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Home Sweet Home(School)
Aug. 20, 2008
Planning and Organizing, First Thoughts
A lot of us must be thinking about this topic right about now. I just got notice of the Charlotte Mason blog carnival in my email box this morning, and what do you think the topic is?
You guessed it. Getting organized for the new school year.
Now I know that as homeschoolers, we can start our new year any time we want to, pretty much. Oh, of course, in states that require a certain number of hours during the school year, it might be a little more restricted, especially if you have paperwork deadlines.
That said, I know one local family that starts their school year on January 2, another that starts in October (after the harvesting of their large garden, and the canning), and yet another that starts at the beginning of August. I know a family in the hot South that "schools" through the summer when it's too hot to play outside, most days, and they take their major breaks in spring and fall.
Most of the home educating families I know will be starting their homeschool on about the same schedule as the government schools. Some of it may be the convenience of their friends going off to school.
We often use that same convenience (the "school kids" going off to school) to take our annual camping trip. The campground isn't crowded, the weather is still good, and it's a celebration of our not being chained to the same schedule.
We try to take the whole month of December off, and other than that we take off a few days here and a few days there, depending on camping trips, visits from the favorite aunt, and Outdoor School. We don't usually take the whole summer off, though we did this year. I wonder how hard it'll be to round them up and head them back on the academic trail. They've been learning all along, just not in any sort of organized way.
How about you? How do you plan your calendar year?
(We can talk about details and planners next time. True confession time: I'm something of a planner junkie, and always struggling against the force of entropy. If you don't remember "entropy" from high school or college science, look at http://physics.about.com/od/glossary/g/entropy.htm)
By the way, that link to the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival can be found here:
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/westward/571469/
Happy New Year!
(throwing confetti with words, until I can figure out how to paste a sparkly animation here. How would I find out how to do that?)
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Posted by
Aug. 20, 2008 - Planning and organizing
I'm too tired tonight to post first day of school pictures; I think my blogging might end up being an every-other-day kinda thing, but after my first-day-of-school pics are posted, I planned on posting about our plan for the year. We did some organizing today.
Pssst. If you have messengers, and want to chat, we seem to be around at the same times. :) Where are you and what time is it there? It's 12:30 here and I should go to bed within a half hour at least. How old are your kiddos? N2MU!