Planning a homeschool year

Trying to plan out your homeschool year can be a daunting task!


I like to do it. Time to plan!It forces me to really think things out.


I am far from an expert in this area! But...


Here is what I can share from my experiences.


Some people like to have at least a general layout for the year of what will be studied when and for how long.


I try to work that out on a word document over 2-3 months here and there. I make a table on Word and then I can copy & paste and move stuff around or add to it and the table will grow or shrink accordingly. I find that handy. This would be a great area to add a section on ebooks you have collected. Like if you were going to study Egypt for 6 weeks- type "Supplements" in that area and then add "Ebook: Egyptian Culture Lapbook" and then you could add "Website: www.Pyramidsforkids.com" and if you bought some cool books "Book: Pharoahs" "Field Trip: online field trip at www.walkingwithancientkings.com".


Now if you had a planner- just write the stuff out on lots of those tiny post-its and you can move them around in your planner as you work that all out. Then when you turn to the first week of December you will open to find 3 post-its on Christmas related projects or ebooks you have. Or if you turn to October you may be very happy to see that week three begins your Egypt unit and there are the post-its to show where all your stuff is. Now you know what you need and where to find it.


My best planning is on paper (preliminary) and then some kind of planner/calendar thing
and gets a lot more detailed. I mark it with a highlighter as it cements. My
oldest gets pink highlighter, my son gets a blue highlighter and I
get yellow. My littlest will get orange as she gets incorporated when I
begin "Before FIAR" with her sometime probably after next January.


This all coincides with my MOTH schedule, too. It sure is nice to have that set up already!