Many years ago, after hearing and reading of others who loved scheduling their homeschool this way, we took the plunge and began year-round school with six week terms. We've never looked back.
Here are the reasons I love this schedule:
*My Short Attention Span
Six weeks is just about right for my attention span. After six weeks I'm a little tired, and a week off is generally enough for me to feel rejuvenated and ready to go again. I think the children feel the same. A longer break would get us out of good habits, but a week is just about right.
*Prep Time
I use those one week breaks for planning and preparing for the next term. Anything that wasn't laid out the summer before gets prepared then. It's also a good time to fit in other projects that there just isn't time for when school's in.
*Unit Studies
Six weeks works great for unit studies. We do history in units, for the most part, so even if we don't learn everything there is to know about a time period, or read every available book, we give ourselves permission to move on to the next topic. Each subject stays fresh and interesting.
*Sabbath Rest
I like to look at Divine patterns so I can learn how to pattern my life. When I considered how orderly our Creator was with 6 periods for different tasks and a seventh day to rest, and how we need that Sabbath rest every week, I could see there might be wisdom in following the same pattern for our school.
Year Round
With 6 (six-week) terms in a year, we have 180 days of school. For our final, summer term we have a lighter schedule and sometimes spread it longer than six weeks.The advantages of doing school year-round are that the children don't forget everything they spent all year learning, or get out of their habits we work hard to instill. It also means we live a life of learning. But if you do the math you'll see 6x6 still leaves a lot of weeks. That's another great thing about this schedule--you can take a 2-- or 4-- week break at Christmas time, if you choose, and if you need to stick another week-long break into your schedule to celebrate Easter or Thanksgiving, or you need to take a few weeks off to care for a newborn, you just back on when you're ready and begin another term. Unless your break becomes a new way of life, you still get your 180 days in before the school year ends.
So you can see what this actually looks like, here's a sample year:
term 1: Aug 24-Oct 2
term 2: Oct 12-Nov 20
term 3: Nove 30-Dec 11 (first half)
term 3: Jan 4-Jan 22
term 4: Feb 1-Mar 12
term 5: Mar 22-Apr 300
Now, if no babies were born, no trips were taken, and no flu lasted more than a day or two, this might be how the year looked, and our 6th term-- summer-- could either consists of every other week for the next three months, or we could do school through those three months only 3 days a week.
We often like to take most of August off for family reunions. Then when we begin again in September it's been long enough that we get to feel the excitement of "back-to-school".
