we took off for Christmas was refreshing...so I suggested we take one week off every month. He is very into that idea, but I think we might try that and then also try doing a 4 day week and see what we like better.
He wants to take the summer off as school kids do, but I want to be able to take the occasional surprise day without feeling like we’re getting “behind”, so year round allays my concerns there.
And since any formal work we do is generally done by 9:00 am (early risers), we essentially have every day off. I’m looking forward to hearing what works for you! For now!
I was homeschooled (leaning towards unschooling many years). Most of the time Friday was reserved as a “catch-up” day. We’d read and finish anything we missed during the week and then go to park day with our friends. It gave space and balance to the week so even if you had a bad day on Tuesday, you knew you’d have the time to catch up and the extra motivation of friends to encourage perseverance.
We roughly based our calendar on the local school district although we had no issues adjusting it on the fly sometimes, or skip formal lessons for a day to go visit museums or other events. If the overwhelm was creeping in, sometimes we’d pare back to just a math lesson and reading time for a few days to unwind without fully losing our momentum.
My oldest is barely 4 so the very little formal work we’re doing is somewhat child-led. I’m encouraging a 5-10 minute lesson on weekdays, but if she’s having a hard day we skip, and if she wants to do a lesson on the weekend, we do it. At this point, I want her to get used to and enjoy doing directed activities. She learns more from chatting throughout the day and playing so we focus on that.
My kids are 9 & 12, both neurodiverse and with very different needs so we have to be very flexible. Both had significant school trauma so we tend to avoid anything formal which makes life a challenge for me planning! We don’t keep to school hours or have specific tasks each day as that doesn’t suit the kids but we try to make the most of every learning opportunity we encounter through our project activities - the kids have to see why we are learning something and that it has a use or purpose or they just switch off. We don’t have set work time and holiday time but respond to the kids showing us when they’re ready for something structured and when the learning needs to be more informal so we can learn constantly for a few weeks 7 days a week, then have a couple of no demand days. Over Christmas we took extra time with minimal demand to enable them to cope with the build up to Christmas but they actually chose to do independent learning activities in that time when they felt they could and we had some really interesting philosophical discussions and learned how to plan to achieve a result (something they struggle with). We also had a really good chat about the difference between irony and satire in the car on the way to visit family! For our family, the learning never stops as my kids are wonderfully curious, but it shifts focus from me trying to plan fun activities and days out that will provide the opportunity for us to learn about something specific to letting the kids relax more, consolidate and process what we’ve been doing and feel that they can discuss their opinions, ask questions and think about what next. I’ve noticed that they can actually keep going for much longer by being flexible and resting when we need to - we didn’t take a ‘holiday’ from August to December as the boys didn’t really want to but we did respond to the family’s changing needs and the seasonal variations. They are outdoor kids and much more motivated in the summer months so winter tends to be slower in the kids of things we do and the summer is full on!
We have tended to follow along with the school district schedule, because that's what our co-op does. That said, they had a built in flex week or break every six weeks where the workload was significantly lighter. Now that we've stepped out for this next semester I will probably just stick with the school schedule, but I've thought a lot about just going year round (ish) and taking a full week off every 6 weeks. The six week mark seems to be where everyone feels a little crispy and could use a change of pace. A friend of mine is a pastor's wife and this is what they do. It builds in enough wiggle room for them to meet attendance day requirements but also have plenty of wiggle room when her husband is spending almost the entire week at church (Advent, Lent, Christmas, Easter). I like this idea of having the school schedule serve the family schedule, but it's tricky when you participate in something that is tied to the regular academic year. If we ever got land I think I'd want to take a couple weeks in the spring and in the fall when garden work was more plentiful and then do a month in July when we're all hot and bored!