Homeschooling Year ‘ Round
- Jun 22
- 8 min read
Updated: Jun 25
An important benefit of homeschooling is that we can make our own schedule. This includes deciding to follow a "school year" calendar similar to what public schools use or to homeschool year around; however, there are pros and cons to each model. We choose to homeschool year round, taking intermittent breaks.
This article is intended to help future homeschoolers, current homeschoolers and non-homeschoolers to better understand what homeschooling throughout the year actually means. We have outlined below some general info about this practice, what it may look like as well as some of the benefits to using this model. But keep in mind, what we describe is a generalization and the schedule that my family maintains might look very different from another family who also homeschools year 'round. We like this arrangement and it works for our family but every family homeschooling or not should choose what works for their family.
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Every state has their own homeschool laws.
The first step for any parent who decides to homeschool is to familiarize themselves with their states homeschool law. Even if your baby is the size of a blueberry, it is a good idea to research your states homeschool laws and also be informed of any homeschool realted legislation changes.
Keep your homeschool law in mind when you are setting up your homeschool and deciding if a year round schedule is right for your family. Homeschoolers enjoy many fantastic freedoms, including making their own schedule, as long as they are following their state's homeschool laws.
Our state's homeschool law requires the completion of the same number of hours of instruction time as children in public school. We also must communicate with our school district sometime during the summer (at the end of the school year and separately at the start of the new school year) so our "school year" is roughly July to July where we count our instruction hours. We keep track of our lessons, attendance and instruction hours using a teacher's planner. (Note, keeping written records is important!).
The number of instruction hours is totally arbitrary, but tends to be 3 to 4 hours per day. Why this number and not another? Who came up with the number in the first place? In all truth, the actual number of hours my children need to be educated is between my family and God. Proverbs 22:6. Some children need longer hours to grasp long division or how to write their letters than others. The same is true with reading and other subjects. Do we need to spend a full week teaching about "The Great Depression" with many different activities, or is it enough to cover it in an hour? As homeschoolers we can budget lessons like this to fit the needs of our family.
Homeschooling year-round makes it so we can meet our states requirements while also taking breaks as needed. There is far less pressure on our family to rush to meet the required hours so quickly. Instead of those hours being crammed into a nine month period, instruction hours are stretched and budged throughout a full calendar year including nights, weekends, holidays and even during the summer months.
Learning is almost always happening
"School" is a verb.
Homeschooling is a lifestyle. Public school is a lifestyle too, even though it's never discussed in such a manner. Children are almost always learning; extra curricular activities, problem solving to build an elaborate Lego machine, measuring out ingredients for a recipe and improving reading skills by reading for pleasure all count as "education" and count towards instruction time.
Furthermore, adults are also "learning" far into adulthood. Maybe you learned a new language for fun or to prepare for your vacation to Europe, how to budget your finances better, or maybe you have a new favorite artist after your visit to a local art museum. Maybe you just discovered how to change out your ceiling fan using an online tutorial. You became a botany expert so you could grow your own vegetables and herbs. You recently learned how to bake a cake from scratch. Watching films like "Deep sky" can be fun and educational for all ages!
Homeschooling year-round removes ourselves from the "rat race"
Sometimes school is not a priority.
Life is full of responsibilities and commitments: doctor appointments, holiday celebrations, school, work, meeting up with friends and family, sick days, work commitments, school, errands and home repairs can quickly fill up your calendar. Sine we are able to manage our schedule, we can prioritize what is important and act accordingly.
Entrepreneurs and gig-based jobs like Uber may also have this freedom. Most corporate businesses have PTO; however, there are rules about how many days you can take, how time off is accrued and days off must be approved by a manager in advance. In a public or private school setting, there are likely rules about how many sick days a child can take off of school before being "truant" and parents are still responsible for arranging any makeup work their child needs to complete.
