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94 REASONS WE TAKE A LONG SUMMER BREAK

Whether or not to take a summer break in your homeschool year can be a hot topic. I’m a traditionalist about lots of things–from soup to homeschool summer breaks. I like to celebrate birthdays on the actual day. I like saving certain things for certain seasons–lemonade only from June-August…chili only when the temp dips below 40 degrees. These are some of my simple rules of life. Another is our homeschool schedule. I like Memorial Day through Labor Day to be summertime.

Growing up, this is how we did it and I still do this with my kids. June, July, and August are for summering. We don’t just do this because of my traditionalism, I’ve got lots of reasons why we take a long summer break. It works for us, and here’s our reasons why.

The Homeschool-y Reasons to Take a Summer Break

  1. I’m tired of being homeschool teacher by May–I just want to be Mama for a while.
  2. Time to regroup and plan for the next school year.
  3. Opportunity to clean out the school room and purge the old stuff out.
  4. A nice pause to reassess what we’re doing as a homeschooling family, review what we did well and see where we need to improve.
  5. Time to catch up on certain subjects where we’ve lagged behind a bit.
  6. The break helps to avoid homeschool burnout.
  7. Looking over curriculum catalogs over iced tea in the sun is so much fun.
  8. You can offer prizes and little gifts for school work.
  9. More time for science–something we find really hard to get to during the school year!
  10. Studying nature is taken to a whole new level–I love using these guides all year long.
  11. Freedom from the feeling of having to turn every outing into a “learning activity.”
  12. Science in the form of botany–gardening!
  13. Rainy days are free to pull out math games.
  14. Time to go see the places you’ve studied about over the year.
  15. Gives me a breather to pick new read alouds for next year.
  16. I can go through courses and get tips on being the best homeschool mom I can be.IMG_1432

The Practical Reasons to Have a Summer Break

17. Summer gives me a chance to catch up–on cleaning, on photobooks, on house projects.

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18. We can plan a summer vacation without working around school time activities.

19. More time to take part in extra curricular activities that are hard to participate in during the school year.

20. Older kids can get a job!

21. Allows time for more real life learning like yard work, caring for cars, etc.

22. Learning new skills from new jobs that they can only get in the summertime.

23. Good time to schedule check-ups and dental appointments.

24. It’s a good time to move–you don’t have to worry about messing with your school year plans.

25. It’s a good time to sell your house–being outside all day anyway when you have to show your house is a lot easier then wintertime when you’re always indoors.

26. The weather is too beautiful to be indoors in Minnesota!

27. Open schedules to follow interests more.

28. It’s a good time to have a baby if you’ve planned it that way

29. It’s a good time to get a pet if you’re planning on getting one.

30. Summer activities take up so much time–I can’t imagine trying to squeeze school in right now.

31. You can coordinate with other friends and family that are in school and on break.

32. I have more time to focus on blogging and creating content for homeschool mamas.

33. I can also focus on big house projects like building a playhouse, painting, and organizing all the things.IMG_1394

The Fun Reasons for taking a Summer Break

34. More free time to read some great summer reads.

35. More free time for MAMA to read some great summer reads. 

36. The kids can really invest time into their hobbies–like camping, baseball, and art.

37. I can invest more time into hobbies too!

38. The school kids are taking a break, allowing lots of playtime with their regular school friends.

39. Summer camp!

40. Berry Picking

41.Farmer’s Market

42. Estate sales and yard sales

43. The outdoor swim park is only open in summer.

44. The seasonal ice cream shop won’t be open forever either.

45. Adventuring to nearby towns to check out their downtown.

46. Weeks at Grandma’s house

47. Kayaking and paddle boarding

48. New activities for keeping busy–I just ordered Tinker Crate for my boys and we’re pretty excited about it!

49. Late nights by the fire pit.

50. Sleepovers with cousins.

51. Cooking classes

52. Sailing Camp

53. Fireworks late at night.

54. Turtle hunting

55. Time to do a Nature Pal Exchange

56. More time to do fun art-these kits are our FAVE!

57. Time to pull out the loom on rainy days.

58. Summer camp!

59. Camping as a family

More reasons to take a long summer break

60. Reading on the hammock, the trampoline, the grass.

61. Every day is open for adventures–lake days, museums on rainy days, day trips.

62. There’s more time to get bored, which is when I find my kids being their most creative selves.

63. Audio books just because we can–and there’s more time. We’re listening to this one.

64. Summer memories not involving school.

65. Family vacations

66. Time to swim.

67. Time to fish.

68. Time for lake days.

69. Time for late ice cream runs and bike rides.

70. Art Week!

71. Day trips

72. Plan a sewing class with friends.

73. We can learn to be slow, be bored, be relaxed.

74. Time to create a Summer Bucket List and actually do the stuff on the list.

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The Honest Reasons we take a Summer Break

