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monique
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| Posted: Dec 19 2008 at 11:24pm | IP Logged
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Do any of you take a break from school during Advent? If you do, what does the rest of your year look like? Other breaks vs. schooling time?
I find that I'm really irritated by school getting in the way of other plans and activities I would like to be doing during Advent so I'm trying to think of ways that we could take this time off.
Thanks for sharing.
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Monique
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LeeAnn
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Well, we are done with our "first term" of school. We are taking two weeks off, just like our public school friends. Sometimes we still come to the table together and do "Christmas School" but that is just fun stuff like card-making, menu planning (for Xmas dinner) and so on.
We also plan on taking two weeks off in the spring, during Holy Week and the following Bright Week (the week following Easter).
Occasionally we take a day off for a feast day or holy day, but we tend to keep schooling on secular holidays like Veterans' Day or Columbus Day.
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Elizabeth
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Monique,
The Tomie de Paola unit was born of my frustration with trying to do anything academic unrelated to advent during advent. And then there was a flurry of Jan Brett here and here and then...well, we have lots of books and we have crafts we do every year and then new crafts we add as time goes on. Advent ends up being richer and more educational and faith-filled than any other time of the year! I don't consider the time to be "time off" but "time on!"
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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MarilynW
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We usually take the whole of Advent "off" - in that we do Advent related activities - eg Elizabeth's Tomie de Paola unit, Cay's Christmas Mosaic , my own plans etc - there are so many excellent books and crafts and Saint days etc. This year I chose not to - as we started school much later - but it has been so tough - my kids are in an Advent/Christmas frame of mind from the beginning of Advent and "normal schooling" motivation is very low. I think next year we will return to our normal plan.
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Marcia
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Last year we took all of December "off" formal schooling and just focused on gift making. I turned our Montessori shelves into Waldorf shelves. I put cinnamon sticks, whole nutmegs, avacado pits, etc out for them to grate. I had lavendar and small dried rose buds for them to grind in a pestel and mortar. I cut hearts and angels out of calico fabric for them to sew together and fill with thier shavings. I cut knome shapes out of felt for them to sew and stuff with batting and wool. It was a very quiet and productive month! And the house smelled great!
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monique
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Last year we did take most of advent off. We did your Tomie de Paola unit, Elizabeth. I also included a Math lesson. Most of the kids really liked it and I did too. The only thing was we didn't finish the regular school work until the end of June.
This year we read some of the books again and have done some of the crafts but I've found children to be uncooperative so that kind of frustrated me. I just think if I planned it out better and knew when our long breaks would be it would sit better when we were working into June.
I share your frustration, Elizabeth. It is too much to try and do both.
I like the idea of taking time off around Holy Week/Easter. Last year we still did some work but not everything. My husband's vacation is during that time in 2009 so we will definitely be taking that off.
Marcia, I also like the gift making idea. I think my children need to learn the joy of gift giving rather then just the getting. That is something I would like to try to incorporate next year.
So, Marilyn, when you do take Advent off, how late do you go in the sprint/summer?
I'm going to try and use my iCal to figure all this out.
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melanie
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We start our new school year at the beginning of August. When Advent comes, we basically just slow way down. Most days we have other stuff going on. We've had lots of activities out of the house, like a Christmas train ride with our homeschool group, going to see the Nutcracker, etc. And we're doing Elizabeth's wonderful Tomie de Paula unit study again. :) Basically we'll do other work when we can. I try to have my 12yo do math most days, and I try to keep working on any memory work we have going on so they don't forget everything. On quiet days that we are home all day, we might get more done. Usually we officially take "off" from Christmas Eve until after Epiphany, or until I can't stand it anymore and want more of a routine back. 
As for the rest of the year, we pretty much do the same kind of thing for Lent/Easter, taking off for Holy Week and Easter week. Then we will school into the summer, taking July off for vacation bible school and lots of extra time at the lake/pool. We live in the south, and summers are ugly. I just never wanted to have all of that freetime during the worst weather of our year! So we do a lot of school in the summer so that we can be more flexible during the rest of the year.
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MarilynW
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monique wrote:
So, Marilyn, when you do take Advent off, how late do you go in the sprint/summer?
I'm going to try and use my iCal to figure all this out. |
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We usually start mid-August and finish end May/beginning June. This year even without taking Advent off I had my plans to go to the end of June when my kids start orchestra camp. Change of plan needed - baby arriving end of May - or more likely earlier - still trying to figure it all out.
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Topic: Advent and schooling
