Every day we make decisions for our homeschool. Some of these decisions are little and only for the here and now. Some are huge and eternity hangs on them. And there are a whole lot in between. Easily the best decision I have ever made for our homeschool, one that has brought peace and margin, was deciding to do what I like to call Sabbath schooling.

What is Sabbath Schooling?

I had heard of the concept years ago, during my time as a homeschool student. The idea is that you have school for six weeks and then you take a week off. It is one way that homeschoolers choose to school year-round. However, I hadn’t considered it for our school.

Last year I attempted to divide our year into three 12-13 week terms with longer breaks in between. But I thought I was going to crack trying to make it through twelve weeks without a scheduled break. I gave us ‘floating’ days off that we could take as we needed, but we didn’t have the scheduled days off to look forward to, so it felt like we were mucking through and those days off we did take didn’t feel as rewarding. Plus each term we would get so far off where I had planned that it felt completely undo-able. I felt defeated. This plan wasn’t working for anyone.

Around the same time I was coming to this realization, I started looking for how people made school fit into four days a week since we were looking at adding co-op to our weekly schedule. In the process of looking for that I stumbled on an article about different methods of planning out your year. (I so wish I knew what article it was…)

Then I saw it. The word that made the whole “6 on, 1 off” thing make sense. Sabbath schooling. Just like God took six days to create the world and rested on the seventh, we are called to rest after six days as well. “Remember the Sabbath, and keep it HOLY.” Applying the same principle to our school schedule brings rest as well.

Shortly after I started thinking this is how we would plan out our year I read Sarah Mackenzie‘s book Teaching from Rest. If you haven’t read it and you homeschool, go get it now. It is well worth every penny (seriously if I could, I would buy one for each of you). Two pages in and I knew this was going to be a book that I would need to read regularly. In fact, I tried to read it without a highlighter at first with the intent to read it fast and then highlight the second go through. Yeah, that didn’t happen. By the end of the first chapter I had armed myself with a highlighter because I couldn’t NOT mark the amazing words of wisdom Sarah was sharing. Guess I’ll have to use a different color next time. (But enough of my plug – this was not sponsored by Sarah – I just truly love the book and think every homeschooler would benefit immensely from reading it).

The concept of Sabbath schooling falls perfectly in line with the concept of teaching from rest. It’s a way of simplifying our schedule and keeping margin in our year.

We just started our fourth term, I have to say it is going great! Right about five weeks into a term I can feel the need for a break. We all get weary and edgy. But knowing we had that break coming makes it so much easier to push through a little more, because we have our Sabbath week to look forward to.

Freedom in Planning

Many states require 180 days of instruction. Ours doesn’t, but I keep track anyway, because I hope one day to more to another state and they might, so it’s good habit regardless. 180 days equals six 6-week terms. You can divide the year up in whatever way works for your family. Some families start their school year in January. Others start in July. I’ve heard of quite a few taking off the whole month of December. Our calendar worked out this year that we started in the middle of August and will finish the year at the end of June and still get the whole month of July off for a summer break. We also took two weeks off at Thanksgiving and then again two weeks at Christmas. (Yes, that’s only two weeks of school in between, but since I’m a fiction writer I join in the NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month – push to write a novel during the month of November so I need two weeks for Thanksgiving). That also means that after Christmas break we only have four weeks left of our term. Another very manageable block of time, especially in the middle of the winter.

As far as the nitty-gritty planning, six weeks is very doable. All I have to do is think about six weeks at a time. Now I don’t plan out our daily lessons for the entire six weeks, that wouldn’t work! But here’s a basis of how I plan:

1. I start with all the lessons in the curriculum and divide it out by six terms.
2. Then I take those lessons and divide them over six weeks.
3. The goal is to plan very little for the last couple of days of the term because we will inevitably miss a day of something.

As an aside: I’m moving away from curriculum that has a 170 lessons and gives very little wiggle room. There are more important things to do than push through an entire book of lessons. A curriculum wins me over quickly if it only needs to be done 3-4 days a week. I love freedom and flexibility!

I’ll write a whole post in the not too distant future giving you all a step by step of how I plan out our year around Sabbath schooling. Make sure you sign up for my newsletter so you’re the first to know when it goes live.

I hope this gives you a little direction into how to teach from rest. Having margin in our lives keeps us from getting burned out and weary. Be sure to rest and regroup regularly throughout your year whether you homeschool or not.

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9

What steps do you take to keep margin and rest part of your schedule?
Or
What’s the best decision you’ve ever made in your homeschool (or any other area of your life)?