Why not?!

I am all ready contemplating next school year. One reason I am all ready thinking toward next year is because Noah will be in Kindergarten, which makes him a "semi-official" student.

By that I mean that he will not be officially registered with the county as a homeschooler because our state does not require registration until the age of 6, and Noah is only 5. But, he has show MANY signs of readiness for a little bit more structured learning, so he will be an "official at our house" Kindergartner as of August 1, 2007.

That means that begining in August, I will have a 4th grader, a 2nd grader, and a Kindergartner here at Eagles Wings Academy. I think a little more planning on my part is called for.

I have heard several discussions recently about 'year round' homeschooling. This term is a little bit deceptive in that these folks usually do take 12 weeks off ( as per our 180 day requirement here in the state of Georgia) but they don't take all 12 weeks, or even 8 weeks, or 6 weeks, during June, July, and August. I know one family who takes off the months of April, August, and December. Many families follow a 3 weeks on/1 week off plan.

I was sort of thinking out loud about this yesterday, when my 9yo daughter asked me "Mom, why DO we take the summer off from school? There's nothing else to do in the summer time anyway!"

Many would disagree with that statement, but I understand what she meant. We are not taking a family vacation this year, and even when we DO take family vacations, we usually take them in the Spring. Many of the activities my kids are ( or have been) involved in take the summer off~like scouts, American Heritage Girls, AWANA, our church's children's choir, even Noah's baseball team ends it's season at the end of May. So, from a kids point of view, there really isn't much to do in the summer. Spring and Fall, however, and even Winter at times, is very busy for us. So it DOES make sense to school in the summer and use our "off time" during times when we have other things going on.

So, we're going to give it a try this summer. I am not going to "push" to finish up our school year in May, as we have done in the past. We are only about 30 days shy of our 180 days for this school year, so we are going to take our time finishing those up. We took a break last week, and are only doing "the basics" this week. I"m still looking toward August 1 to be our 'official' start date for next year, but we will just see how it goes. I think it's going to be a good fit for our family.
Blessings,
Vicki