Schedule - Must I start in fall & end in spring?

[Jenn in NC]

Is there anything REALLY wrong with starting ECC in a couple of weeks....doing it for 4-6 weeks.....and then picking it up next fall? Would it wreck the continuity? We have such a shortened school year with traveling from April-July with my husband's job.....the idea just popped into my head. Anybody done this? It is just hard to wait when you are excited!

Carylee

Hi Carylee :)

We didn't get ECC completely finished last year so we finished up for the first few weeks of this year, and it worked out perfectly fine. We did a little bit of review but not much. So I think it would probably not be a problem. And you would have the advantage of starting the year next year with a few weeks of built-in margin!! Who can argue with that?

Jenn

[Lucy]

I think it would be fine to do that. I would just stop after one of the contents. So you could do the first 2 intro weeks and then N. American which is 6 weeks worth and stop. Actually if you could only get 4 done you could pick it back up. You generally study a specific country every 2 weeks after the intro. so I guess it would work either way.

The only thing that I would keep up is practicing where the countries are with the Geography Game that you make. I would just plan to play it at least once or twice a week so they do not lose those countries from memory. It sounds like from your time that you would only be up to N. America.

Lucy

[HSmommi2mine]

I did that. I was so sick of what we were doing last spring and so excited about ECC that I just did the first 4 weeks of ECC at the end of last year. This Fall i quickly reviewed and then took off with ECC again.

[NJCheryl]

I am just wondering if ECC lines up with any seasons/holidays or such, that it would be best to start during a certain week..we usually start the very end of August....
Just curious to see how others do it!

We also start at the end of August and go through May. We are i the last few weeks of ECC right now. The one thing that lined up nicely for us was Russia. We made Faberge eggs and it lined up right with Easter. There may have been more, but that is what I remember off hand. Hope that helps you some.

Cheryl

[RachelT]

Hello! I don't know if anyone has ever told me this, but after four years of MFW, I believe that Marie writes the TM's with a "typical" August-May (or close to that) type of school year. With Adv. the Thanksgiving unit could be used whenever it was needed, but it was at about the correct place for us in the school year. With ECC this year, I remember Germany had some Christmas types of picture books from the library and maybe an art project and it fell in Dec. for us. We also did Russia and the Faberge eggs pretty near Easter and so I think if you start in August it will be just fine.

This year we are ending ECC earlier in May, but we have more 4H projects to begin working on. We love summer around here!

[sojen]

Like others have said, Russia at Easter and Germany at Christmas lined up nicely.

We also liked studying the US In late summer. I remember we had a cookout and went to a baseball game. It was fun.

We are on our last week of ECC and we are studying Antarctica. It's hot and humid here while we study glaciers and icebergs. Kind of funny.

I also remember studying the hot African climate in January when it was snowing here. You could maybe switch those around if you really wanted things to match up, but we kind of liked thinking about warm weather in the dead of winter so it worked for us.

[dhudson]

So, if I want to have the Germany &/or Russia projects before Christmas time, when should we actually start doing ECC? Do I just count backwards to figure it out? If so, which week number do I want to finish out our schooling in the calendar year with? I haven't looked at the holiday schedule yet so I don't know where they fall but I'm busy working on all the plans for the upcoming term and am curious when it's best to start week 1, even though it will not likely be our first week of school for the new term. Remember, I'm all discombobulated with my oldest going off to college!

Blessings,
Chris

You can count the weeks backwards and start from there, it really won't make a difference. If you just want to do Germany or Russia at a certain time you can rearrange the schedule a little. If not, Germany is week 16-17 so counting backwards from around the week of Dec 15 you could start around Aug 16th.
Is that what you were looking for?

I'm in angst ... almost since the beginning we've done school year round but this year will be weird for me. I want to take weeks off this summer for college, camp, and planning. I also want to take about 9 weeks between now and when we start ECC to assign the book "Homeschool Highschool and Beyond" so Andrew will understand why he suddenly has so much more work to do! So, with all of that going on, that's why I asked what week to start ECC.

