How Do I Teach With So Many Kids? - {School Year-Round}

When we began homeschooling 6 years ago, schooling year-round wasn’t even on my radar. I planned on schooling right along with the public school calendar. I hadn’t even heard of schooling year round; and if I had, I’m sure my thoughts would have been something like, ‘Some homeschoolers really do that?’

It’s so true that when you are a homeschooler, homeschooling becomes a lifestyle. After a few years of homeschooling, I realized that schooling by the public school calendar just wasn’t working for us. With ‘real’ life happening all around us – things like moving, babies being born, job changes, sicknesses, vacations, and holidays – it was time to make a change. I needed more time to get our schooling done for the year. And so we decided to start schooling year-round.

Here are some of the benefits I have discovered from year-round homeschooling over the past couple of years:

1. We have more time to get our schooling in. Instead of the traditional 36-week school year, we now have 52 weeks (don’t worry, we do take breaks; I’m not crazy)!

2. I don’t have the stress of trying to cram in everything we want to do each year.

3. We are able to take our time and immerse ourselves in the subjects and topics that we would like to explore further.

4. We can take a day off here and there (due to sickness, a field trip, an impromptu play date, or just because we feel like it) without feeling like we are going to get behind.

5. We can join a co-op and not feel like it’s taking up some of our learning time at home. In the past, when we were following a 36-week schedule, it was hard for us to be a part of our church’s co-op and get all of our other schooling done at home too.

6. We take more time off for Christmas! Before schooling year-round, I didn’t feel like we had the time to really enjoy the Christmas season or to fully focus on the real reason we celebrate it – our Lord Jesus Christ.

7. We are able to school using a block/modular approach. When we study things like science, history, art, or literature, I like to be able to fully study them and not just visit the subject 1, 2, or 3 times a week. We like to focus on one main subject and do that subject everyday. We may finish our science curriculum in 3 months and then do an art project for a week, then a literature study for a couple weeks, then do a few months of history, then another art project. Math and language arts are done everyday, all year.

8. Schooling year-round allows for more time to be spent with a struggling learner. If one of the kids is having difficulty with a certain math concept or is struggling with reading, we can take the extra time to master the skill and not feel hurried.

9. We can vacation in the off-season, making vacations cheaper and less crowded.

10. You don’t experience any summer learning loss (ideally), which means less time needed to review concepts when school starts, which means more time for other things.

Here is how I make our schedule for the year (as far as what days we will do school):

1. I start with a year-at-glance calendar page. You can get one with my FREE printable planning pages.

2. The holidays are already on the calendar so I just add in all our birthdays. Then I highlight all the birthdays on the calendar.

3. Then I highlight all the holidays we will take off. We take off for birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. It varies each year for any other holiday.

4. And then I highlight any additional time we will plan to take off. We take 3-4 weeks off at Christmas and 3-4 weeks off in the summer (which summer month varies). If we have any vacations planned, I will highlight those dates as well. This year we don’t plan on taking a vacation because we are moving out of state as soon as we sell our house, so we need all the extra time we can get.

5. Then we just take breaks as needed. We do about 36 weeks worth of schoolwork, it’s just spread out over the whole year.