Homeschool Planning – A How to Guide

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Homeschool planning for the upcoming school year can seem like one of those projects where you just don’t know where to start.

But I can tell you from experience, having all of your lesson planning completed at the beginning of the school year is such a great feeling. 

Some people, myself included up until a few years ago, plan as they go. While that may feel carefree, I can tell you knowing what you’ll be teaching and having an outline of it all to look at, at-a-glance is even more freeing. 

It allows you to really enjoy your homeschool days and be present with your kiddos. I have come up with some helpful tips to help you keep yourself organized and maybe even help you learn to enjoy the process! 

Decide on the basics

If you haven’t already, check out this post I wrote on how to get started homeschooling.

I compiled everything I needed (and wished I had had all in one place) when I was just starting out as a new to homeschool mama.

Once you have the basics figured out, homeschool planning will go that much easier.

Figuring out what your homeschool philosophy will be (classical style, Charlotte Mason, Montessori, unschooling – so many styles!), what you want your days to look like and even coming up with a mission for your homeschool is all incredibly helpful in the beginning.

I wrote about some of the different homeschool styles here if you’re curious about them. While these things may change, they are likely to be pretty constant even as your children grow. 

Choosing curriculum is one aspect of planning that will change with each year. Researching what curriculum will work best for your family can be time consuming, but there are so many helpful reviews online.

A favorite, and my personal go-to for all things curriculum review related is Cathy Duffy reviews. She is a curriculum specialist with years of experience reviewing curriculum for all grade levels.

How to plan

Once you have all your curriculum chosen, the next step is to figure out how you want to do your homeschool planning. This is where the overwhelmed feelings can set in but don’t worry it’s easier than it seems! 

Paper vs digital

Some people, like me, are the pen and paper type. Some prefer to do all their planning digitally. And some may even do best with a combination of the two. There is not one best way. Whatever way works best for you is the BEST one!

Check your curriculum

After you’ve decided on how you want to plan, you can start with taking a look at all of the teacher manuals that go along with each of your child’s subjects.

Getting an idea of what the lessons will look like will help you with your homeschool planning. 

Some teacher manuals will most likely come with lesson plans all laid out for you, which makes it a bit easier on you.

Remember you don’t need to stick to the exact plans, but it’s still a good idea to give them a once over to see if you like the flow.

If your child will mainly be working out of workbooks, or if the lessons are numbered, this will help you too with planning. 

Decide on your school days

The next step in your homeschool planning is deciding on what your school days will be.

Will you follow the traditional M-F, September to June schedule? Or will you opt for 4 days a week with Fridays for field trips or for visiting family?

Do you like the idea of year round school with frequent breaks throughout the year instead of the traditional summer months off from structured learning? 

Be flexible

Once you have that figured out, you will then want to account for time for other things that may come up.

Allow time for days off for vacations you may have planned, if you’re planning a move while you’ll be schooling, or if you’re expecting a baby.

Keep in mind there will also be days where you all just need a day off, or for when someone isn’t feeling well. 

As long as you are teaching the number of days required by your state, you can be flexible with your schedule.

This is good to keep in mind when you’re getting around to actually planning your lessons.

Start with the basics

Starting your homeschool planning with the basics, or core subjects helps a lot.

Basics or core subjects are usually math and language arts no matter what the grade level you are teaching. 

These are typically completed every day you do school, so setting them first on the schedule makes it easier to figure out where to place the other subjects. 

Decide on other weekly subjects

Next, list out all of the subjects you will teach each child. You can do this on paper or the computer, but having a visual will help with your scheduling. 

Look at each subject and see how many lessons there are.

Take the number of weekly lessons – divide the number of weekly lessons by the number of weeks you will be teaching. This will show you how many days you will teach each subject, per week. 

For subjects like history, science, art, foreign language, music etc. this will work very well. 

Create a schedule

Now that you have your lessons broken down into how many days you will teach them, it’s time to create a schedule. 

A really good thing to remember here is to not plan for set dates for work to be completed by.

Instead, plan for a set number of lessons to be completed by the end of the year. This helps with those extra unaccounted days I mentioned earlier.

You can easily see what lessons need to be added in if you need to move things around because of a day off. 

I have created a simple Excel sheet for my children with a sort of block scheduling in place. Each child has a column, and then I have each of their subjects listed below. 

I have color coded “blocks” of time, although I don’t have an actual time next to them, just allocated time to work with each child. 

White boxes are for subjects they are able to work independently (handwriting, vocabulary, reading comprehension etc.). 

Yellow highlighted boxes are for subjects that they will need my assistance with like math, reading, grammar.

Finally, blue highlighted boxes are for subjects we work on together like history, geography, science etc. 

I also include a day of the week by each subject. For instance, “keyboarding M & W”. Having this visual helps me so much to see what will be done each day of the week. 

Organizing your lesson plans

Now that you have an idea of what lessons will need to be completed, and on what days you’ll do each subject, you can create your lesson plans. 

This is where the actual planning part of homeschool planning happens!

Again, paper or digital for planning is personal preference. If you choose paper, make sure to use a pencil and not a fancy pen, ask me how I know this tip haha!

I have tried out many planners over the years but have stuck with this one the past 3 years and will be ordering one for this upcoming school year.

It’s simple and has plenty of room to write daily plans & activities but also has nice monthly at a glance pages which I love. And it’s pretty and not pricey 🙂

Planning the number of weeks you’ll be completing school work ahead of time, as mentioned above, will help make this so easy. 

Simply plan week 1 and so on, for each week, for each child and list the lessons they will need to complete.

This can be a handwritten list you highlight as the work is completed or a document you create with a checkbox next to each subject to track what has been completed. 

Below you’ll see a free printable I discovered a few years ago which is an awesome visual way to keep track of your child’s completed daily work.

If you used your computer to create your plans, print off only a week or two at a time.

This allows you to edit the upcoming weeks if needed. You can keep the completed weeks in a binder for easy reference if needed when it comes to homeschool evaluation time. 

High five!

You did it!

You lesson planned – whew! Homeschool planning is a lot of work, but once you find a groove each year will be easier. I promise!

Having an idea of what works for you will make it all fall into place over time. 

I hope this post was helpful for you. As I always say, these are just some ideas to guide you along the process, but do what works best for you!  Now go take a nap 😉