Today I am going to share with you a step by step way to map out your homeschool year with a DIY (do it yourself) curriculum planner. You are more than welcome to grab a blank piece of paper and pen and jump right in, or you can purchase the homeschool curriculum planner I’ve made right here, download and print! I have also linked a list of resources I have used for homeschool planning and inspiration at the end of this blog. Please feel free to save this post for later and refer back to it if needed!
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WHY PLANNING CAN BENEFIT YOUR HOMESCHOOL
There is so much value that comes from intentionally putting in the time and energy to map out our year, curriculum, books, and supplies. In my experience, the year will go so much more smoothly and my future self is so thankful on the days when I just don’t have the energy to plan our lessons out. It’ll already be right there for me to grab and go. This especially is true if you want to incorporate more read alouds, and unit studies. Having the time beforehand to plan it all out, print materials, or note how many days it might take you to read a certain book really does pay off when you’re in the thick of your homeschool season.
SO WHERE DO I BEGIN?
I like to reflect back on our previous school year and take note of the things that worked really well for my family, and also note what didn’t work. “Where did I see my children flourishing most? What subjects do they just want to sit and spend most of their time in? Where, perhaps, are we lacking? Where can I help foster more of an interest, a wonder in my children’s hearts?” As I wrote down my vision and prayers for our next school year and pondered on my own ‘why’ for our home education, as both teacher and loving mother, this time becomes a much needed heart check where the Lord aligns my ‘why’ with His.
TO THE NEW HOMESCHOOL MAMA
If this is your first year homeschooling, I’d encourage you to take a moment and write down what your vision is for the year and goals you may want to accomplish with your children. Maybe it’s as simple as helping them to enjoy reading! It is also helpful to check your state’s homeschooling requirements so that you can organize what you’ll need to submit to your state (if anything) later on. You can see that information at the HSLDA website here! Just search your state and you’ll find what you need.
PICK A FIRST AND LAST DAY OF YOUR SCHOOL YEAR
In a previous blog, I wrote about how we made the decision to homeschool year round, meaning, we will start earlier in the year than traditional schools. You can read more detail about that decision here! Our hope for this new schedule change is that our breaks can be taken during more convenient times for my family. Instead of a typical summer break, we are doing school during part of the Summer so that we can take off time when the weather is more appealing for outdoor activities that my family enjoys together such as camping, and fishing. We will also be able to take off more time around important holidays like Christmas, birthdays and Easter.
With that said, once I picked the dates I wanted for our breaks, I worked our formal homeschool schedule to fill in the gaps. I’ve concluded we will have 36 weeks of school, broken down in three terms.
CHOOSE YOUR CURRICULUM
Now for the fun part! Remember when I said to first take time to reflect on your previous homeschool year? This is where that comes in handy, in my personal opinion. If you used a curriculum last year, you might just stick with it again this year, especially if your children were thriving while using it. Maybe you are questioning what other curriculum are out there and you want to try something new? Do you have a budget you’d like to stick to? Do you have multiple kids? What subjects can you all be learning together? What curriculum offers that diverse learning for multiple ages/grades? Do you even need a curriculum for that subject?
I like to make sure I give myself enough time to do my research, pick the curriculum and get my hands on it with enough time to go through it and plan out our weekly lessons. I also give myself enough time to gather materials, books, and any supplement resources so we’re ready to go on our first day of school. If you’re curious about our 1st grade curriculum picks for 2021-2022, you can read about it here!
As the year goes on, if I find a resource that I think we might enjoy, I like to write it into my future curriculum planning pages to refer back to when planning the next school year! It makes it so much easier to have it all in my curriculum planner, rather than scouring the internet trying to remember where I saw that resource or curriculum. There are always amazing resources popping up on social media, and in my email and it’s hard to keep up! This gives me a tangible way to note where, what it is and what the price is so I can come back to it when/if it’s really needed in our studies!
MAP OUT YOUR MAIN SUBJECTS, LOOP SUBJECTS AND CREATE A MASTER BOOKLIST
**Before we go any further, I have to add that although I do plan out our lessons on a weekly basis, some weeks and days just don’t work out the way it does on paper. I am constantly readjusting our week and I hope you feel a weight off your shoulders when I tell you that it’s completely normal and okay if you find yourself readjusting your lessons, curriculum or the structure of your homeschool more than once.**
MASTER BOOKLIST
What’s homeschool without those beloved booklists? One of our favorite ways to learn more richly about a subject is through books. With so many lovely living books to choose from, I know that means some serious time I get to put into creating booklists to reference back on in our homeschool year.
I have a booklist for each subject and I will note if it’ll be borrowed from the library or purchased. I’ll also note where to purchase, the cost (to include in my homeschool budget), and a date if I need to check out from the library to have it ready for the appropriate homeschool lesson.
I will add books throughout the year to our list or weekly reads, but this is important for me to organize any supplement reading as much as I can ahead of time (whether its for our curriculum, nature studies or for pure enjoyment) so I know when to have them out and ready for us to use.
Since so many of you have asked for me to share our personal booklists, I am hoping to share more booklists both on Instagram and here more frequently. You can always find my most recent booklists when you navigate to my menu at the top of the blog >> Lifestyle >> Books.
MAIN SUBJECTS AND LOOP SCHEDULING
I use this page from my curriculum planner to write out our main subjects, and loop subjects (a group of subjects that are only covered 1-2 days a week) and their frequencies in a week’s time. Loop subjects for us include art study, composer study, nature study and natural history. I’ve learned to really love looping our subjects because we get to cover new material more frequently without feeling overwhelmed to cover each subject each day. You could technically include Early American History into our loop subjects, but because it’s part of our main curriculum, I kept it as so. The goal here is to make it custom to your own homeschool, and there’s no wrong or right way in using this DIY curriculum planner.
For the main curriculum, it’s helpful for me to visualize what days we will cover what. For example, since we are using a boxed curriculum for math and language arts, it was helpful for me to map out what days of the week worked best for covering the material in the year-round schedule that we have in place. I was then able to stagger the less frequent subjects of our main curriculum such as science and geography so that our days don’t get too overwhelming. If for any reason we miss a day or two (because that life happens), Fridays are left open for any lessons we want to finish.
MAP OUT THE FIRST WEEKLY LESSON PLAN
Once I have the curriculum in hand, I spend some time writing out a weekly lesson plan so that I can visually see what a week’s worth of our lessons could look like altogether. I also want to make sure there are gaps in the day to fill with field trips, special lunch dates, and anything else that might come up if we need it. I love the flexibility in a weekly plan!
Each week looks different and I think that’s what makes our homeschool thrive. Some days we will pack our lesson books and head outside. Other days we’ll stay in mama’s bed and read all the books. However, having a weekly plan, writing out the number of lessons to aim for in a week, helps keep a busy mama on track, organized and overall, more present during the homeschool day instead of hustling and becoming overwhelmed. On those days however, I’ve learned that it’s best to pause the formal school lessons, grab some book to cuddle up and read together (or independently if your have children who can read), or head outside and explore for the day. It’s completely acceptable and almost always needed to have those kind of days.
After I’ve walked through these steps, I find that I am more at peace with jumping into a new homeschool year. I eliminate the stress of planning on the spot, and can feel confident knowing that I’ve selected the best resources for my children’s home education, because I’ve intentionally put in the time, prayer, and research for our year.
PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND, SWEET FRIEND
You, mama, know what is best for your children. You were called to do this. You’re qualified. You, as mama and teacher, are going to set the tone for your homeschool year, and it’s important that we plan the best we can for our children’s sake.
Below are some of the homeschool resources I’ve used and love while planning!
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