(spin-off) When do you *start* your school year?

[Winkie]

Since most of the replies to my other thread said that you school year-round - when do you start the next year? Fall? January? Whenever the last year is done?

[lumpofclay]

We use an umbrella school. Their school year starts in the fall. So technically, we move up a year each fall. However, we "school" year-round, and I try to make everything flow together.

[blessedmomof4]

I kind of count it as the middle of August. We take a few weeks off so I can re-group, take a break, and do a little (and I mean a little) planning. However I don't aim to be done with curriculum by then, we just keep going until we're done. If dd happens to finish Grade 2 Math in March, we go right on to Grade 3.

[CelticJourney]

We start in May and school strongly during the summer months, breaking for VBS and whatever else comes us. We are in the south and don't have a pool, so it is too hot most of the day for the girls to play outside. When fall comes we have soccer and nicer weather, so I want to be able to take more breaks, but I like having a chunk of the year behind us so I dont' stress about half days and 'oh, I don't care, so play outside' days.

[mommyTay]

We are required to have our work reviewed by a certified teacher. so our next year begins after the previous years work is reviewed.

[Sara]

Well, I said that we school year-round, but our summer schooling is probably going to look a little different than what we do the rest of the year so I'd say we'll do a new "official" start of school (so dd can feel like she is starting first grade) in mid-to-late August. :)

[Micah]

Very end of August until end of May.
Then we school through summer very lightly.

[Teribear]

I count my 180 required days beginning the last week of July...we usually take some really cool field trip to "kick off" the year. Sometimes we throw a "not back to school" party on the day all the public school kids have to go back to school. LOL!

I also take from the monday before thanksgiving thru the monday AFTER new years as a winter break. My WAHM business is very seasonally heavy around Christmas...and trying to school during that time is a joke.

We actually school year around...but since I have to count the days somewhere this is how i do it.

[Piper2]

We still haven't gotten a set "school year" going yet. I had to keep revising my lesson schedule, so I honestly can't even remember when we were supposed to end this year...but we're done now because we have finished the language arts book and things are getting too hectic right now to try to worry about schooling. I was going to try to do 180 days, even though my state doesn't require it, just to get used to doing it in case we ever move to a state that does. But then I decided why worry about it if I don't have to, so I'm not going try that next year.

That being said, the way it looked when I did my preliminary schedule for next year, we'll start August 1st and finish early or mid May. That's doing school 4 days a week with typical Thanksgiving, Christmas and spring breaks, plus Labor Day and Kevin's birthday off. :mrgreen That'll probably shift and morph as the year goes on, since this'll be our first year with a new curriculum -- it might not go exactly as planned. ;)

One main reason for the long summer break this year is because I want to have plenty of time for planning with this new curriculum, but I have several things going on during the summer that'll take up some time in themselves. And I don't have as many breaks during the year as some homeschoolers because we're only doing 4-day weeks, plus I have a hard time starting back up if a break's too long. :O