Continuing with the series I began last Tuesday on planning your homeschooling year, one of the questions I have gotten the most over the years on Instagram is how I go about planning in order to have a successful homeschooling year. With 10 years under my belt and children from elementary through high school. I have learned a few key aspects to having a year that both covers most of what I want to cover in a given year, as well as ensuring the kids enjoy the process. Today I'd like to break down the process of yearly planning to help you create a plan that works for your family.
Yearly Planning
This is where the rubber meets the road for me. This step is critical to our homeschool year, because if I set up our rules and boundaries up front it frees up so much mental space during the school year as well as giving us the freedom to jump on activities as they come up, because we know we have a plan for the entire school year. On the flip side it also tells me when I should pass on activities because we are spending some time more focused on school work.
Step one is to work out your school year. Florida doesn't require a set number of school days, and as homeschoolers we know that everything is educational, so really are kids are "schooling" 365 days a year. But I use to still worry that I wasn't doing enough with our time. Something that freed me up to ditch that worry was to determine that I was going to shoot each year for around 170 days of academics. I have found that across the US 165 to 180 days is the norm for various states. If I count any day that we work on academics, even if it's nothing more than a math practice sheet and some independent reading, and get in the neighborhood of 170 days a year, then I don't worry about if we have done enough. You may not have the same stressor about doing enough, or you may have a set number of days that your state requires; however, even if you don't school for a set number of days, you will need to work out a school calendar.
This year we wanted to start early in August, finish by the middle of June, and only school Monday through Thursday in order to leave Fridays open for adventuring in the camper. We have done years, during farming season where when Daddy is working we school 6 days a week, and have a shorter school year or more off time in the down season at the farm. The key is to figure out what that looks like for you. Right now, not counting field trip days I have a schedule that works from August 7 - June 20, Monday through Thursday, only going Friday during June for 172 days. I needed to rough out when we'd take off for Thanksgiving, what to do for December and the Christmas holidays, I planned our spring break based on when our online classes would be taking a break. This gives me freedom, because if I need to take an extra day, I can move my little transparent circle to another day on the calendar, and if we school on Friday or plan a fun field trip, then I can pull off a day at the end of the school year, to shorten our year. (This is one reason I have come to love transparent dots in my yearly planning.) It's all about finding that balance.
The process of roughing out a calendar for our school year usually takes me a couple of days. First, I have to gather all the time I want to take off whether that is holidays or breaks throughout the year. Sometimes I know the date like Thanksgiving, and other times, I know I want some down time sometime the end of February, but it's flexible. I also have to gather up any dates that are definite schooling dates, like when co-op meets, when online classes occur, and any set field trips. I may not have all of these dates when I sit down to plan, but I want to have as much of this information as I possibly can. It often requires a check in with the husband to determine if there are any particular times where work is lighter so that we can have more free time, or when we might make trips home to see the family. Often my first time through doesn't give me my full 170 days, this year it gave me 165, so I ended up adding an extra week in December and 3 Fridays in June to the schedule for 172 days. Some of those days I probably won't even need since I'm sure we will have some awesome field trips on Fridays this year. I just share this to let you know it's not something you'll probably knock out in one 15 minute sitting. Again using transparent dots that you can move around is a great hack for blocking out school days and field trips in your planner.
Other schedules may be beneficial at this time, if you have several kids or even a single kid in various activities. For that purpose this year I have a weekly schedule, a daily schedule, and an alternate daily schedule. The weekly schedule lets me see at a glance everything outside of our normal school day that we are involved in during the week, as well as when in the school year they occur since some of our online classes are only for a few months during the school year. The weekly schedule is also helpful in that it helps me to be sure that I don't have anything scheduled at the same time on any given day. It also let's me verify that I have enough time between activities to get anywhere I might need to travel to. I have been known to occasionally double schedule or not allow travel time say between the library and home for an online class if I don't have things organized by time.
