Why Homeschool Year Round?–Flexibility (5 Days of Tips for Homeschool Parents, Day 2)

When we first started homeschooling I was not sure whether or not I wanted to do a year round schedule, or to do a typical school year schedule.  We sort of just landed in a year round schedule, and I’m loving it! 

There are many reasons that I recommend year round schedules, I will be blogging about them this week.  The first of which is Flexibility (as the image above so plainly points out!).

We can take our vacations when other people can’t!  This is one of the great things about homeschooling in general, but by using a  year round schedule, we don’t have to stress about fitting it all in  while we do so!  While other kids are spring breaking and summer breaking and Christmas breaking, these are the weeks you will find us most often at HOME! 

We like to hit up the museums, the beach, the amusement parks, etc… when the rest of the crowd is IN SCHOOL!   This also tends to award us discounts!  DOUBLE BONUS!

Also many of our family members do not live close, when we lived in Hawaii… none of our family lived close.  This allowed them to come and visit in off season (cheaper flights) and the kids were able to spend just as much time with them!  We can also travel and visit family off season as well. (Though many of the cousins are in public school, boo!).

We can take field trips on a weekly basis!  We can take time off for illness, new babies (though we won’t be doing that again… at least no new babies are in the future plans).  Hubby has time off, we take time off too! 

We only have to school a few days a week!  This leaves more time for flexibility in the curriculum.  (I’ll talk a bit more on that later).  It greatly lessens stress (more on that later too). 

Lucky for us, we don’t have to count days or hours for our reporting, but when I have (just to see) we always get in way more days the public school system (because I count field trips as school days, I mean public schools do!), and even if I didn’t there are still plenty of at home learning days!

If you feel like you can’t fit it all in, and there are not enough days to enjoy life and get homeschooling done… consider a year round schedule! 

There are a lot of ways to incorporate it.  Some people do 3 weeks on,  1 week off.  Some do 3 days a week, and a field trip day (so technically 4 days a week).  (That’s us!).  Some take  a month off every so many months. I mean there really is no rule how to do it.  If you are required a certain number of days (on average it seems most public schools go about 180 days a year). 

Do you homeschool year round?  Why or why not? 

Check out some of my crew friends at their blogs!

Dawn @ Double O Farms
Dawn @ Guiding Light Homeschool
Debbie @ Debbie's Homeschool Corner
Desiree @ Our Homeschool Notebook
Diana @ Busy Homeschool Days
Diana @ Homeschool Review
Elyse @ Oiralinde: Eternal Song
Emilee @ Pea of Sweetness
Erin @ For Him and My Family

Don’t forget to stop back here tomorrow!

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