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Tips & Tricks: School Schedule

 Some people might think that homeschoolers just lounge around most of the time, some might think we follow the same schedule as public school. Well, the beauty of homeschooling is that you can choose your schedule. We do not follow the same schedule as public school. Instead, I have chosen that we do school year round. Our school year starts the first Monday in January and we end the Friday before Christmas (so a 47 week school year). I take a week off for the birthdays of both our girls and my husband. I also take Thanksgiving week off. If you have read some of our post before you know that we do school Monday through Friday. Some choose to do school 3 or 4 days a week. It really just depends on what works best for your family.

Now, if you live in a state that has schedule laws for homeschool then you need to follow those but for Texas there are no such laws. The reason why I choose to do year round with very little time off from school is that way she does not have a long summer break to forget things. I noticed when I was in school that a lot of students would forget stuff during their 3 months off; especially with math. With having a longer school year than the normal (which is a 36 week year) we are able to go over less information each day. If our daughter needs more explanation or more work on a certain topic we have the whole day to do so. Unlike public school they have to stick to a strict schedule and even if a student does not understand they do not have the option of staying on a topic until the whole class has a proper grasp of the topic. With homeschooling you have that flexibility. 

Our days are much shorter than public school but that does not mean that we are learning any less. I have balanced out each day so that we do not have subjects that are to hard or to easy. Some of our items I have start at the beginning of the year and then when we are done with them a new item starts. This would be like if we had multiple things for a particular subject; often happens with art, STEM and thinking skills class. We do all of our subjects all year long though even if they are not a core subject. 

With homeschooling you also have the ability to choose when you do school. I do school in the morning. The number 1 reason I do this is because our daughter does better in the morning. If we were to do school later in the day she would have an attitude about it and I believe if a child has an attitude or is frustrated then they are not learning as well since they are not enjoying it. Below in the comments let me know how you homeschool. Do you school year round like us or have a shorter year? What does your school day look like? 



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