Picking Our Own School Days

I’m going to share one last scheduling perk that a lot of homeschooling families don’t fully utilize. We get to pick our own school days. Want to do school in July, but take off the month of September instead? Go for it. Want to do school for six weeks then take a week or two off before starting another cycle? Great. Want to do school for four days a week and take off Fridays? You can.

If you’re picking your school days, by default you are also picking your vacation days. That means you can take vacations during so that your family can travel during the off season. Or if you want to take advantage of your local climate, schedule school during the very hot or very cold months and take more vacation time during the more temperate times of the year.

I have a dream of someday taking the family to enjoy Disney World in the fall when the crowds are much smaller. Alas, my hubby is a university professor, so we are a bit more attached to the traditional school calendar because of his work schedule, but we do make adjustments here and there. To accommodate my church work schedule, we typically take off a couple weeks around Easter and a full month for Christmas, because those are extremely busy seasons for me. We compensate by starting earlier in August every year, and we don’t take the same spring break that the local schools have.

For many, it can be challenging to think outside the September to May traditional school calendar, because it’s what most of us grew up with. However, if you are willing to put aside preconceived notions of what the school calendar “should” look like, you’re free to choose an option that better supports your family’s lifestyle.