The Best Homeschool Scheduling Method to Avoid Burnout + 2021-2022 Schedule

Published:
July 14, 2021

Carrie Fernandez

Contributor:
Carrie

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This coming fall I will head into our 17th homeschool year. I have learned a lot along the way about what works best for our family and how we can bend our daily homeschool schedule to our needs so that we avoid homeschool burnout. If you have homeschooled ever, you have likely experienced burnout along the way. If you haven’t, you are my hero and I want to be like you one day.

If you are looking for a way to schedule your homeschool year and keep the joy and freedom of homeschooling alive while avoiding burnout, you need to check out our homeschooling schedule method.

desk with planning resources and text overlay best homeschool scheduling method

Sabbath Schooling

Many years ago I read about a different way to plan a homeschool schedule coined Sabbath Schooling that was quite appealing to me. The prior year had been a bit difficult in terms of staying on track and upbeat all year long. A few weeks in and I was already looking forward to Thanksgiving & Christmas breaks. Homeschool parents everywhere can relate to this!

This method of scheduling has nothing to do with religion as you might think when you hear the term “Sabbath.” Some families call it a year-round schedule, however my kid would die if I called it that. We think of it as a perfect homeschool schedule (at least for us!).

Game Changer in our Homeschool

This way of scheduling our homeschool was a real game changer for us! If you want to learn how to schedule your homeschool day in a way that keeps you energized and free from homeschool burnout, read on. I even share our Sabbath Schedule with you so you can use that as a springboard!

Supplies Needed

All you need is a notebook and a calendar and an idea of what holidays you want to take off or vacations you have planned. You can even incorporate different types of daily scheduling alongside a Sabbath School schedule, such as  block scheduling or a loop schedule.

Be sure to download our homeschool schedule planning pages.

Why We Changed our Homeschooling Schedule

Back in 2010 our homeschool was filled with tears and trepidation as we tried desperately to navigate our curriculum using a haphazard daily schedule. A traditional schedule wasn’t working for us and was causing a lot of dysfunction in our homeschool.

After I learned that my daughter was not thriving with worksheets and tests (it was taking way too much time), we made changes to our homeschool for many subjects. The other thing I drastically changed was the way I scheduled our homeschool year.

What is Sabbath Schooling?

My favorite thing about homeschooling is that you can adjust pretty much anything to be a perfect fit for your homeschool. Sabbath Schooling works the same. The concept of Sabbath Schooling is to do school for six weeks and rest during the seventh week.

This homeschool planning method follows the Creation example of how God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, but the only thing that is “religious” about it, is the term Sabbath.

This type of schedule can work for anyone. Secular homeschoolers can also adopt a schedule like this with their homeschooling family (and even call it whatever they want or nothing at all). I mean, it really doesn’t need a name. 

When my oldest daughter got into high school, Sabbath Schooling didn’t work for her because she was terrible at time management and did much of her work independently. If you have older kids, you might find that to be true for you as well, but ideally you would use the same weekly schedule for your whole family.

Practical Tips

I have provide an updated example of a 2021-2022 schedule below, (so be sure to scroll to the end of this post) which shows how to get 180 school days in (if necessary), while scheduling 5 planned weeks off throughout the year, taking the whole month of December off, AND getting summer break!

A cup of coffee on a table

Starting School

We typically start school in mid August and as you can see in our homeschool schedule below, I scheduled it out to homeschool for six weeks, taking the seventh week off.

This can be modified for a four-day school week if you take Fridays off as long as you don’t have attendance requirements in your state, so be sure to check your state laws. You can also homeschool for seven weeks and take the eighth week off. It’s very flexible and you can work it out however you need to.

How to Make Your Calendar Work for You:

Starting school on August 9 (for 2021) and breaking after 6 weeks will take us through most of September. Since we take off Thanksgiving week and the entire month of December, our second stretch of homeschooling goes 2 weeks longer for a total of 8 weeks. Knowing that you have an extended break after that will keep you and your children motivated, I promise!

Taking December Off

We normally take the entire month of December off instead of going back to school for a week after Thanksgiving and then breaking again (who really wants to do that?!).

During this free time in December we like to take fun field trips with our homeschool group and do projects and unit studies centered around the Pilgrims, Native Americans, or Christmas. We’ve also done a hymn study that incorporated Thanksgiving and Christmas hymns one year.

Time for Evaluation

Taking the month of December off allows you time to evaluate your curriculum choices to see if you need to change anything up for the second semester. You can also plan family gatherings, bake cookies, and do fun things with your kids. 

Making Adjustments to the Schedule

We resume the first Monday in January after New Years Day. This is where you can make some minor adjustments, such as moving your Sabbath Week to fall during the week of Easter.

I schedule our homeschool to go through the end of June and then we take a wonderful 6-week summer break and start back in early-mid August. I find that longer summer breaks means more math review the first few months because everything that was learned the previous school year had been forgotten. Six weeks is a perfect break for us!

Spreading out the school year instead of cramming everything into a typical 9-month schedule makes it easier to schedule things like doctor appointments, errands, and even lesson planning! I like to have a little time to myself on that seventh week to evaluate how our curriculum is working and do some deep cleaning and organizing (I know, not much of a break!).

