Planning Your Homeschool Year
Success in homeschool planning is in the ability to break down big tasks into small, manageable bites. Here are some steps to guide you through the planning process:
Assess what’s needed: what do you need to teach, what do you want them to learn, what’s important to your family?
Write your objectives: what’s your end goal and what steps do you need to take to achieve these goals?
Assess your children’s interests: try to accommodate these in the curricular selections that you select.
Break down the daily subjects:
Scripture Memory, Language Arts, Math, Literature, Life Skills
Add in your weekly subjects:
-introduce a variety of subjects
-each of these do NOT need to be done every day.
Bible, Geography, Habits, Poetry, Foreign Language, Science, History, Handicrafts, Picture Study, Composer Study, Nature Study, Supplementals
Length of time for each subject:
Subjects for younger students should run 10-15 minutes long.
Middle school 15-20 minutes per subject.
High school 30-45 minutes per subject.
Just like topics need variety, so does the order in which we present them. Keep in mind that when you assemble the subjects into a daily schedule, be mindful of each subject's weight. Do not place demanding subjects (math and geography for example), one right after another. Instead, break out each subject according to the parts of the body they use. For instance, where reading involves the eye, writing involves the hand. These 2 subjects would be alright to use in conjunction with one another. On the contrary, you wouldn’t want to ask a child to read poetry, then read his next subject, and read his next.
Assess what materials you will need to print/purchase/loan: this includes everything from ordering books, buying annual school supplies (pencils, notebooks, etc.), print copywork (all at once OR as needed according to your personal style) gleaning from your local library’s selection, to obtaining various science and handicraft materials.
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Determine your calendar year: will you have 2 or 3 semesters, will you have a Christmas or Spring Break, how will you accommodate for sick days or snow days, will you have a 4, 5, or 6-day week? While Virginia requires its public school students to attend school 185 days of the year, this is your home, your children, your family…plus, schooling doesn’t stop just because the school year ends.
Include all outside activities in your plan: will your children participate in sports, dance, music, public speaking or drama? Will you be involved in a co-op, STEM or other activity? Will you need some time to run errands, schedule that too!
Print out a blank calendar for planning your school year. Create a table with wide spaces for subjects with about 15-20 rows and 5 columns containing the days of the week. A computerized version of your schedule can be easily updated and tweaked throughout the year as needed.
Buy 3-ring binders for each child to contain their work. Create topical pages together to divide each subject (geography, copywork, grammar, spelling, etc.)
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Refer to AO’s yearly list (optional)
As a CM-er, I often couple my planning with AO’s yearly list. I generally weed through this list and use what works, discard what doesn’t. AO's book recommendations require a thorough parental review as some of their assigned resources are not appropriate for younger children. I typically exchange these books with options that best suit our needs. I then write out a detailed weekly plan of pages per week, complete w/ book titles and transfer this information to a daily plan by subject for easier administration.
This year, I looked through each book and determined what pages/chapters we’d be reading, some aligned with AO’s guide and some did not. In my detailed weekly plan, I applied 12-week increments per term (3 terms each), then assessed the total number of weeks of our homeschool year. This gave me an idea of information we’d need to cover each week to complete our goal. We include additional weeks for project completion, academic supplementals and educational field trips.
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CM = Charlotte Mason
AO = Ambleside Online
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