How I plan our yearly calendar

As we reach mid-August, more students are going back to school. My family will be resuming our studies in the next couple weeks. How about you?

Scheduling flexibility is one of the homeschooling perks I appreciate more and more the longer we homeschool. This week, I'm sharing how my family handles our yearly school calendar.

The months of November, December, and the week before Easter are particularly busy times for me at work, so I definitely account for this reality when making our school plans. We still homeschool following a more traditional school calendar, but we take a long four-week break in December-January, and another couple weeks around Easter. I adjust our content so that during November-early December, my kids are doing more independent work and I'm not responsible for big, special projects.

Our state requires a certain minimum number of days per school year. To account for our extra long break in December-January, we usually start 1-2 weeks before the public schools. We also shift our "spring break" to coincide with Easter and do school work while the local schools are on spring break. All in all, we typically start mid-August and end in late May/early June.

This type of yearly schedule has worked well for us so far. Other families might prefer a year-round scheduling approach, or a six-weeks-on-one-week-off calendar, but we enjoy an extended summer break. To count our days, I print off a simple year calendar and mark off the days we've done school. Easy peasy.

And that's how we approach our yearly plan. I'd love to hear if you have found a different type of calendar that works for your family. If you'd be up for sharing, reply to this email and let me know your style.

If you're not sure how to adjust the calendar to work better for your family's situation, I can help you explore your options. My Brainstorm Package would be perfect for addressing scheduling questions. If you're interested, you can read more about my services here.

Next week, I'll talk about how we handle planning at the weekly level (including a surprisingly easy method I devised last year that involves popsicle sticks). Happy planning!