The first thing I do to prepare for a new school year is decide what our calendar will look like. Last year we decided to do 5 weeks on and 1 week off. It was very nice! It seems we needed that week off right around the 4 week mark so knowing it was right around the corner helped both teacher and students. I am continuing a similar pattern but we are doing 6 weeks (Sometimes 5) and 1 week off. I am trying to match our weeks off to holidays (Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving) so it’s a bit off now and then.
The other thing I am doing this year is not giving the kids a summer off. Sounds cruel, I know. Yet every summer I get annoyed when they sit around and do nothing. So, we are doing school two or three days (just a handful of subjects). I am also doing a five week on and one week off pattern. In August we will do 4 days with Fridays off and after Labor Day go back to our regular 5 days of school.
So, since I am a list maker, here is my list of Benefits of doing this kind of schedule:
- We have lots of breaks during the year and we don’t get burnt out.
- We have flexibility in planning vacations since we have more weeks to choose from.
- I only have to plan for 5 weeks. I plan for the next weeks over the “break”
- If I get backed up with grading, I catch up on our week off. (Yeah, its not really a break for me)
- We get ahead. My son is doing a math level ahead now because we got in 200 days of school instead of 180.
- We don’t lose learning over summer. My son is dyslexic and it is HIGHLY recommended that we don’t “break” from spelling so it’s perfect.
- It keeps them busy over the summer.
To balance it out, we do a Summer Bucket List of things they want to do over June-Sep. That way they feel like they did get to do some fun things.
