We are starting a new school schedule this year.  It's something I think I've unconsciously been implementing ever since we've been homeschooling.  We are going to school for six weeks and take the seventh week off.  We will be beginning First Grade next Monday and will school 5 weeks, at which point we will take two weeks off for a family "vacation" to Kansas to visit family.  I say "vacation" as this is not truly a vacation.  We are simply going to visit family, but calling a vacation.  Then we will return home to begin school again (6 weeks on, 1 week off).  We will have a normal Thanksgiving Vacation in November.  We will take the last three weeks of December off and the first week of January....in hopes of "simplifying" the holidays and holding more true to the real reason we celebrate Christmas in the first place.  After that we will do our 6 weeks on, 1 week off routine again until Spring Break.  For the public schools in Virginia they hold Spring Break either the week before or after Easter.  We have decided to take both of those weeks off and then do our final push to the end of our 2011-2012 school year.

I am very excited to see how this works for our family!