One of my favorite things to do is plan! I love looking through curriculum catalogs. When the packages start to arrive with all the new books for the next homeschool year, it is like unwrapping gifts. And once I have all the new workbooks, textbooks, and other materials, I need to start planning what will be taught and when during the homeschool year. It’s time for homeschool planning!
There are many ways that homeschool parents can plan their days, weeks, and months. From a simple copybook with the dates and lessons handwritten to fancy planners with stickers, tags, and color-coding, homeschool planning can be as simple or as complicated as you need it to be for your homeschool.
Setting Goals for Homeschool Planning
What are your goals for homeschooling this coming year? Have they changed from the past year or are you a new homeschooler? Remember to check the legal requirements of your state, province, or country before starting homeschool planning. If your goals haven’t changed a lot from last year and you haven’t made any drastic curriculum changes, you may be ready to jump ahead to picking a planner.
If your goals have changed, you might want to evaluate your schedule for the upcoming year. Will you be planning to homeschool year-round? If so, that might change what type of planner you need. Many traditional school planners run September through June so you might want to look for ones that are homeschool specific.
Now that you know what and when you will be teaching, you are ready to look at how you want to plan or track your homeschool year. Here are some simple ideas to get you started:
- Print calendar sheets using a document program or online PDF to track days homeschooled
- Use a binder to track important legal documents pertaining to homeschooling as well as your homeschool lessons and plans
- Compare and contrast different online homeschool planning platforms
- Shop for preprinted homeschool planners
- Examine homeschool planners you print at home
Homeschool Planning with Your Children
Don’t forget to include your children in the homeschool planning process! Depending on their age you can either purchase or make them their own planners or you can let them pick out how they want to track their lessons and assignments themselves. In our house, we have been purchasing the same planners for our younger children and myself for the past two years. This way we can track everything together.
Planning with your children can be as simple as writing their daily assignments in a notebook or loose-leaf paper that then gets included in a binder or their portfolio. Having your children keep track of their own assignments can help them in many areas such as copywork or handwriting, time management, and ownership of their education. So even if you have a beautiful planner with everything labeled for your own tracking purposes, children can still participate in the daily planning process.
A Planner for Your Homeschool
The Schoolhouse SmartMama Planner from The Old Schoolhouse® is here and ready for you to fill with your wildest ideas for the 2023–2024 school year. This ever-popular planner was designed just for smart homeschooling mamas like you. We know you need a dependable place to stay organized, so here it is. You’ll turn to your planner again and again, so we made sure it’s inviting with an inspiring theme and encouraging devotionals to help you focus on your vision for your homeschool this year. Look at some of the unique features:
- Schedule lessons and activities, record completed work, build budgets, and manage goals and chores.
- Track everything from preschool progress to high school transcripts with specific pages for every stage.
- Refresh your heart and focus on what’s truly important with relaxing coloring pages, prayer journaling spaces, and monthly devotions.
Each lovely detailed page will help you stay organized and motivated as you guide your children through their school days. Since the Schoolhouse SmartMama Planner is digital and interactive, it’s customizable for your family and can be used with any number of children. Download for use on a device or print as many pages as you need. Start planning, Smart Mama.
Looking for smart curriculum choices too? SchoolhouseTeachers.com membership provides over 400 courses for all of your students. And, your membership comes with a free Schoolhouse SmartMama Planner.
What about Your Plan?
What do you like to include in your homeschool planning? Do you just write in lessons, readings, and assignments? Or do you include chores, field trips, shopping trips, and meal plans? And at the end of the year, how do you make sure you finish strong? Please share in the comments.
HomeschoolingFinds.com Author
This article has been written by Kristen Heider. She is the Business Building Team Manager of The Old Schoolhouse® and the Social Media Manager of HomeschoolingFinds.com. She shares more about her family’s homeschooling journey at A Mom’s Quest Teach.