Quickly Plan Your Homeschool Year

INSIDE: How to quickly plan your homeschool year. The method that takes me a few hours or less!

I’m a planner and organizer by nature. It’s why I made my own planner, enjoy running a home, and also why I enjoy this “plan your homeschool” time of year.

While I enjoy the task of homeschool planning, it is not something I want to spend days and days doing. After all I am also a busy mom, wife, and homemaker, just like you.

It took me awhile to fall into a good groove homeschool planning, but now it takes me just a few hours (if even that!). I’m done quickly and can then soak up the beautiful summer without stressing about our school!

So if you are spending hours filling out homeschool planners or perusing curriculum, I’d like to show you how I quickly plan our homeschool year and how you can too!

How I Plan Our Homeschool Year Quickly

One thing I want to stress is that it took me several years to be able to plan so quickly. At the beginning of our homeschool journey I would read, agonize, and research for hours throughout the year.

But now that we’ve been homeschooling for 8+ years I know our family and my children well enough and also am familiar with homeschooling materials enough to work quickly through this list.

#1 Revisit last year’s checklist

Your children (and you) need something to work off of in your day-to-day homeschooling.

You could spend hours filling in little grids in a homeschool planner or precious time every evening writing their assignments in a notebook.

BUT I would highly encourage you to create a reusable weekly checklist. Over the years I found almost any curriculum can be put in the checklist.

If you aren’t much of a spreadsheet maker, feel free to use my Catholic homeschool planner pack (90+ pages) to help you plan!

Catholic Homeschool Planner Printable pdf: Catholic image 0

Examples of blocks in the weekly checklist:

Math: Complete 1 Lesson/Test
Penmanship: Complete 1 page
Piano: 30 minutes of practice/lesson
Spelling: (Monday-Thursday) 1 page/day, (Friday) test
Religion: read 10 pages per week, (Wednesday) discuss with mom
Reading: read 1 hour/day from required reading list

I use an open source software similar to Excel to create each child’s spreadsheet. The software is called OpenOffice and is 100% free in case you are a thrifty minded gal like me!

I print the checklist off weekly at first but once we are in an established rhythm I print them off 6 weeks at a time.

My oldest gets a weekly checklist he and I can write on. The younger three have theirs laminated or in a plastic sleeve and we use a dry erase marker to mark their subjects off as they are completed.

Last year’s weekly checklist is a great starting point for planning the upcoming year. Many of the subjects will be repeated like math, English, spelling, penmanship, writing, piano, Latin, etc.

#2 Plug-in known resources

I copy last year’s spreadsheet into a new one for the upcoming school year. Just do this by saving it with a new name, “2019-2020 School” becomes “2020-2021 School.”

I go subject by subject and determine what curriculum I already know we will be using.

Many curriculum are just a continuation of a series: Abeka Math (for my younger kids), Latin for Children, Institute in Excellence in Writing (for writing), Seton English, Seton Spelling, etc.

By now I know what works for our family so these core subjects don’t change much year to year.

I don’t have to recreate the wheel, just fill in a few changes.

I use a sheet separate from my child’s checklist within the spreadsheet document to list the curriculum to be used for each subject.

When I’m done plugging in known curriculum, there are usually only one or two subjects that need to be decided and the whole task of planning our homeschool year becomes a lot less overwhelming.

#3 Check Scope and Sequence

If you don’t have a family scope and sequence, it will initially take some time to create, but the benefits far outweigh the work.

Husband and I like to have a long range view of our homeschool. It helps us weed out non-essential subjects, know what will be covered when, and also gives us some peace of mind.

Not only do I list subjects to cover year-by-year but I also list possible curricula. This may be curricula we know works or some we’re interested in researching when the time comes.

The scope and sequence is a great place to note curriculum you may be interested in using one day; either curriculum you’ve seen online or heard about from a friend.

A scope and sequence is not set in stone, so we do edit it now and then. And we don’t force our kids in a box. Some of my kids are in 4th grade in one subject and 2nd in another. But the scope and sequence provides a great jumping off point for homeschool planning.

Is it absolutely necessary? No, but I think you may find it helpful, especially if you like to have a long range view of your school or stress about how you are ever going to get your child all the way through 12th grade!

I take a quick look at the scope and sequence and note:

New subjects to study this year?
Curriculum suggestions for undecided subject

For instance, this year, my oldest will begin formal study of science and I had noted Apologia science as a possible curriculum.

Create your own scope and sequence here

#4 Note what Needs to be Decided

Once I’ve updated their weekly checklist with new courses and curriculum, it is time to notice the “holes.”

I make a list of what subjects’ curriculum need to be finalized. I may have a couple options to choose from and I need to research them both to see what will be a better fit. I’ll make note of that too!

#5 Relax, Reflect, and Research

You may have a bit of reading or researching to do if you have some curriculum decisions to make.

Try to narrow your choices down to 2-3 and then step away from the actual planning process for a bit.

Visit the publisher’s website and (hopefully) view samples. Or maybe you have a friend who uses it and will let you have a look.

#6 What Works (and doesn’t)

It isn’t just about finding an AMAZING homeschool curriculum, it is also about finding what works and doesn’t work for you!

After wasting good money on unused curriculum, I know our homeschool works best using grab and go, rigorous, sequential, and testable curriculum.

I’ve learned to go with material that fits those criteria and I don’t have to agonize over a the trendy curriculum that just won’t work for our family.

If a curriculum requires tons of teacher time (my time), lots of preparation, or lots of little pieces, it is not something we will likely use.

An imperfect curriculum that gets used consistently is infinitely better than the perfect one that sits on the shelf or is used inconsistently.

No matter how shiny a curriculum is, if it doesn’t fit the bill, out it goes!

You can find out more about what I look for in a curriculum to keep our homeschool running smoothly here:

10 Criteria for Choosing Curriculum

#7 Decide and wait

At some point, you are going to have to make a decision on what is the best curriculum for you.

I find Husband to be infinitely helpful if I’m torn between two curricula. I often review my curriculum choices with him and we discuss their pros and cons.

Usually just talking it through helps clear my head and helps me see the right choice.

I plug my decisions into my curriculum list and then…wait.

Don’t order just yet. It is important to let the dust settle on our plans before we place our hard earned money in someone else’s hands.

#8 Get Real

Allowing the dust to settle helps me get real about my plans. Are they workable?

I think most homeschoolers can be grandiose in their planning. We overestimate the time and energy we and our children will have to devote to scheduled studies.

Once I create our homeschool plan I reflect on whether I can consistently accomplish that plan.

If not, then I might need to toss out a subject or curriculum that is non-essential.

We want to complete what we set out to do as this creates a habit of fortitude in our children. If we are constantly throwing our plans away day after day, the plan is not workable and having it on our child’s to do list and not completing it may be causing more harm than good!

#9 Order, Unbox, Schedule

At some point I order the materials I need for the year ahead. It’s always so exciting to unbox those shiny new books, isn’t it?

When the curriculum arrives, I take time to peruse it, noting number of lessons, suggested teaching schedules, preparation needed before the year starts, and length of lessons.

Again, I choose curriculum which has minimal prep!

Then I figure out how to plug that curriculum into my weekly checklist- 1 schedule 1 lesson/week, 1 page/day, 10 pages to be read each week?

Are there tests to tear out? An answer key to bind? Directions I need to write in?