For our first year of homeschooling, in 1991-1992, I followed the local school calender. After the long summer break, starting school again for our second year was hard for my son. That was the year I decided to change our homeschool calender from the local school calender to one that really worked for us.

Planning Your Homeschool Calendar

I changed our calender to having the month of July off, and having most of the month of December off. That worked much better for our family!  The kids remembered more of what they had learned. and we enjoyed having more time in December for holiday projects and activities.

I was already homeschooling my two older kids in elementary school when the Lord started blessing us with more children. So we started taking  “baby vacations”  instead of summer vacations. It was always so nice to have a couple of months off from school while adjusting to a new baby. We did that four times!

When one of my sons was diagnosed with leukemia, we were able to take days, or weeks, off when he was in the hospital. It was a lot less stressful on the whole family when the kids at home didn’t have to struggle to do school work when missing Mama, and worrying about brother.

A couple of years ago, I read about some homeschoolers who took every seventh week off. A Sabbath week. So we tried that. It worked out very well for us. The kids liked having that built in time off. They would count the weeks to be sure they didn’t miss it. We were still able to take off most of the month of December, and still get all the school days in that we needed.

My youngest daughter who is in the middle of 10th grade now, wants to graduate early. So she has been working ahead, and taking less time off. While she did take most of the month of July off, she won’t take most of December off this year.

This year, I plan on having my youngest son take off every 7th week, and the month of December. Having that built in week off works for him.

Yes, my two students will be on different school calendars. That’s ok!

That’s the beauty of homeschooling! You can tailor your homeschool to meet the needs of your family, and each individual student!

So as you get ready to head back to homeschool this year, remember you can plan your own school calendar. You don’t have to follow your local school calendar. Set your own vacation times. Decide what holidays are important to your family and take those days off. The holidays you don’t want off, continuing working so you can take off the days that are important to your family.

Want to start school earlier or later than your local school? Want to take off every 7th week? Want to take your 2 month “summer vacation” at another time of year? Want to work extra days during the year so you can take off on a grand 3 month vacation?

You can do all those things, and more, by planning your homeschool calendar now!`

Plan your homeschool calendar to work for your family!