"Is anyone else having an awful time getting into a good routine?"
"Is anyone else wondering if they've just made a HUGE mistake?"
"Do anyone else's kids just NOT want to settle down and do school?"
"Does anyone else feel like they are totally failing at this already?"
Heyo! What's everyone been up to? How is your school year going? I'm finally starting to feel like our school year is stabilizing and get this, it took 2 MONTHS. No joke.
My family started our school year August 3rd this year and for the past 2 months I have rarely ever in my life felt so strongly that I HAVE MADE A MISTAKE!!! Not with our curriculum so much as the timing.
You see, for the past good many years, I've been starting mostly or all in January. Because every time I start in the fall it's a nightmare. And I know I'm not alone... I see so many posts this time of year from harried and stress homeschool moms who are asking questions like those up at the top of this post.
This year, 2020, we started in January as usual. Come March/April just as the snow was vanishing, "that which shall not be named" happened and suddenly there was nowhere to go, no field trips, no vacation, nothing to do to get out of the house. And so we just kept doing the next thing and the kids were all done their school year by June, except my older son's 5th grade math but that's a whole other story (and he still finished it by August so we're cool). I took July off, to reorganize the school room and do any planning, printing, and sorting. I was thinking maybe the kids would have some nice weather left to play outside but no, July came in hot and miserable. So we sat in the air conditioning and they made messes and I sorted curriculum stuff. We began August 3rd because of not having anything better to do with our time, plus it was still nasty hot, and here we are 2 months later and it's been so rough.
🍂🍁Fall is like the after-dinner-hour of the year. You know when the kids have just gotten down from the table and you spend the next hour or two trying to clean them, the table, the food, and wrangle them into bed so you can make yourself a nice cup of tea and finally put your feet up for the first time all day? Fall is the year-version of that, where the kids have just gotten done with a summer where they have been getting tons of vitamin D and increasing their stamina playing outdoors in the heat, and then in comes the cooler fall weather to hype them up just when you want nothing more than to relax with a mug of cocoa and a pumpkin scone and a sweater. And as the weather gets colder, they bring the energy into the house more and more of the day.
I know why the public schools school fall to spring: it dates back to farming culture and kids needing to have the growing season off to help their families. But homeschoolers? And I know there are probably states/places where homeschoolers are required to keep the same days/hours as public schools. But that is NOT a rule for everyone, and if everyone who didn't have to bucked the system it might make folks start to question why we hold to old pioneer-farming-family culture with things like winter school season and daylight savings time! Why do many stay locked on a schedule that is supposed to be one size fits all but is really very far from it? I think mostly people don't even think about it. They don't think, "Hey why am I doing things this way? It's not working for us and I should change it!" They just blame themselves and wonder why they're "failing" and why it's so hard! They wonder what they are "doing wrong." Sure there's always something we can do better, but often it's something mind-numbingly simple like starting the school year in a different month. Something that's really easy to overlook simply because it's too simple.
Well if you're not in a state that dictates what days of the year you have to homeschool your kids, I would encourage you to rethink your schedule before you go blaming yourself for being stressed and overwhelmed with wild, autumn-hyped kiddos and wondering if homeschooling was a huge mistake. For sure there's always a break-in period for new curriculum, new schedules, new school years, and new-to-homeschooling human beings, BUT changing your schedule can minimize the stress and the length of the most challenging part.
"Year Round" Homeschooling
One method of homeschooling that is popular is what's called "Year Round Homeschooling." Now it doesn't necessarily mean you school daily from January 1st to December 31st, but if that's what your family needs is to do a lighter-than-typical day every day all year, then it can be that. It can also just mean you take multiple shorter school breaks or more evenly distributed breaks instead of only the usual week for Thanksgiving, week for Christmas, week for Spring Break, and 2-3 months for Summer. So you could still have the same number of school days (180 is the usual number of days per school-year in the US) but they are evenly spread out. Benefits: Your kids are less likely to forget their lessons and need review to relearn it before they can jump into the next grade. More frequent breaks can lessen the feelings of burnout. Your schedule can be more flexible in regards to friend/relative birthday parties, field trips, events, vacations, sick days, appointments, mild and sweet spring days, and crabby wild fall ones! My favorite thing about it is that because the breaks are shorter, the new-schoolyear adjustment period is SO much shorter and smoother than after a long break. Down-sides: If you have friends or relatives whose schedules revolve around the public school model, you might find the lack of synchronization to be a challenge or at least an inconvenience. You may find yourself having an impromptu sledding party on a random Tuesday in January and wishing you could invite them... alas, their schedule is not as flexible as yours and they can't just take the day off on a whim.
"Sabbath" Homeschooling
Another popular method that is a variant of the year-round schooling method is "Sabbath Schooling." This is where you school normally for a certain number of weeks and then take a week off. Most often 6 weeks on and the 7th off, which is where it gets it's name: as you probably know, the Biblical Sabbath is the day of rest which occurs every 7th day. 6 days (weeks) to work (school) and 1 to rest. A variation of this could be if Mom or a teenaged daughter needs 2 or 3 days off every month for "personal reasons" instead of a whole week every 7th week. Benefits: Same as above, but if you never have a break longer than a week you would probably eliminate the new-schoolyear-chaos almost entirely... or at least reduce it to only applicable in instances of beginning a new curriculum you have not used before. Also the predictability may be even more beneficial in avoiding burnout than with the more typical style of year round schooling. Down-sides: In spring and fall, there will be times you want more than one week in a row off. In summer and winter, there will be times when a week off feels pretty much wasted due to bad weather and no plans. While the predictable schedule is part of its charm, especially for schedule/plan oriented people, you may need to come to terms with needing to be occasionally flexible with your off-weeks to make the best use of mild weather.
Seasonal Homeschooling
This is what I do. I'm not sure it really has a name. We start the school year at the time of year when it's most convenient for us to deal with the struggles of getting into a good routine. Which is NOT fall, in case I hadn't made that clear yet. Lol! It might be fall for you, everyone is different. But for me fall is about the worst time to start a new school year, except for maybe Christmas Eve. Lol! Not that I've ever tried starting school on Christmas Eve... I just imagine it would be a nightmare. Anyway, I see my year-schedule as "Seasonal." Instead of summer break we have a really long Thanksgiving and Christmas break, and then break for great play-outside weather in Spring and Fall as well as flexibly anywhere in between that we need a breather. Usually we take off the week of Thanksgiving (unless we're done our last school year before that!) through the week of New Year's, so it seems natural to begin our new grade in January since most curriculum have some built in review at the beginning. That being our longest break, the review is most needed in January. Not to mention my 8 year old has the latest birthday in the year so if I start in January it's past everyone's birthdays, which, in addition to only having one year to write down instead of a 20XX-20XY style range makes keeping track of what year we did what sooooo much simpler. More upsides: Having it planned to de-stress the holidays by taking off school, to have time to play when the weather's nice, and to get some schooling done in the heat of summer when nobody really even wants to be outside. The down-side is that being so flexible with the schedule I have to keep better track of how much we've done to that point to know we've done enough, and also that when we are ending our school year in August or September or October or November when everyone else is just starting, I occasionally feel like I'm being judged like people think we're "behind" as though it took us more than a year to get here instead of 8-9 months it often takes us like it takes everyone else.
The bottom line is that you shouldn't be a slave to a schedule, leastwise one that was created hundreds of years ago for reasons that no longer apply to most of us. If you need to start in August/September and have summers off, by all means, do that! But if you don't NEED to, just keep it tucked away in the back of your mind that there are other options. Not even just the above options... there are as many ways to schedule your "180 days" as there are homeschool families.
