Sunday, July 19, 2009

To school or not to school...

I've mentioned before that I have always preferred to school year round - until last year. Before last year, I had always taken about 6-7 weeks off from the end of May until after the 4th of July, and then started the new school year. This allowed us to take more weeks off during the year, and kept kids from getting bored while giving me ample time to prepare the school stuff.

Well last year, I had a baby in mid April. We had schooled straight through the year with few breaks so we could be done by then. I loved the almost 4 month break! Of course it gave me ample time to recover from the birth and adjust to a new baby. And it was just so laid back and relaxing. I also got tons done around the house, including painting 4 of the bedrooms.

So this year I decided to do a long summer break as well, though we didn't finish until the end of May. I am now being reminded of one reason I liked to school year round. I'm afraid the kids - at least in the 4-8 age range - are bored! They would never admit to it of course, but I am sure having more than the normal amount of fussing, arguing, picking on each other, etc from all the kids. It's leading to some really bad attitudes - and the kids' attitudes aren't that great either! ;-) I have one child in particular who seems to be making it her mission to get into as much mischief as possible lately. Sigh.

I'm seriously tempted to start school the first of August (two weeks earlier than planned)- even though I myself am still liking the time off. However, I have some medical issues that I am dealing with, and I'd rather be able to attend to those before we start back. Unfortunately, I am still waiting to hear from two different doctors' offices and can't get answers, so who knows when I can get it dealt with?

So I'm in a quandary - to school or not to school? So when are your kids starting back to school, whether you homeschool or not?

2 comments:

Kim said...

We'll be starting the first week of August. I was hoping that the extra kids would be gone by then, but they aren't leaving until the second week. But since I'm taking time off to have a baby and we have no idea when we're moving in the spring, I just really can't put it off any longer. I should have started a few weeks ago....

Jeanie said...

Being brand new to this all....
and having just started in January(with selling a house and pregnancy sickness) my daughter is still working on finishing her grammar, and the boys are working on math lightly. We have done read alouds as we can still and the kids read on thier own is about it. My daughter asked for spelling last week : )
We will start Aug 10th as I am due just over 4 weeks later and thinking we will take 1-2 weeks off. Then supposed to move October. Still waiting to hear.