This homeschooling journey is uniquely yours. Every family is going to be different. The most important thing you need to do is what works for your family. 

For us, that means year-round homeschooling. When I first began looking into homeschooling, I knew that I wanted it to be a part of our lifestyle, not just something we did every day to get it done.  

In order to make it a part of our lifestyle, I decided that we would homeschool year round so that our routine can stay consistent. 

Benefits of Year-Round Homeschooling

As I just mentioned, the two main reasons our family chose to do year-round homeschooling was for consistency in our routine and to develop a strong love of learning through a learning lifestyle.

But there are other benefits to year-round homeschooling.

Consistent Routine

Kids thrive on consistency, and so do adults. By doing year-round homeschooling, you are naturally building in that consistency that everyone in your family craves.

Creating a Learning Lifestyle

Which leads to this next benefit. When learning is a part of your everyday routine, it becomes a habit. Habits become a lifestyle. Lifestyles learned as a child carries into adulthood.

If you want a child who grows up to be an adult who knows how to learn and loves learning, then year-round homeschooling is a no brainer.

But a learning lifestyle doesn’t mean you have to do specific subjects each day of the year. It’s quite the opposite. Instead of sitting down for lessons every day, I create an environment that is conducive to learning.

Related: The 4 Pillars of Natural Learning

No Summer Set Backs

We are all afraid of the summer slide where our children forget 99.99% of what they learned in the previous year.

When learning becomes part of your lifestyle and it happens every day, then that slide never happens.

Control of the Calendar

Let’s face it, the school calendar can be a bit daunting. Why does a calendar get to decide when your child learns?

Kids are naturally born to learn. They are learning at every moment of every day. 

So just because we decide to “take a break,” it doesn’t mean our kids are not learning.

When we do year-round homeschooling, we get to control when structured lessons happen. 

For us, we do structured lessons 4 days a week. When I say structured lessons, I mean 20 minute short lessons in math, reading, and unit studies that I teach using a curriculum. 

During the other days, my children are still learning, but they are learning what they want to learn.

During holidays and summer, we are still learning and doing “school.” The only difference is that we are not as focused on structured academic subjects.

Relaxed Learning Environment

I mentioned this above, but deciding to do year-round homeschooling is more about creating a learning lifestyle. When learning is a natural part of your lifestyle, the pressure of actually learning certain skills at a certain time disappears.

Creating a Year-Round Homeschooling Schedule

How you create your year-round homeschooling schedule is completely up to you. You can “school” for a few months then take a few weeks break.

For us, we school Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. That means we do structured lessons in math, language arts, and unit studies.

The rest of our days are what I call Project Time, which is free learning time.

Related: How to Easily Get Started With Project-Based Homeschooling

What To Do On Year Round Homeschooling Breaks

On the weekends, we keep the same daily routine as our “school” days. The only difference is that my children learn what they want during our 3-hour academic block where we usually do math, language arts, and unit studies.

We take the whole month of December off…

Well, sort of!

There are no structured math or language arts lessons in December. Instead, we do Christmas School where we do fun Christmas-related activities every day.

During the summer, we don’t do our math or language arts curriculum either. Instead, we pick a fun curriculum to do.

How to Avoid Year Round Homeschooling Burnout

I get asked this question a lot…

“If I do school every day, all year long, won’t we all just burn out?”

Related: How to Easily Avoid Homeschool Burnout

The answer is no, not if you do it right.

Remember, you’re creating a lifestyle. School is not separate from life. If learning is a part of your lifestyle then how will you get burned out?