Skip to main content

5 Reasons We Don't Homeschool Through The Summer

A lot of our homeschooling friends do school year round, which is great if it's what works best for their family. We though, prefer to take a long break from formal lessons each summer.

Here are 5 reasons to consider not homeschooling through the summer:


#thebarefootmom


My Kids Need A Break:

By the time spring hits my daughter just starts losing interest in school. When she's burned out and frustrated, I don't feel like she absorbs information as well. She really NEEDS the time to relax and be free all summer so she's recharged and ready for next year when fall comes. 

I Need A Break:

I don't know about other homeschooling moms, but I really need a break. I need time to relax and recharge too. I need time to focus on other projects that tend to get neglected and placed on the back burner during the school year. 

More Time With Friends And Family:

Taking the summer off makes it easier to spend time with our non homeschooling friends and family members. All my kid's cousins and many of our friends go to public school and get summers off. My kids really love getting the opportunity to spend more time with them during the summer.

It also gives us time to travel out of town to visit friends and family who we don't get to see often. And it gives us plenty of time to visit with my sister and her kids who often come to visit from out of state during summer break.

More Time For Life Skills and Non Academic Learning:

Often times, too much emphasis is put on academic learning when there are tons of other things worth knowing in this world. My daughter's goals for this summer are: to get better at swimming, learn to prep her own fishing pole, learn to use our sewing machine, and master riding her bike without training wheels. All important skills in my opinion.

Taking the summer off from formal lessons gives us lots of time for hiking and camping trips, baking projects, arts and crafts, day trips, and anything else that strikes our fancy.

Not to mention, learning happens naturally all the time. Our kids pick up so much information from just interacting with the world around them.



Time To Get Prepared For Next School Year:

Another reason I like having some time off, is to prepare for next year.  I like having time to shop around for next year's books, curriculum and school supplies. And I really need time to go through everything and make a rough plan for the year. 

Often our science and social studies curriculum need additional supplies, taking some time off gives me time to get everything purchased and put together.





Does your family take summer's off or do you school year round?


If you enjoyed this post, check out:







Follow me on:

Comments

  1. my son has basics he keeps doing (like math/language arts) but otherwise we don't do a whole lot else. It's a half hour out of his day so it's not like it's a huge drain on his life eh? :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Water Relay Races For Kids

I don't know about your kids, but mine absolutely love games involving water and getting wet in the summer time. In  this post I share 5 of our favorite water relay races to play with friends. These are perfect for birthday parties, homeschool get togethers, and other group events. Sponge Relay: For this relay you will need: - 2 teams of several kids each -2 large sponges -4 small buckets or containers of some sort Divide your participants into 2 teams and have each team line up single file at a predetermined starting place.  Hand out a sponge to the first participant in each line. Set a bucket of water by each team. Set an empty bucket about 20 ft away from each team.  The two empty buckets should be the same size and should have a "fill line" marked half way up. On a count of 3 (or ready set go) the first participant in each line should dip their sponge in the bucket of water, run to the empty bucket, squeeze the water from their spo...

STEM Art: 21 STEAM Project Ideas

My kids love STEM projects and we're always looking for ways to add more art to our homeschool days, so I decided I am going to try to dedicate one morning a week this year to STEM art activities. In this post I share some of the ideas we're planning to try, plus a few favorites we've done in the past. What is STEM Education? STEM education is a blended and often hands on approach to teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, which are some of today's fastest growing industries. STEM education offers students the opportunity to problem solve and work on real world problems and questions. Sometimes the acronym STEAM is used, to include the arts. Adding art to STEM education encourages creative thinking and problem solving skills. It can also help make the other included subjects more appealing to some students. STEM Art Projects  Penny Spinners-   Learn about centrifugal force and make your own spinning tops with this fun post from Teach Beside Me. Explo...

Make Your Own Mineral Identification Kit

One of my family's favorite hobbies is rock hounding. We love collecting and trying to identify neat rock and mineral specimens that we come across. You can put together your own simple kit for identifying rocks and minerals with materials you likely already have around your home. In this post I will explain how to put together your own mineral identification kit and how to use it to identify rocks and minerals you find on your adventures. Making a Rock and Mineral ID Kit Grab yourself a printable Rock and Mineral Journal for recording your observations here:  Printable Rock and Mineral Journal ,  and then gather the following supplies: -A pencil -A coin -An iron nail -A piece of glass (an old pocket mirror works well) -A ceramic tile -A small watertight bottle or container -Some vinegar -A magnet  -A magnifying glass -A dropper (optional)  -Rock and mineral guide (optional)  -A small container or bag to keep it all in Fill ...

Learning About Thailand: Activities and Resources

Thailand ended up being a really fun country to study. There are so many amazing Thai recipes to try and lots of neat buildings and monuments to learn about. My family's favorite part of this unit study was learning about Asian elephants, they are such interesting and intelligent animals!  Basic Information  Thailand is a country in southern Asia. It is boarderd by Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and the Andaman Sea. The northern region is mountainous while the southern region is hilly and forested. Capital- Bangkok Population- 69.6 million Size- 198,115 square miles Currency- Baht   Type of Government- Constitutional Monarchy National Anthem-  Phleng Chat Thai National Animal- elephant Flag Famous Places The Grand Palace- The Grand Palace in Bangkok was used as the official royal residence of Thailand from 1782 to 1925. It is still used today for ceremonies and state functions. The palace sits on the banks of the Chao Phraya River. It consists of many buildings and pavilio...

Learning About The Human Body Part 1: The Skeletal And Muscular Systems

At the end of each school year, I sit down with my daughter to discuss what topics she wants to learn about the next year. One of her science topics she picked to study this year was the human body. Instead of ordering a boxed curriculum set, I decided to put together my own human body unit. In this post I share some of the resources we used for learning about the human skeletal and muscular systems, plus instructions for a couple hands on learning activities. You can find my post about the human respiratory and circulatory systems  here , and my post about the human digestive and nervous systems  here . The Human Skeletal System Our skeletons are the frame of our body. They give us structure, without them our bodies would be limp like noodles. They also provide places for muscles to attach so our bodies can move. Why Does Your Body Need Calcium? Experiment: This is a simple experiment you can do to explore why calcium is important for our bones. You will need: -sever...