For the first eleven years of homeschooling we homeschooled year round. I discovered early on that this was one of the great benefits of homeschooling for our family. As my children grew older and have had summer jobs or camps or other activities, we’ve moved away from year round homeschooling. But when the children were young, I loved the flexibility of schooling through the summer, and it was a great benefit to our family to do it.
So, why would we choose to school year round? Are we crazy? (Maybe. But that’s the topic for another post.) How does this year round homeschooling work? And could it work for your family?

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So why homeschool year round?
I found year round homeschooling to be a good thing for us for several reasons:
It gives kids something to do when they are stuck inside.
When we are in a routine, our family functions better.
It gives us the freedom to take extended time off at other times in the year.
What do you do all summer?
Unit studies.
I love to choose unit studies that the whole family can have a part in. We’ve used lapbooks, literature units, history units, science units. Having a more relaxed schedule in the summer means that we can take time to enjoy the hands on activities in a unit study. Here are some of the unit study resources we’ve used:
* Unit Study Resource Page- I have an ever growing listing of all of the unit studies that you can find here on the blog. I’ve got some thematic unit studies, as well as literature-based unit studies.
* Charlotte’s Web Literature Notebooking Unit Study– Check out my literature notebooking unit study for a great summer study. It’s a detailed study based on Charlotte’s Web and including science, social studies, and language arts concepts and skills. It includes many pages for narration of each chapter, study questions, and notebooking pages to use with chapter activities.
Summer Bridge Books.
You can find Summer Bridge Books for kindergarten through middle school. These books are workbooks with daily activities that reinforce skills students have probably learned in the previous year. I like them because they give just enough book work to keep the kids focused on some of these skills but not so much work that it’s burdensome to them. The work for the day usually takes thirty minutes or less. There are also reading recommendations for the grade level and usually some fun reward system for reading and completing pages.
Reading.
If you’ve been around the blog, you’ll know I love reading aloud. I read aloud year round. But, in the summer, if we aren’t as busy with other activities, I really enjoy having a read aloud that the whole family is listening to. You can find some of my favorite read aloud suggestions on this ever growing list. Schooling through the summer can have many benefits. It’s something that has to change and adapt as the family changes and goes through different seasons of life. But it can be a great time to do some special and different learning things with the whole family.

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