Planning the School Year

So I hate to admit this but current president Obama and I have something in common, we both think that kids need to be in school much more year round than they are.  The current summer off school schedule we have was meant for a farming lifestyle where the kids needed to be home to help their parents with the farm.  Well I have no farm, but I sure enjoy not having to homeschool in the summer and having the summer off myself.  I also think the kids lose a lot of information over the holiday and that a lot of the beginging of the chool year is wasted in review and catch-up.

So while I am not eliminating summer vacation, I do plan to school year round, 5 days a week until mid june then 2 days a week for the entire summer, making for a total of about 190 school days per year (still not even close to as much as most foreign countries do).  I think this will be enough becuase my kids are actually going through their subjects very quickly and they will actually only be taking about 2/3 of the time to get to the next grade level than their public school peers.  So what this means is my kids will be doing harder and higher level work earlier, which is the point of extended school years.  I am happy with this compromise knowing they are learning more in the same amount of time.  Plus there will be less review work in September becuase they will still be doing work all summer, just not daily as they do for the rest of the year. 

If we end up moving ot Abu Dhabi, I might reverse the school year so they are inside working during the hottest months and can have some fun in the dead of winter when the weather is much nicer there.  I really enjoy having the flexibility of choosing.  I just want to make sure they get the best education I can possible provide.

Pierce LOVES Latin he is already at lesson 52 and I am going to have to find another place to get Latin books soon since as far as I can tell the current on I have is only begining Latin.  I am really happy he loves it so much.  It helps that Latin is everywhere and he can talk about it and know what it means.