Summer Vacation

We generally school for most of the summer. This year, however, we decided to try a Summer Vacation. Really, it was out of necessity since we closed on our new house three days after the public schools were out. In our state, I am required to teach them a minimum of 180 days a year. If you take out the weekends (which are three days in our house) you are STILL left with 208 days in the year. That leaves 28 days for vacation, which (in our four day weeks) is 7 weeks. We normally take that as a week in the fall, two at Christmas, a week in the Spring and two weeks in the Summer. Sometimes, if I know I want more time at a certain vacation, we will teach 5 day weeks for however long to give us the extra days. This year, knowing we were closing on the house, I taught the second half of the year in 5 day weeks. As we are gearing up for our 'end of summer' vacations, which would normally be all of summer break, I realize I have learned a few things.

1) I don't like taking so much time for the summer. I don't know who thought that three months off with no schedule was a good idea but I think it stinks. They need that structure. I still quiz them orally at dinner, we go to museums and reading is a non issue but they thrive on a slightly more structured daytime routine.

2) Some amount of summer vacation is awesome. I do like being a bit more relaxed and taking that time to plan and organize for next year!

3) I don't like kids getting burned out in the school year. Random days off to relax and re coup are a good thing. That's why we teach 4 day weeks, but having 5 days to finish a unit is nice sometimes too.

4) There aren't enough days in the year to teach 180, have random days off AND a three month summer. Not happening.

Next year, we will be doing things differently. I will teach 4 day weeks when I can and 5 day weeks when we have a longer unit. I don't know where I will use the added days yet, maybe they'll just have a longer school year. I doubt it though. I might use those days for the times in May when it's suddenly GORGEOUS outside and we want to be outside, planting. THAT'S when we need an extra day. Not in the summer.

How do you handle vacations?