How to Plan Your Homeschool Year with My Free Homeschool Planner

How to Plan Your Homeschool Year without Losing Your Mind

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Believe it or not, I have nearly 20 years of experience homeschooling. In this post, I have put together my absolute best tips for planning and organizing your homeschool year.  In addition, I have created an amazing FREE Homeschool Planner that you can download. This guide will help you get started on planning your homeschool year today.

1. Download Free Printables

{If you don’t have a color printer and want the planner printed in color, I recommend sending these to a local printer and having them done there. I was able to do this for only about $7! }

First, print a MASTER calendar for the school year and take a few minutes to fill in any important dates

The last few years I homeschooled, I watched my carefully planned homeschool days fall apart due to appointments, medical emergencies, meltdowns, and holidays. While the events weren’t preventable the chaos was, if only I had things more streamlined.

For example, some years I had my special needs kids in school. Before school started I printed off the public school calendar and wrote in every half-day and day off. Make note of these even if you don’t have any kids in school. It will help you avoid going on field trips during school holidays.

Next, I added in ALL appointments already scheduled. At a glance, I could see which days and weeks would be busier (no time for extras) and which days we’ll be home and have time for more intensive activities.

2. Come Up with a Plan of Attack 

Gather your supplies together and get comfortable. Start by writing down academic goals for each child in very simple terms. For instance: “I want Tucker to finish third-grade math book. I want him to be able to write two paragraphs by the end of the year. I want Tucker to memorize his math facts. I want Tucker to read chapter books independently.”

These are simple, trackable,  attainable goals that you can check on throughout the year. This should be a quick task and it will guide the rest of your planning.

The academic goal pages in the free planner can help keep this simple. If you want you can also check out the national standards for your child’s grade level and come up with a list of academic skills you want your child to master by the end of the year.

I also recommend that you add life skill goals to your list. Once again, keep it simple. Right goals such as learn to set the table, learn to prepare a simple meal, learn to do laundry.

3. Take Inventory of What You Have

Don’t buy a single thing until you take stock of what you have. This is an easy way to save money on homeschooling.

For instance, over the years we invested in many reusable items such as  Teaching Textbooks, Life of Fred, and Story of the World.

Taking inventory of what grade levels we already had meant I was not re-purchasing curriculum.

Don’t forget to inventory what books, textbooks, science supplies and software you already have.

4. Make a List of What You Still Need

Now is when you start making your plans for purchases. Look at the academic goals you have made and the inventory of what you already own.

I suggest you make a list of things you need and extras you’d love to have. You can keep this list in your master binder so for the extras you can watch for sales or purchase later in the year when you have the funds.

Put it all together in a MASTER binder!

My school planning binder contains my master calendar,  Story of the World printables I have found online that correspond with lessons, a Multiplication Fact Test Tracker from Curriculum Corner. I can take this binder with me as I escape for my planning sessions. As a bonus, there are no more ugly stacks of paper on my counter.

 I recommend having these sections in your master binder. All of these are included in your homeschool planner.

Calendar

In the front have your yearly calendar as well as your monthly calendars. At the beginning of each month,  move the previous month the back of the stack. Why keep these? Because they make planning for the next school year even easier.

Academic Goal Pages

Next, keep a section with each child’s academic goals. This makes it easy to reference. I recommend checking off each goal as they are attained. This will help you track and visually see the progress they are making. If you live in a state that requires you to show a portfolio at the end of the year you can jot down the date as well.

Subject Pages

One section per subject. Add any printables, notes, or plans for the next six weeks go into the corresponding subject section.

Meal Plans

Keeping your meal plans right in your master binder means you have it at a glance. You can be checking the plan while you sit with your children. This also means if you take your binder anywhere for planning purposes you can plan your meals as well.

In the front, keep a pencil holder with a pen, highlighter, hole punch, current vocabulary cards, and anything else you might need to quickly access.

You can check out my Suggested Items for Homeschool Planning on Amazon.

5. Plan Six Weeks at a Time

Since life is unpredictable, I don’t like to make detailed plans of longer than this. Since I had already made an overview for the year I didn’t need to panic and feel behind. 

For years  Story of the World was the backbone of our homeschooling.  I had a very basic plan to get through one volume per school year, and a detailed plan for the first six weeks. I would then take a couple of hours every six weeks to plan for the next six weeks. I also scoured the internet for printables that related to our topics. During my planning time, I would print these off and add them directly to my Story of the World section of my master binder.

6. Give each kid a clipboard with daily assignments.

My homeschool planner comes with a couple of different styles of assignment sheets. These only take 2-3 minutes to fill out. I would write in the required page numbers and have the kid cross them off as they completed them. If life gets busy and you don’t get this done ahead of time, hand out the sheets anyway and record assignments the kids complete each day.  I recommended keeping a few extra copies right in your mater binder for times like this. 

8. Organize your space

It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to organize your space until you have taken inventory of your supplies and have come up with a plan. Books that absolutely won’t be used during the current school year (ie. a math textbook for a different grade) don’t need to be taking up room in your homeschooling space. Store these away until they are needed.

Kitchen table, couch, school desk, dedicated schoolroom, no matter what area of your house you use (and we’ve used them all) make sure it is uncluttered!

9. Make Weekly Meal Plans

When my children were young I would spend 1-2 hours each week planning the upcoming week, using the resources I shared here. I would get up early on Saturday morning when Chuck was home and head to a coffee shop. I would plan our week’s schedule in peace. While I was at it, I would also do my weekly meal planning.  If you need help in this area, you can get my free master meal list here.

10. Be Flexible

Sadly, this has been a hard lesson for me to learn. Sometimes I hold on to dreams longer than is good for anyone. Just remember, homeschooling allows you flexibility. Don’t keep your kids at the table if there is a deer in the front lawn. Having a plan means you can do the “extras” guilt-free.
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Don’t forget to download your FREE homeschool planner!

How about you? Are you ready for the new school year? What are your best hints, tips or websites?