One of the things I am liking about homeschooling is that we don't have to take the mid-winter break, we can have our Christmas break when we want, Spring break is actually centered around Easter, with Holy Week and Bright Week off, we can take holy days off or focus on religious teaching those days, and we can ignore all the teacher in-service and department store sale holidays.

This past week, for instance, I was able to focus on instruction on Lent and Ash Wednesday. We did math and science in the kitchen, as well as some art, and our reading was solely focused on religious things. Next week, we will get back to more structured study, but it is nice to be able to choose when our holidays are, rather than letting the school district determine what days we are or aren't in school.

Really, our schedule is more determined by the church year than anything else. We did take time off for Thanksgiving, and we took off Veteran's Day, because of Rich. We ended up taking Martin Luther King Jr. day off, but mostly because there was something we needed to do that day. I always thought that schools would do better to teach about the man on that day than send children home to watch cartoons or be taken to babysitters.

We'll probably take Memorial Day off, and Independence Day, but other than that, we haven't really done any of the other holidays or breaks according to the local schedule. We've taken Holy days off instead. This is one of the great blessings we have found through homeschooling.

Labels: Church Year, Family, Homeschooling