One characteristic of the institutional school is the idea of starting the year, finishing, school being “out for summer”. Life is not a school but should be learning 24/7 every day of the year. Certainly there are seasons of concentrated focus on textbooks and seasons of rest and travel. However, it’s not helpful to think of “finishing” school nor taking extended breaks from the discipline of learning.
We “school” year round. Again, independence from an institution gives us flexibility. We usually take a break from a full slate of formal daily lessons for about 4 weeks from mid December to early January. We may take a whole week off for Thanksgiving. We’ll take weeks off now and then for family trips, though not necessarily at “Spring Break” as institutions do. We continue to learn during the summer months. Some summer weeks we replace school with special music or drama activities that are more typically scheduled in the summer. Some summer weeks we follow a full slate of lessons as we would in fall or spring. On weeks we take off, we typically still have several Bible or Math lessons, unless we are out of town travelling or have guests in our home. So even the 4 week break in December would still include 6 to 10 math lessons to maintain momentum in that subject and some degree of routine. This makes it easier to resume the full schedule later in January
This plan refers to certain months and certain weeks, but these are just helpful markers like a chapter and verse in a book. It doesn’t mean you must do month 6’s work in February. But it lets you know the general order of the weeks. We also assume about 36 weeks worth of school in a given year. In a 52week year, if you take off a week in November, 4 weeks in January, 3 or 4 weeks during Spring, 5 or 6 weeks in Summer, and allow 2 or 3 weeks worth of days for unplanned events and sickness, you will wind up with about 36 weeks of school. So you maintain a reasonable pace with flexibility. A big key is to not take off for long summer breaks. You then have to waste several weeks in review and resuming your routine. If you maintain the steady pace generally you’re never recovering old material and the children are taught that learning is for life – not just while school is in session.