Planning Your Homeschool Year in 6 Easy Steps

One of the first steps in getting ready for your new year of homeschooling is putting together a plan of action. When you are just beginning (and even if you are a veteran), this part can be somewhat overwhelming. Here are 6 steps to successfully planning your homeschool year.

Planning Your Homeschool Year: Step 1. Schedule Your School Year.

To start your planning off, you get to decide what your school year is going to look like. Do you want to follow the traditional school year of September through June? Do you want to school year round? Do you want to do a 6 weeks on, 1 week off schedule? 4 day weeks?

Some things to remember as you think about this:

• Does your province / state require you to have a specific number of days in your year?
• Do you want to take time off for holidays, special days, or vacation?
• Flexibility is important – so make sure that you leave some extra spaces for catch up days or just relaxing.

Planning Your Homeschool Year: Step 2. What Will You Learn This Year?

Before jumping into the deep end and start searching for curriculum, it is important to have an idea of what subjects or topics you want to cover in the year.

• What core subjects do you want to include – Math, English, Science, History/Geography?
• What extra topics would you like to include? A second language? Computer programming? Home Ec?
• What personal goals do you have for your child or do they have for themselves this year? What do you want ot see them accomplish?

There are lots of options. Remember, you don’t have to do EVERYTHING. Talk to your kids about what they would like to learn, decide what this year is going to be all about, and then work from there.

Planning Your Homeschool Year: Step 3. Pick Curriculum / Make Your Unit Study.

Now you get to take those subjects and put together the resources that you are going to cover in the year.

Whether that is by finding a curriculum that is all set and ready to use, mixing and matching materials, or creating your own – it’s time to decide how you are going to teach your child(ren) this year.

Search around until you find something that matches your ideas and goals for the year, your child’s learning style, and your personal teaching preference. Once you have a particular product in mind, you can search for it on sale – make sure you check used homeschool book stores and swap groups for some good deals.

If you are going to make it yourself, put together your outline and find the resources that you need – whether that’s videos, worksheets, crafts, fiction and non-fiction books, music….. get it all set and ready to go. {Here’s a free unit study planner, to make it easy to put one together!}

Honestly, this step is probably the most labour intensive part of the whole process. With so many products and resources easily available, it can be quite time-consuming to find the best one for you and your child. Take the time you need, don’t get pressured into picking something with haste. Read reviews, look at samples, watch tutorials, ask your friends to look at their copies, post questions in forums and groups, and most of all… be prepared that even if you spend a long time picking what you think will be perfect there is a very real possibility that it won’t work as you thought it would. (And that’s ok!)

Planning Your Homeschool Year: Step 4. Get a Planner System.

Now that you know the what and how you are going to be teaching / learning this year, it’s time to zoom in from the big picture into more detailed look. Having some kind of overall planning tool is helpful for this. You can choose from a good old-fashioned pencil and paper planner or a digital method like a spreadsheet or official software. It’s all about your personal preference.

I like to use a paper planner and pencil the best because I can erase things when needed, happily check things off when we are done them, and carry it around my house as we go. I can quickly reference it when needed and love being able to see everything at a glance. If I try to do things digitally, then I find I too quickly get distracted and wander off to Facebook or email instead of focusing on school. So the paper system works works best for me.

Planning Your Homeschool Year: Step 5. Add the Plan.

Now you simply need to put the plan into your planner.

I like to plan my whole homeschool year in one go and then allow it to flex and slide as needed as the year progresses. Here is how I do it.

Some advice:

• Remember that you don’t have to do every subject every day – you can do your homeschool as you’d like.
• Most planners work on a Monday – Friday approach, but I personally like to just number my days so that if we miss a day, we just move to whatever number day is next instead of feeling that we are all mixed up because we’re doing Friday work on a Monday.
• Some curricula are designed with an example outline inside. If you want to follow their model, you can just copy the plan right into the appropriate boxes and you are good to go. If you designed a study on your own, just put in what you are doing when.

Once you have everything in the planner and can see at a glance what you are going to do each day, you are done!

Planning Your Homeschool Year: Step 6. Give a Copy to the Kids.

Kids like to know what they are up to every day – so you can share the plan with them by simply writing the outline for the day on a whiteboard, giving them a daily work checklist, or even a student planner. That way they can be in control of making sure they successfully finish their work for the day and can even maybe work independently.

And with that – you are all set! Put all your books and papers and planners together in a place and you have successfully finished planning your homeschool year! You are all set to go!

Happy Learning!

This is day 9 of my Homeschooling 101 Blog Party!  I’m so glad you are here! Stay tuned because we have more veteran homeschool moms sharing their tips with you almost every day right here. Oh and don’t forget to enter the HUGE giveaways and join the exclusive Facebook group to chat it up with our bloggers, ask questions and just be a part of our amazing and growing community!

Lisa Fletcher

Lisa Marie is a mom of 5 busy kids ranging from 2 to 13. She started her site, The Canadian Homeschooler, when she realized that it wasn’t easy to find Canadian resources. Today, her mission is to support her community by helping them connect with each other and with the resources they need on their journey.