Y’all, being a homeschooling parent is serious business and not at all for the faint of heart! Here are a few tips to help you plan your homeschool year.
Creating your own schedule or routine that works for your family’s particular needs is a delicate balancing act and definitely worth taking a look at!
I have spent months perusing YouTube videos of fellow homeschooling mamas, searching Pinterest, and even signed up for a full homeschooling course (The Art Of Home Education by Angela Braniff which I highly recommend!) in an effort to prepare myself a little better for this school year.
I have to remind myself regularly that the pros of this lifestyle far outweigh the cons and all of the preparation is so worth it. Coming from someone who actually loves planning, I think this says quite a lot about how daunting this task can feel. I mean, I have 3 paper planners for this year alone! My favorite is definitely my Block Schedule – Productivity planner from Jordan Page.
One of the questions I get asked the most about homeschooling:
How do I plan our year to include ALL the things we want to do?!
Simple answer: with a ton of flexibility and low expectations.
But seriously, here are a few things I like to review at the beginning of my planning sessions to make sure I cover my basics first.
- How do I know what my kid needs to learn to stay “on track”? Do I still care about this or should we do more child led learning this year?
- What curriculum will we use (if any)?
- Will we follow the public school calendar?
- How do I plan out our daily tasks? Block scheduling? Loop scheduling? Some fun hybrid type of eclectic do it your own way scheduling? The options here are truly vast and will be totally unique to your family’s needs and wants.
- Will we have a co-op or field trip schedule? What extras do I want to include this school year?
My primary goal while I plan for this school year, is to make the year as well laid out as possible, while also allowing a natural flow to happen in our days. I won’t lie, planning in such a capacity for me can be overwhelming because I seriously just want to DO IT ALL. I get so excited/distracted seeing all the new curriculums or popular read aloud options. There is just not enough time in the day/month/year for all the things I wish to do with my kiddos!
Deciding What To Study During Your Homeschool Year
The first thing I did to begin the process of planning for our homeschool year was spend months looking at curriculums for my daughter’s grade level. Seriously, I started early and it probably took me 2 months to really narrow down curriculum options that I liked. If you’re in these early planning stages I highly suggest YouTube reviews or Cathy Duffy’s Website.
Then I compared what the public school “standards” were for her grade level and compared this information with my choice curriculum options. For the most part, there was general continuity in what the curriculum options covered compared to the public school standards. Some options did vary a bit between 1 or 2 grade levels but overall, it really confirmed the general direction that our year needed to work towards.
All this info in hand, I created a list of study topics and options – way more than we would have time for in a year – for my daughter to look at and pick her favorites! After all, that’s one of the perks right? She chose 5 favorites and I went to work!
Plan Your Homeschool Curriculum or Curriculums (yes you can use more than one!!)
With our list of study topics and a general idea of what we needed to cover this year, I went to work weeding out the best curriculum options for my kiddo. Keep in mind your child’s learning style, how much guidance they will need from the curriculum itself or from parental involvement. Are your kids getting older now and need a little more independence? Or are you still navigating the early years with more parental involvement and hand holding?
Be realistic with your time and options here. If you’re about to have a new baby in the house for example, it may be wise to look for a more self guided curriculum or even an online option to help keep you and your kiddos on track with a little less pressure on mom. Don’t overcommit to a strenuous schedule! Be realistic as you plan out your homeschool year.
Our Yearly Schedule
That said, I’ve decided to go in a different direction with our school year schedule for 2022-23. We will be implementing a version of year round schooling, sometimes referred to as Sabbath schedule. Now, this has absolutely nothing to do with religion (we are secular homeschoolers) despite it’s nickname. It means we will be schooling with a 6 weeks on, 1 week off approach. To me, this seemed to be the best option to be able to fit in all the fun unit studies and extra topics we wanted to cover. Plus, the 1 week break in between will be great for overall morale and give me a chance to plan the next 6 weeks. This means we typically don’t follow the public school system’s schedule for our year. Obviously, holidays off will be similar but overall, we kind of do our own thing and plan around our lifestyle. Flexibility is one of the major perks – use it!
Daily Tasks
This is a big thing to consider when you plan your homeschool year. We do things pretty loosely around here when it comes to daily tasks. My daughter is a little older now and I want her to be able to take charge and go at her own pace while also learning to manage her time wisely. I provide a general “to do” list on our white board for the day with boxes to check off next to each item.
We do family learning first (read alouds or anything that the toddler can be present for without being too much of a distraction), then I hand the reigns over to her for the most part. Of course I’m always present to answer questions and help when needed but for the most part she’s pretty independent. So far this is working for us but we’ll make adjustments when/if they are needed as we go.
If she has a fun project to work on, or if she needs a little extra guidance with certain subjects or lessons, we’ll save those for when the toddler is down for her nap. We can then tackle what needs doing together so we can focus on the task at hand. Overall the day typically goes pretty smoothly and she sometimes finishes before noon. Yeah!
Extra Curriculars
Don’t forget about the fun stuff when you plan out your homeschool year! I try to squeeze in field trips at least once a month that relate to what we’re learning. We have a membership at our local science museum so we head there often ! We also have a once weekly homeschool PE class that we attend which has proved to be tons of fun.
I had no idea there were so many homeschooling families in our area, so that was very refreshing to see. Otherwise, we are pretty content with hanging out at home. We spend a lot of our time outside when the weather permits so it doesn’t get too stuffy being home all the time.
So there you have it! I hope this has answered some of your questions about how to plan for your homeschool year if you’re new or considering homeschooling for your family. If you have any other questions, just ask!
Olivia
*Disclaimer: This is our first year where I've had the time to fully plan how I wanted our day/week/year to flow. I expect things to change a bit as we move through the school year and discover what is working for us and what is not! Don’t be afraid to fine tune things to better suit your needs. :)