I know I read in one of the messages that Christmas-type activities fell around December when you start at a certain time, I just can't find the message I read that tidbit in, nor can I remember which country was being talked about in the post. Senior moment, sorry about that.

Goodness! With all those variables, I would just start ECC when you need to and do the Germany and Russian crafts whenever you want to. I don't think it will make all that much difference either way. I think at this point, simplifying the process would be the best bet.

[Julie in MN]

Hi Chris,
If you look at the Table of Contents for ECC here:
http://www.mfwbooks.com/pdf/eccsample.pdf
Then you see that Germany isn't until week 16, and Russia is way later (like I see Dawn already figured out).

Everyone on these boards is different. We follow a local school district, so we start after Labor Day. Our first semester ends around the very end of January. So that would be about week 18, or week 16 at the very earliest, at the end of January.

Unless you plan to start school at least a month before Labor Day, I don't think you'll be studying those countries before Christmas.

However, you can make Christmas gifts using the ECC craft book at any time. Maybe you'll take a couple of weeks off before Christmas and just do a "Christmas around the world" type of vacation. Or maybe you'll do a "preview of coming attractions" type of week around Thanksgiving. It will all work out okay. I know I felt compelled to match every last thing up when I first started homeschooling, but later I learned that review is very important and doing things early or late gives me the perfect opportunity for review/preview (kellybell taught me that).

Have fun,
Julie

[cbollin]

If it were we deciding to for me....
I would start when I normally start school. In December, go back to the crafts from whichever country/culture you want, and do those things before Christmas.

sometimes when some people switch topics around, it messes up Bible reading and read alouds and other things. So if the goal is to be able to do Russian crafts or German crafts to coincide with December and Christmas, then just do those crafts in December. Then when you reach those countries in curriculum, you can do the crafts again, or find another one to do. But for me, I wouldn't rearrange everything or try to stay on a perfect ideal schedule just to have a specific activity in December. I know when December comes and can just do the stuff then -- no matter if I'm in ECC, CTG, RTR, etc.

Each family will be different.

I know I read in one of the messages that Christmas-type activities fell around December when you start at a certain time, I just can't find the message I read that tidbit in, nor can I remember which country was being talked about in the post. Senior moment, sorry about that.

Just to clarify... There aren't "Christmas" type activities scheduled in ECC. so start your year when you want to start it. Don't worry about this. If it was something holiday in there, it is so minor..... (I've done ECC twice)

I've read that same post and uh uh uh.... that didn't happen either time I did ECC and I just cross checked this with my 2nd edition manual???. Maybe it was a book basket moment that had a craft in it or something....
http://board.mfwbooks.com/viewtopic.php ... =christmas
I just know this... it was minor in germany and book basket related if I read Rachel's post correctly.
You can just as easily find a Christmas craft related to ANY country you are on in ECC when it is December.

I know in Russia one of the crafts was something related to Jeweled eggs for easter, but that is not a requirement to meet a certain day of the year. If it happens at the right time, great, if not, who cares?

-crystal

[club190]

Thanks for the clarification everyone. I went back to the manual to check the weeks out more fully and see that we will begin a new continent (Africa) on Week 17 so I'm thinking that would be ideal for resuming lessons in January. So I'll just count backwards from that week to arrive at an ECC start date. I don't know why I had it in my head that Germany = Christmas, maybe its the O Tannenbaum song, who knows.

blessings,
Chris

[momsflowergarden]

We started on wk 2 of ECC. I am amazed that we got through wk one in 1 wk, got everything done that I had planned on doing. Now on to wk 2. This is our first day(our school wk is from Tue -Frid), we completed it all, had unexpected company in the middle(my middle son, his wife and 7 kids dropped by for about an hour), and still had time to make a quick trip to the library. The best thing is I really do feel like the kids are learning, enjoying and accomplishing. I feel like we are home curr. wise. It makes me really excited about the rest of the year.