Winding down the school year and some new plans

So it's May 1st.  The end of our school year has been kinda blah.  Kayd finished his math curriculum in February and I had the epiphany that spelling is mostly pointless with him.  He inherited a natural spelling ability from both of his parents, poor kid.

So for the rest of the week and through next I plan to finish our read aloud unit of Charlotte's Web and continue letting the kids play with educational apps on my kindle.  And then we're calling the school year officially over.

We're going to be trying something new this year.  I have always liked the idea of year round schooling but we hadn't really had a reason to give it a go.  Until now.

You see come the end of September and what would for "normal" people be the end of the first month of school we will be welcoming a new student.  Of course our new student's coursework will look a lot like nursing and sleeping and numerous diaper changes.  But as anyone who has ever had a baby can attest they do take a bit of time to find their rhythm and routine in the family.

And so I thought it would probably be good if a portion of our school year were finished before the baby comes so that we can enjoy our new bundle stress free.

So the kids will have a four week break for "summer vacation" for most of May and the first week of June.  My overall intention was to do six weeks on and two weeks off but something came up for two weeks in July and so we'll do three weeks on, two weeks off, three weeks on, one week off, six weeks on, two weeks off, six weeks on, Thanksgiving holiday off, a special three week holiday unit, two weeks off for Christmas and New Years, six weeks on, two weeks off, six weeks on, two weeks off, six weeks on and ending the school year at the end of the first week in June.  That would make 39 weeks of school in total.  We generally do four days of school a week.  The built in time off allows for make up days if necessary and also allows me to do my lesson planning in three and six week chunks instead of trying to do a full year at once which frankly overwhelms me.

So we will give this a try for the 2013 to 2014 school year and see how we like it.

Kayden was definitely reluctant about it when I mentioned that we weren't having a full summer break this year but I showed him a calendar and how it would work with the intermittent weeks off and he seems pacified enough for now.