I like to look at homeschool lesson planning as the parts instead of looking at the whole, break it all down into easier bite size pieces. Organized homeschool lesson planning is better done bit by bit for me, and for anyone that might get overwhelmed by the idea of planning for the year. You can also look at getting a curriculum that is all planned out for you!
Organized Homeschool Lesson Planning
This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.
Getting organized for the beginning of the year is not an easy feat, it is not easy to stay organized and ahead of the game for the whole year. I do things a little differently than some other homeschoolers may because I don’t look at the year as a whole so much.
DIY or Done for You
Over the last couple years I have been using BookShark and they have the planning done for me right done to each day of the week. But that is only for a few of our subjects, for the rest I still have to figure out what we are doing and when.
For example: RightStart Math is one of those that I plan myself. X amount of lessons in total divided by the number of weeks of school we’ll be doing, in our case 36 weeks. This gives me an idea of how many lessons we need to cover each week, then each day. I’ll be doing the same thing for other subjects and/or topics that we are studying.
Alphabet Letter of the Week
Monthly Lesson Planning
At the beginning of each month I sit down and plan, in pencil, for that month. Some of things that I am looking at and doing are:
- seeing if we are staying on track – how many lessons are completed compared to how many need to be completed still
- plan any science experiments we want to do
- request books from the library for the month
- more their worksheets into their binders and anything I want to keep to their portfolios
I also like to look through our history books in particular for things that we might want to try our hand at doing, like this hieroglyphs craft that we did last year. They still remember that history lesson, so I like to plan at least two or three of these extra hands on learning activities a month.
I’m a paper planner gal, I like to write with the pretty colored pencils, because they can be erased if something needs to change. I love using washi tape and stickers to make my planner pretty and unique to me. Which is why I use a Happy Planner.
Maybe you prefer to have your planning online where you can access it from anywhere. I wish I could use this method more, or I should say, I wish I would stick to this. Homeschool planet has a great planner you should check out. You can get a 30 day trial to test it out. You can learn more about it in my review of it. I really did like it, I just love paper planners too much to stick with digital.
Daily Homeschool Lesson Planning
Some days we’re not feeling the work planned and just need to take a break and relax, or find a different way to learn the subject topic. Watching documentaries or heading to the library to find new books on that topic are some of our favorite ways to learn without doing schoolwork.
It gives us a little break, changes the learning medium and can just be plain fun. I would rather we all be learning about something different than learning about nothing at all.
Start your homeschool lesson planning out small. Don’t go big and try to plan the whole year out right away. Something might happen that you can’t stick to that plan. Maybe you hate the curriculum that you choice.
Try not to stress too much. Ease into your school year. Let your kids set the pace for the first little while, and just add a little more in until you are getting what you want to accomplish done.
There is no wrong way to plan your homeschool lessons. Do what works for you even if that it figuring it one day at a time to start. Work your way to planning a week at a time, and then two weeks, or month.
Recommended Products for Homeschool Planning:
Similar posts that you may be interested in:
Getting Organized with A Happy Planner
Leave a Reply