Why We Love Homeschooling Year-Round
Yes for Homeschooling Year-Round
While most public school kids are spending months winding down the year and doing activities or year-end parties to end for the summer, year-round homeschoolers continue as normal. While it may make you stand out more or provide questioning glances, year-round has always been a yes for our family, and I will tell you some great reasons why. Maybe you are already a homeschool family and homeschool year round or are a “school year” family with a summer break.
Here are some great reasons to consider or continue saying yes to homeschooling year-round.
If You Have Young Children
If you have had young children or currently have your hands full with young children, you know that life is chaotic at the simplest. Between potty training, diapers, sicknesses or just straight sleeplessness, there’s no lack of chaos around the corner. Trying to homeschool while handling younger children (even just one younger child) can become challenging and exhausting.
Some days you may get to every homeschool subject on your list. Somedays you may barely get to your coffee before it’s cold.
Homeschooling year-round not only helps the guilt or frustration from those “off days” but it also gives you more time to complete lessons, fill in the gaps, and even do many impromptu/freestyle learning days.
How To:
More than one day (maybe many days in a row) you will find that you just can’t get to the homeschool lesson. That’s okay. Maybe for a short time (or long term) have:
- Make a 4 day school week.
- Make a small set of time when someone takes a nap to do one lesson.
- Make small adjustments and take small steps on completing one part of a lesson with interruptions.
- Make a list and try to get to one or two subjects done on it that day. It will add up.
When Life Happens
Life as a homeschool family may seem relaxed or flexible on the outside to many non-homeschool families, but homeschool is anything but calm. We have our children with us All. The. Time. Meaning life carries on with the kids in tow regardless of what is going on. There isn’t a break of eight to ten hours with the kids at school or afterschool care or sporting events through school etc. So we have a lot going on and the kids typically are more involved with life.
Something as simple as a flat tire or a fever and the schedule may be thrown off. Life just happens. It’s a different frame of mind. Having homeschool year round accommodates for that missing time or the days that half a lesson is completed or done in a waiting room.
How To:
When life happens, just giving yourself some grace and either grab the curriculum you have or just a book to discuss while on the run. Sing songs or practice letters, go for a nature walk or do a science experiment. Watch an educational movie on Magellan.
Getting Enough Hours of Teaching/Learning
No matter what state you are in and the requirements (whether lax or strict) hours and learning time is always a concern. Homeschooling year round is a really good way to take a level of stress away from that requirement. Even if you have shorter time per day, going year round is going to be double the amount (if not more) time learning than public school kids.
How To:
If you aren’t sure if you are getting enough hours or learning time according to your state requirements, take a quick estimate of your time in one week (for an average) and then tally breaks/holidays etc. Making checklists or a year-long calendar of blocks of time you know are learning days can help you calculate and compare. It gives a quick analysis and will help you moving forward.
You may be surprised that your child is meeting requirements (and usually in half the time of public school!)
Allows for CHANGE
Homeschooling changes constantly. It may seem like you have just figured out your schedule and what curriculum works and then your child changes and grows. They get interested in one particular subject. They learn a new skill and they make new friends and have new extracurriculars. Maybe you hate a curriculum and it’s just not working. You may have found that the books you are reading aren’t meeting the time limit you need for your state etc. Whatever the reason, homeschooling year round allows for fluctuations in scheduling and curriculum.
For our family, we realized we’d have to buy a new set of science AND math curriculum for each child this summer. That was going to be hundreds of dollars and require a lot of organizing and planning. We decided to stagger the books instead.
Our CHANGING Life
Here’s what we did:
- We started one child on review math for a few weeks while the other child got a new math book that required more complex and 1:1 time teaching.
- Science was put on hold for a few months as we purchased and started new math books. This lowered the stress and the stress on our budget.
- Since we go year-round, a few months break in one subject is okay.
- We can still complete a science book in the rest of the school year.
How To:
- Do a constant reassessment of what is working or not working for your homeschool. Whether that is time, curriculum or checklists – take a look at it.
- Maybe stagger a set of subjects or reduce the amount of content for the content (just reading the book not all the worksheets/tests) and then come back to it.
- The beauty of homeschool is you can do WHAT YOU WANT and make it work for your child and your family.
- *We are doing these “tweaks” throughout the year constantly including a reading/writing schedule with focus on journaling only, then after a 6 month hiatus from IEW structured writing curriculum, we launched back into it full force with all the children*
Older Children
With a family that is growing up faster than we are ready, new changes and challenges appear. Gaining more friends, gaining more independence and learning more in depth topics. This is when homeschooling year round is very forgiving.
We don’t have a child driving yet (but soon enough yikes!). Once that freedom is there, the schedule and the restraints go out the window. There may be a child working a job during the day or in the evenings, or has basketball or community league to attend. There may be traveling involved or late nights. Whatever the case, the older your homeschool child gets, the more complex the learning and schedule becomes. It’s a good experience but requires you to adapt.
How To:
Talk to you child and get some ideas going:
- Maybe your child wants a schoolwork checklist for the week, not day.
- Maybe they want to do schoolwork from 6am-10am and sleep.
- Or Do schoolwork over the weekend.
- Maybe they want to finish an entire subject of curriculum in one month block and be done for the year (assessing comprehension is important in this extreme scenario) but it can work.
- Just arrange check-ins. Some children enjoy learning with notes or a video lesson or with a homeschool co-op. Life changes, adapt to those needs and your growing child who is gaining independence and autonomy.
The Unexpected & More
Every family has a different and unique pattern. They may be an army traveling family or has someone who is disabled. You may be moving constantly or very athletic family. There are always those unexpected or extras that come up during the school year.
For our family, we like to make trips for tournaments and family vacations. Homeschooling year round affords us the opportunity to adapt and not miss a thing. Budgeting in 2 weeks in the summer for a vacation and a few shortened weeks for tournaments while still keeping on schedule with hours and content. That’s why homeschooling year round is great.
How To:
- Write out a list of your curriculum and how long it will estimate to complete.
- Write out your calendar of time expected off.
- Then find your “wiggle room” for injury, illness, vacations, trips, sports and more.
Life throws many curves at you including spending days fixing an appliance (all our appliances seemed to break in one year!) or a natural disaster (trees collapsing on our backyard electrical pole). Every family is different but we all go through the good and the bad of life. Being organized about what you want to accomplish and setting goals allows for flexibility and life happening.
In the end, it’s going to be okay. Your children will learn from experiencing and watching how you react to those curveballs of life. Maybe the greatest lesson your children will learn with year-round homeschooling is that life is about learning. It’s not one set time in life. It’s all the time and that’s the beauty of learning – you can always learn formally and informally.
Your children learn & grow with you…
