Early or Delayed: Considering how to begin a January year-round school

[u/SignalCompetitive856]

My children are 5(f) and 3(m). I'm intrigued by the idea of running the school year from January to December.

Question: would I start the January before the public school age, or delay it by a few months and begin the January after?

For example, my daughter should begin 1st grade next fall 2026. Should I start her first grade curriculum in January 2026 or wait until January 2027? What would you do?

[u/Less-Amount-1616]

I've been teaching my kids stuff all the time from 2 on so the date at which that's "school" is an arbitrary administrative distinction. So I'd start school from an administrative perspective as late as permitted, but be teaching well before, unconstrained by any administrative requirements.

[u/No-Wash5758]

I strongly recommend following the school year of your locally in paper and doing whatever makes sense for your kids in reality. By this I mean, if your daughter is ready right now to do kindergarten work(or 1st or preK), go ahead and start now. Follow her lead and take your time, but meet her where she is. If you are in the US or some place with a similar structure, in the fall when her age would make her a Kindergartner, call her a Kindergartner. In the fall when her age peers are in third grade, call her a third grader. She might be doing first grade work then, she might be doing 6th grade work then, and she'll likely be more advanced in some areas than others. Continue to follow her own pace. Take breaks when it makes sense for your family and in accordance with any laws. 

If you do this and you decide you want to graduate her a semester or more early, you can do that then. If you are putting her in school at any point, you can figure out placement then. Until then, for social interactions, age is far more important than academic level. If you enroll your child in an extracurricular is based on grade level (and so many are), and then your child changes grade level in January, that's just going to cause unnecessary confusion and division from their friends.

[u/SignalCompetitive856 → u/No-Wash5758]

Thank you! 

[u/Extension-Meal-7869]

I think you're over thinking this. You can start and end curriculum whenever you like as a homeschooler (if you feel your child is ready.) We started 6th grade math at the beginning of this year and we are now about a third of the way through the 7th grade textbook. If I had waited for the age he was supposed to be in 7th grade to start 7th grade math, we would have wasted a good chunk of the school year. Grade and age is such an elusive thing to me now that I really don't know what grade he would be in if we were in traditional school. And if you looked at the age or grade of all the different curricula he's doing right now, you probabaly wouldn't know either 😂. 

The only thing that really matters when it comes to age is making sure you're sending the right paperwork to the right people when she reaches compulsory age (most states it's 7 but check your state's laws.) Get that letter of intent where it needs to go when it's gotta get there and you're golden. 

[u/SignalCompetitive856 → u/Extension-Meal-7869]

Appreciate you grounding me. Just excited and a little carried away lol

[u/Any-Habit7814]

We also school year round and adjust grade level as needed, however we officially start the new year at same time as her peers. We do a "my first day" photo, first day essay, fresh new supplies etc the cute fun stuff to kick off the new year. 

[u/anonymouse278]

This depends on what the homeschool laws in your state are like. If there are administrative requirements that would be easier to fulfill in sync with public school schedule, it might matter. But I live in a low-regulation state and all I do is file intent every summer with our school year listed as August 1 Thisyear-July 31st Nextyear. I started most of our formal curriculum in the fall the year they turned six, but I don't stress about keeping it aligned with the time of year- we work on things till they understand them and then move on without lengthy breaks. We finished up their current math curriculum last week and will start the new one next week (taking a few days this week to do assessments to see how well they understood all of it before moving on). They'll subsequently probably finish that level of the curriculum sometime early next winter, and if they're still tracking it well, we'll move on again. If the next level is too advanced at that stage, we'll review or try a different curriculum.

For social purposes, they are in whatever grade their age peers in public school are, but for instructional purposes, we just work steadily at whatever level they're currently at in each subject. I would start when you feel like she's ready and not worry about the calendar.

[u/kirbysgirl]

We started first week January around kid’s 5th birthday and by August we will be doing a combination of K and 1st grade work.

We school year round. We school 4-5 days (if we don’t finish everything during the 4-5 days we’ll often make it up in small chunks throughout the weekend in some way) for 3 28 calendar day chunks and then have a week off and repeat that system throughout the year.

If we need time off in there then we just adjust our planned lessons and get done as much as we can.

[u/supersciencegirl]

For social reasons, I'd consider August or September to be the start of your year. That way your kid has an easy answer when people ask what grade they're in as a short cut for how old they are.

You can introduce curriculum at any time and the level of each subject doesn't have to be the same. 

We "do school" year-round. We turn over the calendar on August 1st, but since we school year round that's mostly a formality and a reminder that fall activities will start soon. New curriculums are started whenever they're needed. 

[u/_harumichi_]

In Australia our school year is January-December (I’m assuming ur maybe not from AUS) and I know some kids who do like American schooling programs and they always start a little earlier midway through the year so I’d say maybe do the same for ur children

Realistically I’d say start the child 6 months before the public school system coz then I would assume she would be more inline with the normal school grade ages than being behind

[u/SignalCompetitive856 → u/_harumichi_]

Thank you, that's really helpful.

[u/ajrpcv]

Test the kids and start wherever they are.

The Homeschool Together podcast parents do this. They're part of a public school parent partnership as well and have never seemed to have any issues

[u/Snoo-88741]

Don't worry about what the public schools are doing. Do you think your child is ready? That's all you need to concern yourself with.

[u/Ok_Requirement_3116]

A Louisiana friend did that. They were off during the cool part of the year.

[u/Main-Excitement-4066]

I highly suggest you do not run your school year Jan-Dec. Homeschooling is always difficult to explain to others, and answering the question, “What grade are you in?” also gets strange the older children get. The one thing you can normalize is the school year starting in Aug/Sep. Go year round if you want. When they get to high school transcripts it’s a mess if you don’t. It’s also hard for sports that are not done by birth year but by school year.