What this looks like
in real life.
Three answers to the three questions families ask in every call. When can my kid start? When do they actually do school? Who will they do it with?
A school year
on your family's clock.
180 instructional days in small group cohorts, at a pace that adapts to your child. Enrollment rolls from mid-August through mid-October, and every student finishes by July 1.
Full-week breaks, already on the calendar: Thanksgiving week + 2 weeks at winter break + spring break during the last week of March. Pods and electives pause. Challenges and Studio stay open.
2026–27 ACADEMIC CALENDAR
Download printable PDFPods, electives, and live school programming close on the holidays and breaks below. On training days, we may provide partial or full services. Challenges and Studio stay available.
Start the week after you enroll. Families finishing a tour, breaking a homeschool routine, or transferring mid-fall all slot in without losing the year.
Every student's school year wraps up by July 1, 2027, so summer stays summer. A full year is 180 instructional days, Monday–Friday, excluding the listed closures.
Everyone rests together for Thanksgiving week, two weeks at winter break, and spring break during the last week of March - pods and electives pause, while Challenges and Studio stay open for kids who want them.
A week that
fits your child.
Tuesday at 2 PM is piano. Wednesday at 10 AM is when she actually thinks. We schedule around those facts. Mornings are core academics in a learning pod with the same group, electives fill the afternoon - and Studio is open whenever they're ready.
- Live electives
Real classes from this term's catalog, separate from core academics. Your child picks 3, and each one meets live once a week. Most run in the afternoon.
- Morning learning pod
9–10 AM, every school morning: core academics with the same small group and the same Recess adult.
- Community Hour
12–1 PM, every school day. A familiar, supervised room for games, conversation, and time with the wider Recess community.
- Clubs
Interest-led groups from the same catalog, like Journaling Club and Teen Hour, that meet weekly on top of classes.
- Challenge blocks
Work sessions on live community challenges: building, filming, coding, shipping. Kids drop them in wherever they fit the week.
- MON 3:30 PM Foundations of Science
- TUE 10 AM Art 101
- FRI 2 PM Dungeons & Dragons
- MON–FRI 9–10 AM Learning pod, hosted by a Recess adult
- MON–FRI 12–1 PM Community Hour
- WED 4 PM Teen Hour
- THU 10 AM Journaling Club
- MON 2 PM Design a LEGO Character
- WED 10:30 AM Make It Strange
- THU 3 PM PuzzleScript
Tell us when piano is and when the orthodontist runs late. Your child picks weekly electives at times that fit your family's real week.
Every live session ends with a short practice set in Studio. Your child opens it when they're ready, on the couch or at the kitchen table, with a tutor on hand the moment they get stuck.
Core academics happen in a small learning pod with the same kids and the same Recess adult, every school morning. For a kid who works best with company, that familiar room makes it easy to land in the day.
Their people
are already here.
Academics are the engine. Community is the rest of the school day. Live rooms, moderated threads, and making-things-with-other-kids run on a separate track - so your child has somewhere to show up, and someone to show it to.
Recess Squads run as small, persistent groups - board games, Minecraft worlds, Socratic discussions. Community Hour and Teen Hour run on a daily clock so a familiar room is always a click away.
- Recess Squads
- Community Hour
- Teen Hour
Moderated interest channels - mathy unschoolers, fiction book club, show-and-tell, regional parent groups. A Recess News feed keeps families looped in without becoming another social app to police.
- Show and Tell
- Mathy Unschoolers
- Recess News
Rolling Challenges give kids an excuse to make - a Minecraft biome, an entry in the Recess Art Book, a short news report. Over 200 challenges across math, music, writing, code, and entrepreneurship - small enough to start today, ambitious enough to end in a published book or a shipped game. The artifacts they finish stack into a portfolio.
- Recess Art Book
- Minecraft biome briefs
- News report