One of the first things I learned in the teaching program in college was how to create and write out a detailed lesson plan. The goal, or at least what I believed the goal to be, was make the plans as detailed as possible so anyone could come in and teach the lesson. I’ve sort of used the same approach with my homeschooling plans. My goal was always for my kids to be able to read and understand their assignments.
Most people who choose to homeschool don’t have a clue how to design a lesson or how to write it out in the planner. I believe it can be one of the most intimidating parts of homeschooling. My hope here is to take away the fear and confusion. Please understand that this is just the way I do it, everyone is different and there isn’t a right or wrong way. You will develop your own style as you go along.
Most homeschool curriculum comes with a pre-printed schedule of when the author believes their subject should be taught. This is usually found in the beginning of the text or student workbook. I aways copy this for my weekly reference. Our bible, science, health, and Spanish are all set up this way. Most of the time I simply copy the lessons into our planners.
What about the curriculum that doesn’t come with schedules? Our grammar, logic, Latin, history, reading, and writing are like this, and it can at times be harder to plan.
So how do I plan? Once I have chosen my curriculum for the year, I spend some time looking at each chapter and corresponding lesson. Our grammar is set up in weeks with four days of lessons per week. It’s easy to plan this, I just follow from start to finish of the text. Our history is more challenging. It is also set up in weeks, but I tend to not follow the text as it is laid out. I use it more as a guideline and then pull from other resources. Reading is completely made up by me. I’ve been planning this subject this way for years. I know there are great programs, I just have never found one that works for us or does exactly what I want it to do. I’ll use what we are currently working on as my example. My kids are 8th grade and reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (https://amzn.to/3FGL01). This is an affiliate link just in case you are interested. I do highly recommend the book. I spend a fair amount of time researching and reviewing all the books I want my kids to read. This book was thrown in as a suggestion from a friend. It’s important to be flexible. Your plans should not etched in stone. I know my kids, so I begin by assessing how much I want them to read per day. In the case of this book, the chapters are long, so I have them read one a day. Before I plan, I research possible lessons. I always start with Pinterest. There are so many people who are willing to share what they do here. I almost always find ideas and activities quickly. My second stop is Teachers Pay Teachers. In the beginning I was against this because as a teacher, I shared freely and often. The thought of paying another teacher just bugged me. Over the years, I’ve relaxed my views. For this book I found a novel study that I felt was well done and followed what I wanted my kids to learn. Once I printed the packet, I began filling in my planning squares. That’s it. I never have a time frame for finishing a book. I don’t have a set number of novels that my kids have to read so I take the ‘we will finish when we finish’ approach.
What does my planner look like? This picture is just half of two days’ worth of work.
As you can see, we do reading and writing every day. For reading, I simply write the chapter I want read and the activity I want them to complete. My kids are learning how to write research papers so each day for writing I’ve chosen what I think is essential to accomplish that goal. Science and health are two of the subjects that come with a schedule. I simply copy what the author has planned. I always make sure that I am on board with their lessons first. It’s not uncommon for me to adjust. Sometimes the lessons are more detailed than I think we need, sometimes they need more. For history, we are studying American History. I have a text and a basic timeline that I follow. This week we are supplementing using some YouTube videos.
Planning is really nothing to worry about, but we do. We get so caught up in making sure everything is perfect that we forget what our end game should be. I have spent countless hours researching and designing what I thought would be the best lesson only to have my kids turn up their noses. I’ve learned to keep it simple and to be flexible and allow myself and my kids to have fun. At the end of each school year, I have always been happy with what my kids have learned. I have also discovered that if we don’t finish our science book this year, we will next. The single most important advice I have for planning is to be flexible. Have a plan for what you want your kids to do for each subject each day. Know that life happens, and kids are unpredictable. If you don’t get to certain lessons today, you always have tomorrow.
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