If your refrigerator broke tomorrow, would it be ok to cancel your other scheduled responsibilities to deal with it? Would you have the time to research a new refrigerator, shop for it, purchase it and then be home for when it arrives? Would you be able to arrange the removal of the broken one? What about if your family is dealing with a medical emergency or some other urgent issue like a car accident?
Homeschooling provides the gift of time. What would you do if you had more time in your day, week or year? Fly to Paris? Knit? Grow a garden? Start a business? Or maybe just stay home one day and enjoy your space. What if you could take a random day off whenever you wanted? What if you could literally drop everything and go to the beach or have a lazy Tuesday whenever you decided to while still meeting your commitments? Homeschooling and especially homeschooling year 'round allows for that freedom. It is a level of peace I cannot describe in this article.
Homeschooling year 'round allows us to incorporate summer fun, weekend adventures and evenings into our homeschool.
Many education opportunities happen during these times!
For exampe, during the summer months there is a local art school that offers "summer art camp" enrichments that my children enjoy. My children also attend an outdoors camp where they can get nature science related instruction.
Said another way, school does not end at 3pm in our home. My children are sometimes more awake and alert in the afternoon and evenings and can do a lesson at that time instead or in addition to the morning. We can do math at 7pm if we wanted. Our children are also enrolled in sports, youth group, Trail Life and American Heritage girls, which happens in the evenings and counts toward hours of instruction.
Weekend "al-a-carte" type activities like church, community events like a Civil War reenactment, open farm days, and family field trips all count towards instruction time.
Homeschooling year round also allows my husband and I to easily share the responsibility of educating our children when we can "do school" around my husband's work schedule.
Homeschooling year round means we can vacation "off season".
Generally, homeschoolers do not vacation during the summer months or other school breaks, so we can take advantage of "off season" vacations. Flights and lodging are generally cheaper on the off-seasons. There is more availability and choices if you have presences for anything like a specific airplane seat, hotel room or campsite. Resorts and activities are also a lot less crowded. My family has walked onto rides at theme parks before due to the low or non existent lines. This makes vacations much more peaceful.
What if your family did school in July so that you could fly to visit a them park some random Tuesday in September? Or January? What if you could choose the best time to go on vacation based on other things like your work commitments? Or when the weather is ideal like avoiding hurricane season, or going skiing when the hills are covered with a blanket of fresh powdered snow? Maybe your child broke his leg in June and you want to move your vacation out a few months so he can enjoy rollercoasters and swimming in the hotel pool too!
Our daily routine can meet the needs of our children and our family
The public school model for education is not realistic. A typical school day for the "average" school child is far too long: 8 hours of intensive learning (even if it is in 30 to 45 increments) will cause any child to become mentally depleted. They wake up early, spend hours in school, then they have homework and extra curricular classes (more school) after school.
Our children do not need to wake up early and spend hours doing book work. Homeschooling year round allows our family the flexibility and the balance to get school work done, but their other needs are met as well.
Click to see this moms article about "how her 1st grader’s second-day of homework already crushed his spirit"
Conversely, too much downtime during the day is not ideal either. Homeschooling as a lifestyle would be much more difficult If we were just "hanging out" at home in the summer months or any "school free" day.
Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; idle lips are his mouthpiece. Proverbs 16:27
Public school parents regularly lament about the struggles of too much downtime over school breaks. For example, children graze on snacks throughout the day or they are on their devices too long. The solution to this is to have a semi-structured schedule for your household during these breaks, (which is a lot like homeschooling).
Our family follows a semi-structured daily routine. Having a schedule helps our household run smoothly and we change it as needed. We have a good balance of school work, chores, playtime, meals, rest and enjoying the sunshine outside on the weekends, during the summer months and throughout the year. Our children also know what to expect throughout the day take initiative and complete tasks without being asked due to their familiar routine.
As a veteran homeschoolers, we highly recommend having some kind of routine for any household; homeschooling or not. Parents can always change it to fit their needs as things come up.
We hope this article clarified what it means to homeschool year round. Obviously, we like this arrangement, but every family should still do what works for their family.
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