What is J-Term? (J-Term part 1)

It is so hard to get back into the swing of things after Christmas break.  My kids stay up late, sleep in, eat too much sugar, and watch a lot tv during the holidays.  When it comes to starting school again, January can sometimes be a rude awakening.  Last January my friend Claire told me her plans for the month.  She was excited to become an intern at our children's hospital.  She was able to do this because of J-term at her college. It was her experience that inspired me to incorporate J-Term into our school year.



Claire's experience during J-term led us to incorporate J-term into our homeschool.

J-Term has become one of our favorite parts of the year!  J-Term (which stands for January Term) is something that many colleges and universities choose to do instead of starting the second semester in January.  Students have many options.  This year Claire, a junior at Franklin College, spent most of January touring Europe and studying the Holocaust.  Another college friend, Samm, spent the month interning with an insurance company.

While my children are not quite ready to backpack across Europe or become an intern, I felt there was value in stepping away from our normal curriculum to focus on something they were interested in for a little while.

The Components of this year's J-Term (I'm sure it will be different next year)
Each day the children spent a good deal of time in research, reviewed our CC Memory work, the read out loud for 15 minutes as part of Sarah McKenzie's Read Aloud Challenge, played math games to help sharpen math skills, worked on a hobby and chore, and listened to me read The Secret Garden aloud.

In the following blog posts I will explain how we carried out our J-Term, what I loved (and didn't love about it) and how we dealt with a major curve ball that landed us in the hospital.