the benefits of homeschooling year-round
Year-round scheduling is one of my favorite elements of our family’s homeschool lifestyle. By eliminating the stress of squishing all our official time with our books into the traditional August-May calendar, we’re able to establish consistent rhythms with lots of built-in flexibility. Here are some of my favorite benefits with this type of schedule:
+ margin to complete our schoolwork on a four-day weekly rhythm
+ ability to fit in consistent breaks throughout the year
+ avoid the summer slide + subsequent review from extended time off
+ center our home within more natural rhythms that follow the seasons
+ “flex days” to use for time off from our books whenever we need them
To figure out what our schedule looks like for the coming year, I start with a simple Google Sheet document and adjust the dates to fit the next year’s calendar. Knowing that our official school year starts in early September and ends in mid-July, I block off six-week terms followed by one-week breaks throughout the year with the exception of taking off December and August entirely. December is devoted to Advent studies and lots of handicrafts. August is dedicated to our summer break and allows us to still celebrate “last day of school” and “first day of school” traditions within the year-round rhythm.
This pattern of six weeks of work and one week of rest is sometimes referred to as Sabbath Schooling and has proven over the years to be just the right amount of time for us to apply ourselves to the lessons at hand before needing a brief reprieve. This means during the autumn and spring, we have two six-week blocks, and during the winter and summer, we have one six-week block. Here’s what we aim for:
I play with these elements a bit and block off our terms and breaks with seasonal colors in the Google Sheet to help me visualize our year, and the whole process only takes around 15-20 minutes. Even though I color all five of the available days each week, we only complete official book work on four of those days. This allows us to have one “flex day” each week. Usually, this falls on Fridays where I try to schedule appointments, errands, catch-up work, extra home projects, etc. Other weeks, we’ll take off a different day for a birthday celebration, Wild + Free activity, or play date. Sometimes, Monday hits hard and everyone’s emotions benefit from the mental health day early in the week. The beauty of having a weekly flex day is that you can use it wherever you need a little margin each week.
It’s important to note that flex days still count toward our home education requirements even if we don’t complete a math lesson from our curriculum or check off any readings from that term’s books. My boys’ learning expands on these days to include all kinds of education — they might practice their skills with fractions and measuring while baking a batch of cookies, they might read up on a unique nature find from one of our hikes in our field guides, they might follow a video tutorial from Art for Kids Hub or Let’s Make Art to create a new piece for our family gallery wall, they might grab one of their Atlas Crates and discover a different country and culture, or they might listen to one of their favorite kid-friendly science or history podcasts. Sometimes those flex days turn out to hold some of our best learning experiences!
By its very nature, home-based education is flexible for each family and life season. There are dozens of creative ways to handle your school rhythms that might serve your family well — don’t assume you’re locked into your local public school calendar, or that you’re not allowed to start your school year on January 1st. Think outside the box and experiment with different elements that will fit your family best in this season — perhaps year-round homeschooling would be a breath of fresh air for your family, too!
what schedule works best for your family right now?
do you have any questions about the year-round homeschooling model?
Welcome, friend — I’m Alle, a second-generation homeschooler with four boys living in the same mid-century ranch I grew up in.
In another season, my creative work took shape in the form of Kingdom-impacting projects for ministries and authors who were launching big things into the world — books and brands, courses and communities.
These days, I’m using those same skills and passions to create resources and tools for Homemakers and Home Educators who are building Kingdom-impacting families. You can sign up for free access to those simple projects in the Resource Library. I hope you will find some encouragement and support for your journey in this space.