Have you ever sat down at the start of a school year and thought “what in the world am I doing?”. Hands up people, please tell me I am not the only one!
Every year I sit down and try to plan out the next 12 months of our lives. Since we live in Australia our school year starts in January. I like that it makes sense like that. It just seems strange to start school in the middle of the year, but I guess it makes sense because you know Summer etc. Australian schools tend to have a year round school philosophy. The summer break is usually only a 5-6 weeks, starting a few days before Christmas and going back sometime in the last week of January. Oh what kids kids wouldn’t give to have the entire Summer off school!
There are so many ways to schedule your year. Some states require you to keep hours of how much you have worked through the year so that definitely may come into it when it comes to planning but even then there are often ways to work around it if you need to.
So without further ado here is the list of FIVE Ways to Schedule Your Homeschool Like a Pro!
The Sabbath Schedule
Don’t get all weirded out on me this, you don’t have to be Christian to do this. The sabbath schedule is simply called such because you school for six weeks and take a break every seventh week. When I was at university this was what the schedule was like at I loved it.
I have also applied this to our homeschool previously and really liked how it worked for the most part. I loved that we could work on either one or two units each six week period. A topic of science for instance would usually take us three weeks to complete.
Six weeks was a good amount of time for us to work solidly without becoming burnt out which can very easily happen.
What I struggled with with this schedule was that it was a little too inflexible for me. We like to take quite a few vacations during the year which seemed to always be messing up the schedule and it was doing my head in trying to plan accordingly. I like to get the best price for things and that didn’t necessarily line up with my six week plan. I also had a chronic morning sickness and a new born during this period and it just made me feel guilty that I wasn’t working when I felt like I was supposed to be on schedule.
The Four Day Work Week
This is our current method of homeschooling. We do all our work Monday through Thursday and reserve Friday for any catch up, outings, errands, extra activities etc.
What I love about this schedule is that I don’t feel the pressure if something happens during the week and we can’t get to school. We can just do a catch up on Friday. In the past two weeks Lili broke her arm and spent a day in the ER and then the following week Ammon spent two days in hospital after vomiting blood everywhere. We skipped school those days and caught up on the Fridays.
The kids like to call Friday “Fun Day Friday” This is usually the day we might go to the zoo or somewhere special. If we stay home the kids will work on some of their passion projects. Lili is perfecting her baking and cake decorating skills which her daddy is super happy about as he is the designated taste tester. Auron is teaching himself piano and works for hours on his Lego projects. I am really thinking of buying him a Lego WeDo set to him take him go further with this.
While the kids are working on their passion projects I can catch up on planning for the next week, and spending a bit more one on one time with my two youngest kids who often take a back seat during school time on other days. I also catch up on Netflix with my husband since he is home in the mornings!
Traditional School Schedule
Lots of people find it much easier just to follow whatever the local schools are doing. This works really well for kids who have lots of public schooled friends. They still get to go hang out and do stuff together without you feeling guilty that they should really be completing work.
A lot of really cool activities happen during school breaks too. Our library for example puts on really fun and exciting activities each day of the school breaks. The same goes for museums, zoos, science centres and churches. If you have a traditional school schedule it makes it a lot easier to find the time to take advantage of all these amazing opportunities.
The No Schedule Schedule
If my personality allowed, this would be my choice but I am a stickler for routine. This would work brilliantly with unschooling and child led learning.
This type of schedule kind of works where you wake up in the morning and decide what you are going to do. Whether you do a trip to the library or work on math. It is actually quite individualised because you can focus your time on where you feel it would be best served. If your child could really do with some extra math assistance but is reading like a champion, perhaps you skip reading lessons for a few days while you nail down that blasted long division (which I still have not fully mastered)
The no schedule schedule allows to a lot more spontaneity to say yes to more. If you feel like a nature walk a long the river at 11am then why not?!
Year Round Schooling
A year round schooling schedule means that there isn’t a huge break over Summer. Instead you work more throughout the whole year and take more frequent but shorter breaks.
I really do like the idea of year round schooling. We only take about six weeks off over Summer and it keeps the learning consistent. Most children thrive on routine and everyone seems to do a lot better without long breaks between school sessions. I know my kids are wanting to get back to school work after two weeks of breaks. I however need a few more weeks to prepare mentally and get everything organised for the next school year.
Year round schooling reduces teachers fatigue. I can 100% attest to this. Since you don’t take a big three month break over Summer you can afford to take more regular breaks mid school year. The kids appreciate it and you will most definitely appreciate it.
I think I have also found that with year round schooling that there is less pressure to try and fit everything in. You can go at a slower pace and find your groove in those early days.
The Forward Thinker Schedule
I just made this name up because I couldn’t think of a more appropriate name. If you think of one then let me know, I will be more than happy to change it to something much cooler.
This is how I plan my year and people think that I am somewhat crazy but that’s okay.
At the start of each year I pull out the calendar and I write in all the important dates (no school on birthdays around here!)
- Birthdays
- Dates for local public schools
- Vacations
- Time off for a new baby
After I have those all coloured in I then figure out a schedule from that. It is usually divided into about five blocks. I like the kids to have some time off while their public school friends aren’t at school too.
Now that I have my schedule down, I then look at their books. If there is 140 language arts lessons I divide that between the amount of weeks I have and that is how many lesson need to be completed each week. My goal is to finish school by the last week in November so we can take all of December off for christmas fun.
Since we live overseas away from family we have grandparents who visit several times a year. I will send this schedule to my parents so they can plan their trips accordingly. It also works well for when other family member visit.
Oh wow I just reread that and it sounds confusing but I hope it made some kind of sense to you!
There you have it, I hope this has given you something to think about. There is no one right way to homeschool or plan your year out. You may think you have the perfect schedule only to start and realise that what you had planned is just rubbish and will send you to the looney bin if you keep it up. Then you just wipe the board clean and try again. It has taken me years to figure out what works for our family and you know what? I will probably tweak it a little more again next year and the year after and so on and so forth!
