Homeschool Rhythms

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens,
Ecclesiastes 3:1



We have been on school holidays this past week and this got me thinking about how we came to our home school rhythm.

When we first started on our home education journey I started out by following school term dates and was really fearful every step of the way.

As we marched along the weeks doing school, home school outings, extra mural activities I found we were becoming more and more tired and the more tired we became the shorter my fuse grew and the more cranky we all became.  There had to be a better way. 

I started asking the moms around me what they all did.  A few of the mom's did a 5 week school cycle and I decided to give it a go.

Sonlight works on a 36 week school year. I took my IG (Instructors Guide) and divided it by 4 and came up with 9 four week cycles.  Added a week in between each four week cycle means that school will take us 45 weeks a year and that in turn leaves us with 7 weeks to have a long summer break over December and January.  

I put this into practice and I must confess it's the best thing we have ever done. I find that four weeks of continuous school means no one gets too tired.  One week of holidays is short enough to not get out of practice and not long enough for boredom to set in with the added bonus that it's not hard to get back into the rhythm of regular school after one week of holiday.
 
We have not quite settled into a daily rhythm yet and as soon as we do I will be writing a post on what our daily / weekly rhythm looks like and how we have organised our school.

So tomorrow we start back for our second round of school.  Week 5 -8 with Sonlight Core A and we will be adding in Expedition Earth from week 6.

What rhythm works for you and why do you use it ? IF you have done a blog post about your home school rhythm please add the address I would love a read.

Blessings