Do You Homeschool In The Summer?

Among the questions we always seemed to get asked when homeschooling came up in a conversation was, "do you school in the summer?"

First, how the heck does homeschooling come up in a conversation? When you meet new people in the neighborhood, or even outside of the neighborhood, you're about the same age, you both have kids, the conversation inevitably turns to, "what grade are they in?" or "what school do you go to?". It can be a little awkward at first because as soon as you say, "we homeschool them", you see the questions start to formulate in their brains. Sometimes you even see them judging you and wondering if you're a Bible thumping, kid sheltering, anti-social wacko. I'm not saying homeschooled families are any of those things, but that can certainly be perceived as the stereotypical homeschooler. It's not the "norm". There are a lot of things homeschoolers do that are not the norm, because we aren't bound by the "rules" of a public or private school for the masses.

One summer, Seth told me he wanted to play baseball at the local rec field. I was a little concerned. Not because he couldn't play, he definitely could, but I wondered how he'd fare with the other kids, public school kids, in the dugout. It turns out that when the boys went to morning sports camp, they met some kids that played ball, so they already knew some of the other players. You heard that right, my homeschooled kids went to a local high school half day sports camp for seven weeks in the summer and made friends!

However, when his coach called me for the first time, he seemed curious. Many of the kids had been playing ball for a while and this was the first he'd heard of Seth. His first question? "Where does he go to school?" So I told him that we homeschooled and that Seth loves to play sports and wanted to join a team. I could tell he was a little leery. After a little more small talk, Coach told me when the first practice would be and where to show up.

When we got there I introduced myself and Seth. The coach was a local police officer and also played ball in an adult league. You could tell right away that he loved the game and coaching the kids. Seth actually knew his son from camp. He told the boys to take the field and gave them positions to play. I'm pretty sure he thought Seth was going to be an uncoordinated, nonathletic kind of kid that you put in the outfield and hope nothing gets hit to him. Remember, when the kids were younger our genetics were not very good to them and they were pretty chubby. Chubby, but deceptive!

Seth settled in at shortstop, bent his knees, got his glove ready, and took an athletic short stop stance. When the coach went to hit some balls to them he noticed Seth's posture on the field and just stopped in his tracks. He said something like, "Look at you Seth! I'm going to have to have a conversation with your father!" He looked at me and said, "Does he watch a lot of Sports Center?! He's all ready!"

Indeed he was. That season Seth played short stop, third base, some outfield, and he pitched. He was one of the really good players on their team. He could field and throw and was always a threat at the plate. He would hit these hard ground balls right through the infield, and steal bases like crazy. I think his team only lost one game that season and they came in first place in their division. The coach even called me after the season to see if Seth wanted to play some fall ball for him. Of course he did!

So, did we school during the summer? During the course of our school year we would take breaks, so by the time the other kids were out of school for the summer, we weren't necessarily done. However, we were homeschoolers. We didn't school in once place for 6-8 hours a day. So during the summer we'd have a few weeks where we needed to "catch up" before the next school year began. Of course we schooled in the summer, but we did plenty of other stuff too. As you just read, we played some sports, and went to camp. We also took family vacations to the Jersey shore, swam in our pool, and played with the other kids in the neighborhood. We didn't need an entire summer break because we took breaks as we needed them. We were still able to have a full summer and get some schooling in. This was truly a major benefit and flexibility of homeschooling.