8 Simple Steps for Creating a Homeschool Plan

The days are drawing closer to the start of a new homeschool year. While I don’t have an exact start date in the books, I have just about everything else ready to roll!

In my last post, I shared a massive list of books that we plan on using in the upcoming school year. They have all been purchased and organized in a way that works well with my brain. This post is going to simply (or not-so-simply…) share exactly how that looks. I will walk you through each step that I take in creating my entire year’s plan. (And, as excited as I am about this, I really try to limit myself to one year at a time!)

Now, let me start by saying, homeschool planning is never a one-size fits all approach, as we each are created differently and so are our children. While this plan works very well for me, it may only work partially, or not at all, for you! So take the following checklist as a suggestion and tweak it as needed.

Creating a Yearly Homeschool Plan

1. Decide on either the grade level or theme– For starters, I either choose the very next school year that my kids will be working through on Ambleside online or I decide on a theme for the entire year. Most years, from grade 1- 6, my kids and I followed the Ambleside online curriculum plan. I lumped both of my kids together as they are just over a year apart, age wise, and this worked out well for the “together” subjects. We took a slight turn away from Ambleside, but not the Charlotte Mason Method, for grade 7, as I created an Oklahoma History themed school plan that took us around our state, mostly along historic Route 66. This upcoming year I will also “create my own theme” for our entire year: The Ancients.
   When I follow the Ambleside curriculum, much of the planning is already done. I will still go through the list below as not everything on the website works for my children, yet, I will only need to modify their overview instead of creating one from scratch.
2. Book list “dump” and research– When creating a completely from-scratch homeschool plan, I will spend days or weeks researching books that could possibly be used on the topic at hand. I make lists of books I really want to incorporate into my plan, as well as lists of books that I could use as back-ups. I try to organize this brain dump by lumping the books by subject. Once I have all (alllllll) the books listed, I will spend even more time going through each of the titles online. I will read the summary, find out the number of pages, the intended age range or reading level, and check for inappropriate material, if possible. (Some of this can be tricky to find out online, without actually holding the book!)
3. Create master list/ overview for entire year– Taking the well-researched books from the above list, I create a single document that contains the entire plan for the whole year. Yes, this sounds daunting, but it really is easier than it sounds. Because I know that our school year will be broken into 3 terms (following the Ambleside’s layout of a school year,) I divide my master list into three chunks. In the early days of this plan, they are often called, “Term 1, Term 2 and Term 3.” As the plans come together, I often rename them according to the focus of the term’s learning. For example, in our Oklahoma history plan, I ended up breaking the terms into geographical chunks of, “East, Central, and West.”
   I try not to make this step over-complicated, but rather focus on creating an overview. The details will come later! Under each of the three headings, I write a list of each of the subjects I plan to cover. (If any overlap, I will write them together.) Then, I fill in the final book(s) for each subject.
4. Purchase materials/books– This one is just what it says. I use three companies to purchase materials, trying to find the best quality at the best price. Sometimes this means used, and other times it means brand new.
   In case you are wondering, the companies I use to purchase school books from are Rainbow Resource, Thriftbooks and Amazon. Sometimes, I will use books from our local library, if we wont be using them all year.
5. Create each term overview and timeline– As I mentioned above, I follow Ambleside’s model of a three-term school year. I have played around with how many weeks each term consists of, but tend to plan 5-6 week chunks with at least a 1 week break in between each chunk or term. Knowing this, I then plan a rough timeline for each of the terms.
   Once the timeline is semi-mapped out, then I begin to create a rough layout for each term. I set-up an excel spreadsheet that contains the term name, the dates, the subjects and which book goes with each.
6. Planning readings and lessons for each book– Once I have the spreadsheet created for each term, I then break each book down into sections per week. Again, I am still keeping much of this simple at this point. I try to break each book into how ever many weeks the term has. For example, if a book has 28 chapters, and we have a 10 week term, I will plan to read 3 chapters per week until we finish the book. In the spreadsheet, I would write, “Ch. 1-3” the first week, “Ch. 4-6” the second week, and so forth.
7. Create weekly schedule checklist & print– At this point, I will take the list of subjects from the ‘Term Overview’ spreadsheet and make a new ‘Weekly Schedule/ Checklist’. While I often create a new weekly schedule each year, to fit our current year, I keep the layout similar. The “together” subjects are listed at the top and completed first in our school day. The “independent” subjects are listed at the bottom of the checklist and completed in the second half of our school day. Once the list is complete, I print out the number of weeks in the term that I am working on. (And, I limit it to one term per planning session!)
8. Fill in weekly schedules– Now, comes the time for all the nitty-gritty details. I gather the printed schedules, grab the entire stack of books that will be used in the upcoming term, and select a handful of colored Sharpie pens. I spread all of this out on my kitchen island (preferably when the kids are out of the house for the day!) and get working on filling in each and every page number to be read, lesson to be worked on, and activity to be completed. I typically work through one book at a time, and write the plans for the entire term for this one book. Then, repeat. Repeat. Repeat, until finished! It takes time to do this, but I prefer to have it all completed prior to the start of the term. (Sometimes, I get 95% of it done, and still have a bit of work to do before the week begins. But I have found this is still better than waiting to do 100% of it on a Monday morning!)
   

Over the past many years of homeschooling, following a specific curriculum, I have come to this point of “simply” creating my own homeschool plan. I think it’s pretty fun to create the best school year for my family! And, truly a blessing!!

While this plan works well for us, it may not work out for you! There are so many methods and planners available. So, keep looking til you find what fits you best! If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

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