75. We like to stay up late on summer nights.

76. My kids like down time.

77. I like down time.

78. It gives my kids a better concept of good structure when the fall returns.

79. Break from student/teacher roles for a while.

80. I get to take a mental break from homeschooling–and as much as I love it, it’s SO needed.

81. By May, I am SO over school, I need the break to remind myself how much I miss it.

82. My kids are sick of me hounding them for neat writing, being thorough and why the can’t remember 7×8.

83. I’m sick of it too.

84. I like sleeping in if I want to.

85. I like a season of mornings to do what I want to do and not have to fit in school.

86. Cleaning and errand day always fall to the weekend because of school–in summer I can get them done during the week.

87. I can plan fun things just for me and not have to worry about planning around school.

88. I know that by not giving myself the long break, I would not be (mentally) ready to start again in the fall.

89. I need some space from my kids.

90. They need space from me.

91. I love that “back to school” feeling after a long break.

92. It’s a good time for my kids to go experience time away from me–at camp, at Grandma’s, etc.

93. I love the hunting and gathering of the summer months when it comes to making a plan for the next year.

94. We’re ready to start back up in September! The long, lazy break has made us feel rested and ready for the school year to start.

IMG_2122
From Summer 2014

Everyone homeschools in their own beautiful way–and that’s the point of homeschooling, to do it YOUR way! I love that about homeschooling. We can each rebel against the norm the way we want to. We choose summer and we obviously have a lot of reasons why we dig it!

Happy summer!

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10 Comments

  1. it wasn’t relay facts it was more like a list of stuff you can do over the longer summer but i did like the list.

  2. So fun!! I LOVED our summer break this year!! We had an awesome time & so needed it. That said, then our kids all got HandFoot&Mouth and couldn’t go to the pool in July (?) & we are expecting a new little one in Jan (???), it was time for a headstart on school by late July (?)…and now that it’s Sept I’m SO grateful we’ve worked out some of the kinks before starting back to all our extracurriculars.

    And today we ended up going to the pool after school (95 degrees!) So grateful we have options. ?

  3. Now I am wondering if maybe I wont do year round schooling, you make summer sound too fun! ๐Ÿ™‚

  4. HI Bev, thanks for commenting. I think maybe you misunderstood what I was trying to say in this post. For sure, after 9 months of hard-at-it homeschooling we are all ready for a break! But as far as spreading fun throughout our year, of course fun is happening all the time–it’s just that in summer, we can put all our focus on checking off a “fun” list instead of math lessons.

    The science point was noted because we are a family that loves history a LOT, so science usually takes a backseat.

    Cleaning and organizing happen all year, of course…by me AND the kids. But summer is when I have more free time to, say, paint a bedroom without working around school time.

    We live in Minnesota, so honestly, a lot of these fun outdoorsy activities are saved for summer–no bike rides are happening here any other time of the year!

    As far as balance goes, I don’t think anyone has that one figured out. It’s definitely my goal, always, but none of us fully has it aligned in my opinion.

    We all do things so differently and that’s a good thing! THis post was my reasoning why we DO take a long break–we just need that time away from “regular.” It’s good for us. But I love that we all have the freedom to do what works beautifully for our families!

  5. Alicia, I really love this list and I’m also a traditionalist, we wouldn’t have lemonade in winter or chili in summer either.

    The only thing I wonder about, and this is in no way criticism, is that in the post you say several times that by May you need a break. You also say things like you don’t have time for science during the other seasons and weekends are about cleaning and errands so you save home stuff and organizing for the summer. It’s just that to me it sounds like there might be some concerns about balance.

    You see, for me, I still school during the summer, but we take a lot of (planned and unplanned) breaks during the rest of the year. My kids still do camp and other summer only things but I don’t save up art or non-school free reads or life skills learning, I spread it out. And the cleaning and organizing and stuff gets done all year, with the kids. I actually don’t want to be doing that stuff in the heat.

    So I worry that your post makes it sound like you save all your fun stuff up for over the summer instead of spreading it out. Now, I know that isn’t true because I watch your scopes and stuff, but you wrote here you get in bike rides and hobbies and day trips (among other things) during this season. Those things don’t happen all year?

    Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re communicating?

  6. I LOVED your list, mama! We take a long break for lots of the very same reasons. This year we’re starting co-op classes earlier than ever – August 8 – and I feel like we’re missing out on a month of summer. ? We won’t start our at home classes until after Labor Day, but still.

    Thanks for sharing! xo

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