I’m a planner. I LOVE planning, organizing, and details. I do NOT however enjoy planning parties. Don’t ask me. It’s like the seventh circle of hell for me. I get anxiety just thinking about being asked to plan any kind of shower or party. I will happily help out (decorate or make a pretty salad)…just don’t ask me to plan it. Having four kids’ birthdays in the span of 30 days is always rough, which is why we don’t do parties every year. Ok, with that out of the way… on to home school planning. How do I easily lay out a feast of learning in our home school?
Types of Planning
I don’t think there is any wrong or right way to plan. You have to do what works best for you and your family. Some don’t plan at all, but let the interests of their kids dictate what gets done. Some “plan from behind” and write down what they accomplish after they’ve done it. Some plan a little bit ahead and do a week at a time. Some plan a little further ahead and do a month or more at a time. Some plan a year at a time. You just gotta do you, boo. Whatever makes you happy and sane. Then there are the tools you use to plan. Some choose to use a simple, lined spiral notebook. Some use bullet journals and create their own systems. Some choose to purchase a beautiful, pre-made planner with all the bells and whistles. Again, there is no right way, you just need to use what works for you.
This is our fifth year and each year I make small changes in regards to how I plan out our year. I currently choose to plan a week at a time, while looking a couple weeks ahead to prepare in regards to science, history, and the arts. Each year looks a little different as we are learning our home school style and making tweaks along the way. The beauty of home learning, am I right?? Stick around to the end and I will share where you can get a hold of my planning pieces!
Planning Week-by-Week
Each weekend I look at the week ahead and at what I would like to accomplish with the kids. If we don’t get to everything that week, it’s totally fine, but I plan out a general guide for the week. Sometimes I start this the Friday before, but a lot of times I don’t get to it until the weekend. I write everything down in pencil, because we rarely do everything I plan, every day I plan it for. Flexibility is the name of the game! Now, I will say, I do try to look a week or two ahead for science and social studies in case I need to check out particular books from the library. I will get to that later.
Subjects
Math
I tend to write out math lessons first because it is literally just moving through the lessons each week. Sometimes we do a lesson a day in the case of my 4th grader (Teaching Textbooks), and a lesson a week in the case of my 2nd grader (Math-U-See). If we need to slow the pace down a bit, we do. If they are moving right along, we move right along! With my kindergartener joining in this year more intentionally, we will probably just see how that goes at first. She will also be using Math-U-See. You can see all of our math picks for the year here (4th) here (2nd), and here (kindergarten).
Writing
For now each of my school-aged children have their own handwriting book from either The Good and the Beautiful or Dash Into Learning. I try to keep them to one page or less a day so that they can focus on neatness and accuracy. They have other writing assignments for various things like scripture memory copy work, book reports/author studies, and creative writing incorporated into their language arts/reading. So this doesn’t necessarily need planned per se.
Reading/Other Language Arts
My 2nd grader will be starting All About Reading Level 3 this year. We’ve typically done a lesson a day, and sometimes if I feel she is tiring in the middle of a lesson, we break it up over two days. I initially plan for one a day, and make adjustments as necessary through the week. She also does a few pages a day (about a lesson a week) in her Explode the Code books for additional phonics review. She loves them! My kindergartener will be doing some of these books as well.
Speaking of my kindergartener, you can see what I’ve got picked out for her in the curriculum post, but planning for her will just be about learning the pace she will be able to take once we get started. So I’ll have to follow up if you’re interested.
My 4th grader is finishing up The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level 3 from his 3rd grade year. We will start Level 4 after that. He does a lesson a day. He also spends a lot of time reading books that we have checked out from the library (the Redwall Series is his current favorite), re-reading books he loves, listening to audio books, and listening to various read-alouds we are doing in conjunction with social studies or otherwise. We have a couple other language arts things that we use and these generally take a few minutes to accomplish everyday (All About Spelling for my 2nd grader and Wordly Wise for my 4th grader).
