Schooling Year Round

I recently came across a post on another blog that reminded me that schooling year round is not the norm here in the US. In South Africa, the school year runs mid-January to early December, with the longest break being the Dec/Jan break. Of course, that also happens to be the warm season.

I prefer to school year round for a number of reasons:
1) Any length of time off tends to turn our brains into fudge.
2) I like to have the wiggle room that schooling year round allows. This allows us to have time off when we're sick, for vacations, or when we just plain need it.
3) It allows schooling to be more of a lifestyle than an "on/off" thing. Even when we're not officially doing school, we're still in the mode, and everything is a learning experience. It's a mindset that's easier to maintain when we don't have to switch it on and off.
4) We LOVE schooling in the summer because we love the outdoors and nature studies. There is so much to explore and it's so much richer if we do something with it - turn it into a nature notebook entry, look in depth at something in the encyclopedia.

Our calendar for next year goes as follows:
1st Term
7/14/08-8/1 /08
8/4/08-8/8/08 = VBS week
8/11/08-8/15/08 = Ease into school with a 3-day week (Mon/Wed/Fri)
8/18/08-09/21 /08

2nd Term
09/24/08-11/23/08

3rd Term
12/01/08-12/19/08

4th Term
01/05/09-2/13/09

5th Term
02/23/09-04/17/09

6th Term
04/27/09-06/12/09