How to plan your homeschool year: a guide

Watch how I plan our homeschool year!

There is great enjoyment living and learning alongside these 4 precious gifts God has given us.

It is lovely to take up the squeaky clean slate of a new homeschool year and begin planning. And this year, I’m taking you along.

Let’s chat about one of my favorite subjects, how to plan your homeschool year.

Planning a Homeschool Year

Develop course of study

Subjects

Sit down with a blank piece of paper and begin with a list of subjects you want your child to study in the coming year.

I find my life-saving scope and sequence to be a huge help with this step!

If I’m not sure about a particular subject, I write it down with a question mark next to it.

Will some subjects be done as a family? Plan those on a separate sheet.

Curriculum

As I jot down subjects, I also begin writing down curriculum we will be using or that I want to look into.

Example 1. We use Seton Spelling workbooks and I know if my student just completed Spelling 5, they will move onto Spelling 6.

Don’t try to fix something that isn’t broken. If a curriculum has worked well for you, stick with it!

Example 2. I’m torn between continuing Abeka math or switching to Saxon. I write them both down with a question mark nearby.

Example 3. I have no clue what to use for history, so I just put a question mark next to the subject.

For some subjects, you can simply check your bookshelves. If you’ve been homeschooling for sometime, you likely have materials for art, music, history, geography, and reading.

Know what curriculum works

I save so much time and worry in how I plan my homeschool year by knowing what works.

As I’m considering curriculum, I ask myself several questions

Is this easy to implement?
Is it easy to track progress?
Can it be done independently? If not, do I have time to help the student with this?
Is there enough practice for mastery? (It is easier to take away from rather than supplement a curriculum.)
What is the amount of prep time or instructional time?

Read a more thorough explanation in My 10 Criteria for Choosing Homeschool Curriculum/

Start a Spreadsheet for the Year

At some point I input my lists into a spreadsheet named (for example) “2018-2019 School,” because I can change/add things so much easier.

Our family’s scope and sequence comes in handy again. I can simple copy and paste the majority of our plans.

Developing your Own Scope and Sequence

EXAMPLE: Here is my future 6th grader’s course of study before discussing the coming summer/year with Husband. It will give you the basic idea of how I plan our homeschool year using a spreadsheet.

As you can see, this is a super basice, non-fancy spreadsheet!

I tentatively write in weekly days of instruction, materials, cost, and the approximate time it will take per day. Weekly days of instruction and daily work time help tremendously when I create our family schedule.

I show this paper to Husband when we meet to plan our homeschool year and he can quickly get the big picture.

Can you see the notes I made to facilitate our discussion? These are things I need to hash out with him or would like his input on.

Get input from the Homeschool Principal

I like to think of Husband as our homeschool principal. He is someone to bounce ideas off of, get disciplinary support from, receive accountability from, and the man who finances our homeschool voyage.

This may not work in your situation.

It is my belief that homeschools and homeschool mothers could be stronger with a great homeschool principal.

Take time going over each child’s plan of instruction with your husband.

Talk about curriculum and if you’ve ordered some materials, show them to him.

Ask him questions about how to implement curriculum, choosing between curriculums, or about troubleshooting last year’s problems.

Husband isn’t as familiar with homeschool curriculum, so I take some time to fill him in on the pros and cons of what I am trying to decide upon.

Jot down notes on your page as you discuss.

EXAMPLE: Husband and I discussed what we wanted Lowell’s writing program to look like and how that was going to work on a daily and weekly basis. We also discussed whether we thought History and Geography was important and whether those would be required subjects for the coming year (because that scope and sequence is a guide not a rule set in stone!).

Step by step guide on how to plan homeschool year

Further develop your homeschool plans.

I edit and add more detail to each child’s course of study based on Husband’s input. This is done quickly in my spreadsheet.

Here is a screenshot of my spreadsheet after discussing it with Husband and editing (you will see a few changes from above):

Go Shopping

Create a homeschool shopping list

What do you need to purchase?

curriculum
supplies (pencils, pens, paper, etc.)
equipment (computer, lab supplies, etc.)
crafts (to keep little hands busy)

Saving shipping and time. Order once.