The Benefits that Come with Planned Time Off

Planning your yearly homeschool schedule ahead of time can help you mange many different areas of your schedule and life. Homeschool moms wear many hats, and we need breaks too! Consider your family’s needs and make sure you set time for “life.” This is the beauty of homeschooling. 

Something to look forward to

When you have an end in sight, it’s easier to get through your homeschool days (for both parents and children) because everyone knows a break is coming soon. It’s a good idea to use your Sabbath week as motivation for good work habits (especially if your student does a lot of independent work).

Encourages better work habits

I have a general idea of where we should be at the end of each “session.” For topics like math, it’s important that my daughter stays on track in order to complete the curriculum in time for summer break. Other subjects have more leeway in my opinion because my daughter cannot handle doubling up on math if we fall behind.

She knows that she will not get a full break during our Sabbath Week if she falls behind in math. Since we use Teaching Textbooks for math, I can still take the week off because the curriculum does the teaching!

Plan your homeschool lessons

I use a “plan-as-I-go” planning sheet to keep a record of daily work, but if you like to plan your lessons out, the Sabbath Weeks are perfect times to do that. In the past I tried to plan my whole year out…that didn’t last long. I prefer to jot down what we did after we did it so I have a good record for our homeschool portfolio.

If you are looking for an online homeschool planner, using Homeschool Planet is a great way to avoid excessive erasing throughout the year as plans change; it adjusts everything for you on the fly!

Time to organize your homeschool portfolios

In the past I have waited until the end of the year to compile my homeschool portfolio. That is not so much fun, unless you love paper cuts. Each state has its own requirements, but in Florida we don’t have to keep everything.

During your time off, you can gather up all the work from the previous six weeks and get it organized and purge what you don’t need to keep. It makes the end of the year so much easier to manage. You can use our free portfolio review checklist to make sure you are staying organized and keeping what you need.

Re-evaluate your homeschool curriculum

I bet every homeschool family I know has run into a curriculum mismatch one time or another. Let’s face it, not everything works well for every child. What may have been awesome with my oldest can make my youngest cringe.

Instead of waiting until December between your semesters, spend some time during your off weeks to talk to your children about what they like and dislike. See if you can take something you are already using and modify it if it’s not working. If you know you need to switch to something else, don’t be afraid to make the change. Your kids will thank you and your homeschool will be more pleasant.

Avoid homeschool burnout

I think every homeschooling family I have ever met has, at one time or another, experienced burnout. Let’s face it, homeschooling can be difficult at times. It can be hard to keep the cranky out of your homeschool when burnout creeps in to the mix.

When you have a week off to look forward to right around the corner, it can help you keep your cool and  maintain a sense of calm (and even anticipation!) in your home.

Tackle your home projects

Have you been putting off that home improvement project? Is your garden ready for harvesting? How about some deep cleaning? So many neglected things can be planned to take place during your Sabbath Week! Young children will not appreciate taking a break from school for chore time, but it will build good habits.

Shorter summers mean less boredom

Am I the only mom who hears “I’m bored” during the long and lazy summer months? With a six week summer you can plan fun outings and family adventures while taking an extended time off of homeschooling…but not too extended. Longer summers have never been our friend.

My children seem to forget everything they just learned in any period longer than six weeks. It’s long enough to feel like a full summer, but short enough to prevent boredom and memory lapse.

Flexible schooling and breaks

You can plan around your spouse’s vacation time by moving around your Sabbath Week, like we do for Thanksgiving and Easter below. If someone gets sick and you take a few days off, make that your Sabbath Week (you may hear some whining about that, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do).

If you don’t have attendance requirements, you can just write off your sick days too! In our schedule below our homeschool days come out to 184, so if you use this as a guide and you have to follow attendance requirements, then you have 4 days you can write off anyhow.

Sabbath Schooling can truly make so much difference in the demeanor of your homeschool. If you have been a victim of homeschool burnout in the past, you should consider giving it a try. There’s no wrong way, really and it can make such a difference in your own homeschool – like it did for mine.

Example Sabbath Schooling Schedule for 2021-2022:

  • School starts 8/09/21 = homeschool for 30 days
  • Sabbath week 9/20/21 through 09/24/21
  • School resumes 9/27/21 and continues for 8 weeks (to adjust the schedule for Thanksgiving) = homeschool for 40 days
  • Sabbath week 11/22/21 & December break 
  • School resumes 1/3/22 =homeschool for 30 days
  • Sabbath week 2/14/22 through 2/18/22
  • School resumes 2/21/22 = homeschool for 30 days
  • Sabbath week  4/4/21 through 4/8/22
  • School resumes 4/11/21 = homeschool for 30 days
  • Sabbath week 5/23/22 through 5/27/22 (this is my birthday week!)
    • Alternately you could take the following week off if you prefer not to do school on Memorial Day OR just take off Memorial Day as well!
  • School resumes 5/30/22 and ends on 6/30/22 = homeschool for 24 days
  • Summer break starts 7/1/22 

This schedule will result in 184 days of scheduled homschool, 5 planned whole weeks off, plus the entire month of December off. If you take Memorial Day off then you still fit in a whole school year.

You may want to consider moving the schedule around a bit to accommodate for Easter, if you’d prefer to take that week off for spring break. 

I like having a few extra days “scheduled” because there will no doubt be illness, vacations, as well as “I don’t feel like doing school today” days. I hope that this method of homeschooling brings joy back to your homeschool!

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