Congratulations! It’s the end of your homeschool year and you’ve reached all of your required instruction days. You’re ready for summer barbecues, pool days, and water parks! Then you look at your homeschool curriculum is not finished. What do you do? Should you work through the summer and finish all of the books? Have a book burning party with all of those incomplete books and pretend the empty pages don’t exist? School year-round and not worry about finishing by summer?
If this scenario is all too familiar for you and you are asking when to call it quits for the year, then here are a few tips to help you assess the situation and decide how to proceed. Keep in mind, these tips apply mainly to elementary and middle school. High school is a whole different animal because of credits and transcripts. If you have a high school student, take what you can from these tips, keeping in mind that they need to complete enough for their credit hours.
Check State Requirements
The very first step in making homeschool decisions is to check state laws. I recommend going straight to the source and reading for yourself. State laws can usually be accessed through your state’s department of education website. The next best source for information is HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Association). I feel like this is an important point as I have been noticing how many homeschoolers, even experienced ones, and misinterprate state laws. Keep yourself covered and check the requirements for yourself.
The end of year requirements you specifically want to look for are attendance, any assessments including testing and portfolios, and how much work you need to keep. If the expectation from your state is that you need a certain amount of your books complete before you end the year, make sure you meet that requirement before calling it quits.
Less Than Six Weeks Left
For most curriculum, the first four to six weeks of the year are review. This means that if you are ready to end the school year and there is about a month’s worth or less of work to finish, then it is pretty safe to just be done for the year. You don’t need to finish the books before you start the next ones. The transition into the next grade level should be smooth. It is always a good idea to look through the curriculum and make sure they are not missing anything critical; otherwise you can call it quits and proceed to forget about school for the summer.
More Than Six Weeks Left
This is a situation a lot of new homeschoolers are in this year, as so many started part way through the year when their kids’ schools couldn’t get their stuff together. If you plan to return your kids to public school, just complete any required end of the year tests, and know that your kids aren’t the only ones in this boat. As things start to return to normal schools are going to have to find a way to deal with getting kids back on track with their standards. Your kids will probably be just fine after a year or a partial year at home.
Content Subjects
If you are planning to continue to homeschool and you want to take a summer break, then the first step is to prioritize subjects. If you are behind in content subjects or enrichment subjects, you can just let those go and decide to be done. This is difficult if you are a box checker and have a hard time leaving things undone, but it is really okay. They will re-learn everything again later at a deeper level, so it is completely okay to let it go now.
Skills Subjects
Skills subjects are a little bit different since one skill builds on another. I don’t recommend skipping ahead to the next book without finishing most of the previous books with skills subjects. For these you can take a lighter schedule through the summer, 2-3 days a week and try to get caught up so you can begin the next school year with a clean slate and go right into the next book. The other option is to find a good stopping point in the curriculum, and put it
Year Round Schedule
If you decide to follow a year round schedule then just keep going. I do this and take breaks as needed. Our summer school is very flexible and we still take time off to go camping, work on 4H projects, and do all the fun summer things. If we get in three school days during the summer I’m happy with that. Following a year round schedule gives you the benefit of not worrying how much book work you finished. There is no deadline. You just move to the next level whenever you finish the previous one.
Don’t Worry
Whatever you decide to do, relax and don’t worry about making the “right” decision. There are many great options and ways to do this homeschool thing. One choice is not superior to another. Whatever you choose, I hope you have a fabulous and fun summer. This is my favorite season of the year and I am looking forward to enjoying it fully with my family!
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