After making my shopping list, I wait about a week or two before I order. Sometimes, I think of something I hadn’t before and waiting allows me to make changes before I put down my cash.

I may wait longer and see if I can pick up several items used on Facebook groups before buying new.

Plan your pace

Once I have all the materials in hand, I take some time going over them.

While I get pretty familiar with a curriculum before I purchase it, I still like to further consider:

How can the lessons be spread throughout the year (one a week?)
How much needs to be accomplished in a week?
How much time needs to be spent daily?

I note on the spreadsheet how many lessons or pages are in the book and a suggested weekly pace.

I take note of any further questions or discussion I want to have with Husband. (Love his wisdom and feedback!)

I don’t schedule out our weeks and plan for breaks. Instead, we start our full academic load at the beginning of August and take breaks only as needed.

Try as I might, I can’t plan for the unexpected.

We naturally take breaks because of life. There are things like Christian’s quarterly doctor’s appointments, when the house needs a deep clean, or when I just need a mental break.

Even so, we still wrap up our school year before the beginning of May. When summer comes, we continue to school Math, Reading, Writing, and any subjects that need remedial work.

Enjoy a laid back summer

I take a bit of a break planning at this point and focus on our summer school session and enjoying warmth and sunshine! (I’ve earned it after a good Midwestern winter!)

If I plan all the little details of our homeschool year in April, then I have to take time reanalyzing my plans come mid-July.

Instead, I plan a general course of study and order our materials in early spring and plan the details in mid-July.

This is especially helpful as you go about planning your daily schedule. If you plan it months in advance, little details may change that require you to remake the schedule anyways!

Plan your Homeschool Week

About two weeks before school starts, I begin developing a weekly plan for our homeschool and for how the house will function.

Our full homeschool schedule kicks in at the beginning of August, so I begin detailed planning mid-July.

I think of our homeschool as a whole. How does each child’s plan fit with the other kids plans?

How many days a week does each subject need to be done?
How much time will it take?
Do I want a light homeschool day each week so we can run errands/etc.?
Should we have one heavy day to get several subjects out of the way for the week?
Is art done altogether one day a week?
What outside activities/obligations need to be worked in?

Create a reusable checklist

This is the magic sauce that keeps me from planning for an hour every Sunday evening.

Let me show you what I mean using last year’s checklist:

This is done in the same spreadsheet with all our school plans for the year.

You can see the whole week’s lesson plan is almost completely created. The only subject that isn’t filled in is writing which we do together.

Plan on ironing out wrinkles in your checklist the first couple weeks. Once you have the checklist right, you can print off several weeks at a time.

My son knows to do the next lesson/test in Math, but if I know he needs practice in a specific topic, I write numbers of problems I want him to work in the lesson.

Make your weekly lesson plan checklist as self-propagating as possible.

Ways to schedule subjects

Read 10 pages
Do one lesson or test (a child can very simply do the next lesson and doesn’t often need to be told what lesson # it is!)
30 minutes of work
Do exercise A (on Monday), B (Tuesday), C (Wednesday), Test (Thursday)
Check syllabus. (You can make a syllabus for subjects that don’t lend themselves to the weekly checklist Here is an example of a syllabus I made for a religion course last year)

Develop a daily family schedule

I take all the information from my planning spreadsheets and begin ironing out what our days will actually look like.

Schedule a lot of buffer time

You won’t feel anxious and rushed during your days if you aren’t always trying to beat the clock.

Read more about developing a family schedule in this post: Habits, Routines, and Schedules-Oh My!

Ex. Our morning schedule from this spring

Implement your schedule and make small changes as needed.

Help homeschool planning flow more smoothly:

Teach independence as early as possible.
Use materials that lend themselves to independent study.
- These are textbooks, workbooks, curriculum with clear daily/weekly expectations.
- These types of curricula often get a bad rap, but I have found them to bring such peace to my homeschool!
Check in with independent learners on a daily and weekly basis.
- I work with Lowell every day (reviewing assignments, checking progress, discussing religion, and working on writing)
Say no to the flashy curriculum that that is hard to implement or requires a lot of teacher time

So that is how to plan your homeschool year!

I hope showing you a step by step break down of how to plan your homeschool year will give you a bit more time this summer.