Science
As for science this year, we will be using a new-to-us curriculum, so it’s going to take some time to figure out exactly how I plan that out. We are using Sassafras, and you can read more about that choice here. I think we will still stick to doing science two days a week like we have typically done though. We will also have a nature study element to our week while using Treehouse Schoolhouse’s Nature Study curriculum! I look a week or two ahead and make sure that I have all of the necessary recipe ingredients, craft materials, or activity items on hand. I also will check out books ahead of time so that I’m not scrambling last minute. I talk about this more below.
I have mentioned before, and in the post referenced above, that I like to blend our science and social studies as much as I can so those are planned to be cohesive as much as possible.
Social Studies
For the past four years, we have used Story of the World for our social studies core. There are four volumes, and it’s time to move on to something else for a while. I talk about what we are doing this year in this post, but the short of it is, we will be doing multicultural studies with Little World Wanderers and Thistles & Biscuits units! I do tend to look ahead a week or two for social studies because of making sure I have the available resources from the library in time. I reserve my books ahead of time, sometimes a week or two out. It has been super helpful to use my library as a resource this way. As with science, I also look a week or two ahead to make sure we have the necessary craft, activity, or recipe materials on hand.
Morning Time + Extras
Before getting into the topics below, we typically start our school mornings off with our Bible time and morning menu which consists of some calendar time, weather discussions, address and phone number review, and maybe a current hymn that we are learning. The contents of this morning menu change depending on my mood. ha! We are currently using Treehouse Schoolhouse’s Morning Time Bundle as a part of our menu. We also use the daily rhythm pack and it’s been a great addition to our home! Alright, continuing on!
Bible
We use a variety of resources for our Bible time. I have an assortment of children’s bibles and devotionals. We especially love Jesus Storybook Bible, Leading Little Ones to God, Indescribable and How Great Is Our God. I think this year we may try pulling in Cold Case Christianity for Kids, The Ology, and my Egermeier’s Bible Story Book from my childhood (they even have a beginner’s version for younger kids).
Art, Music, Poetry + Nature Study
As part of our beautiful feast of learning every week, I like to incorporate some art, music, poetry, and nature study. This year we will be doing our own thing until September, when we will then start Treehouse Nature Study: Autumn from Treehouse Schoolhouse (this is designed to start in September). Are we sensing a theme here with my resources? ha! I talk more about this curriculum in this post. This is all laid out so beautifully already, so I just follow along and I don’t have to really “plan” too much ahead of time. Like with science and social studies, I just look a week or two ahead and make sure I have everything on hand that we will need. If you chose to purchase anything from Treehouse Schoolhouse, I have a 10% off code you can use! Use THEWHISPERINGGLEN10!
Happy Planning!
I know that all seems like a lot, but it isn’t when you boil it down to what I am actually doing. The regular subjects take me no time at all to write down for the coming week. The subjects that take the most actual planning and thought are social studies, science, and the arts. A quick library, Pinterest, or Google search can produce all the resources you need, and most of those are free! I’m still learning and growing on this journey of home education, and I’m sure that I will make many changes and tweaks to our environment, process, and form. In reality, I don’t always get to all the things I want to do in a week. I’m ok with that though. It’s just a guide, but the week sometimes takes a different turn. I’m learning to be okay with that in this season. I hope that this was helpful to you in some way! I’ve included some materials I like to use for planning on my favorites page as well. Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions about how I plan, or if you are looking for ideas or specific resources. I love sharing about things I have learned along the way. Also, please feel free to share with ME! I love learning about new things we can use in our home school too!
Need A Simple Planner?
I don’t particularly like overly complicated planners. I just need something that’s easy to use, maintain, and that doesn’t make me feel inadequate if I don’t fill out all the boxes. Feel me? If you are like me, and prefer simplified planning, but still want something beautiful, I’ve got you covered! I have once again re-released my planner product this year! Head over to my shop and check out my simple Customizable Homeschool Planner (there are three editions available)! Easy on the printer ink and just the basics. Check out the product listings for all the details!
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