What? I am supposed to have a schedule?

I am blog cruising again.  I fell off the boat...but now I am back!

Today's question is : " Do you follow a traditional school day/ schedule/ time/ year?"

Answer:  Nope.

Let me explain.....

I tried!!!!!!!  really I did!!!!!!  ( yes I am whining.... can you hear it?)  When we first started homeschooling, a ridiculously long time ago....  we followed the more traditional time line and school year....  I was working and  my mom was the supervisor of school work on the days I had to work. I was working for a school district at the time, and it really just worked out well for everyone. 

Now, that I do not work outside the house, we have a very loose schedule.  This currently works better than the traditional schedule, because we have visitation schedules with the oldest two, and with the distance that their father lives, it is easier to have longer visits.  So they will take time to go and visit in September for a month, or extend their Christmas or Thanksgiving visit....  this flexibility is vital to them being able to stay connected.

Our "schedule" has also been affected by terminal illness.  We took off a large chunk of book learning time to compassionately care for their Papa as he died from Cancer.

I would like to follow a more traditional schedule during each day, but that doesn't seem to happen either. Some days, growing bodies need more sleep, so I let them sleep.  The work gets done, whether it is in the morning, or the evening.

I used to beat myself up for not following the traditional schedule. I am over that now, I realize, my kids are learning, growing, thriving.... and excelling in things, and our schedule allows for them to experience things that other children don't.
Sometimes the bigger kids don't think it is fair because they don't get the same days off as their friends do.  I just remind them that their friends don't get to take a month off, or travel to the places we go during the school year. 

Just so you have an idea of how our schedule looks...
We start a new term... or school year around the end of August- first of Sept.
Evan and Tayler may head east and stay for a month.  We try to send some school for them to work on then, but really it never comes back done....  they are too busy building relationships, and school is well... school. ( read as:  horridly boring and to be avoided at all costs )
While they are gone I work really steadily with Hunter, getting in a good start on the year.
We try to take a family vacation in October. So that will take out a few weeks of school. ( we do family field trips then)
Then come Thanksgiving and Christmas.  This is a busy time of year. So here we are flexible!  There are often rehearsals for programs, people come and visit, or we may travel... so we just grab so books to read and go.
January is the start of calm.... 
We get lots of work done between January and June....    The faster we get it done, the faster we go on summer break... 

And that's it.  It doesn't look like the printed calendar down at the school district office, but it works for us.

Don't forget to stop by other Blog Cruise posts and see how other people organize their school year.