The daily schedule has been incredibly detailed in years past as I have schedule one on one time with one student while scheduling various individual work for the others or time playing with younger non-school aged siblings, however that has been difficult at times for the other kids to keep on track with, especially if I'm not following up with them because I'm working with a different child. This year we are reverting to a more streamlined schedule, where everyone works together with set times to work on subjects. We have learned by experience that our ADHD kids need the external structure of not just working until they complete something 3 hours later, but working within set time frames, and then if they have to finishing up a subject later in the day when they would have free time. I'm hoping that by returning to that, we will see speed and diligence pick back up in their daily work.
Having the alternate schedule also lets me easily see when planning out each week, what of our weekly plans will interfere with our regular schedule. By looking at our alternate schedule I can quickly determine that Kate won't have a chance to practice her phonics on library day, so I shouldn't put phonics down in the lesson plans on Thursdays. It helps me to decide when there is conflict to either not have regular classes that day like when we have co-op, or to move a class like Britt and Ruth's science from early in the day to during their independent work period on alternating Thursdays when they have writing class. Again these are optional tools so that I can more easily plan our weeks, but remember if they don't help make it easier for you, then don't use them!
Step two is to build your monthly schedule. If you've made it this far you are nearly to the end, because this is the step that really allows you to break down your goals and see where your school year is going to go. This is where I can see if those goal I'm setting are reasonable or if I need to revise them. Remember that first grader that I wanted to see learn single and multiple digit addition and subtraction this year? Turns out that Math U See recommends a year to learn single digit addition and subtraction, that they cover multiple digit addition and subtraction in a second year. So, if we follow the regular pacing schedule of 1 lesson a week, she will cover all 30 lessons and the appendix telling time lessons by the middle of April. So my goal is a little lofty for one year, and I know we probably won't get all the way through multiple digit addition and subtraction this year. When looking at my 9th graders history I can cover my Homeschool in the Woods Units over 2 months, which means I can take off December and still be finished by the end of March. For their America textbook, we can do a chapter a week, and even with scheduling several down weeks we can be done by the middle of April when we take our spring break.
The key to making this part of your yearly planning work is to have your yearly schedule, your curriculum, and your other plans in hand. Since we want to plan in a down week or catch-up week in math every eight lessons, I know I can schedule one lesson of math a week on all the weeks in a month other than that week. So if the last week in September is going to be a math catch-up week, I can only schedule four lessons of math that month. This way I build up to 30 lessons over the course of the year. Other subjects are a little trickier to plan, and you might work backward to plan them. Our biology curriculum for our ninth graders has 16 modules, in order to spend enough time on each one, I estimated a need to spend 2 weeks on each module, that means I'm going to need 32 weeks to cover the curriculum. Again if I build in some down time or catch-up weeks every 3 modules then it tells me how many weeks I need to schedule for each month. Either method you use, at the end you should have a break down of what you can roughly cover in a year.
You might have one main question remaining, after looking at my examples. What do you are on track to finish all of your curriculum before hitting your 170 days. Well, if you are in a state that requires a set number of days, you are going to need to incorporate something else into your time that you feel comfortable calling educational. Maybe that's starting the next set of curriculum, or maybe that's doing some project based learning like having a child who learns blacksmithing from a local group. I don't plan these things, but wait and see if they are needed and look for the right learning opportunities then. If you don't have a set number of days required, congratulate yourself on a year where you all covered 170 days worth of curriculum in less time, and celebrate how homeschooling gives you the freedom to work at your own pace.
On the flip side you might ask what you do if you hit all 170 of your days before finishing your curriculum. In that case you don't have to finish it. Or if you want to take a break and start with it the following year again. Often I've seen families split a science curriculum for example into a 2 year plan instead of a single year, it lets them take more time to dig into individual lessons, and gives them more down time if they want to do science twice a week instead of daily. Just remember you are not a slave to your curriculum or the calendar, these are tools that should work for you.
In Conclusion
Perhaps that will give you some direction as you begin planning out your own homeschool year. Spend some time roughing out your yearly calendar and monthly schedule over the next two days, and I'll give you an optional additional breakdown on Thursday to further streamline your school year. The most critical part for me in our yearly planning is that monthly schedule and it's also the biggest aspect of whether our school year will be a success. I cannot stress enough that if you don't take the time to break down your curriculum into bite sized pieces you probably won't get near as far in it. Furthermore, if you tend to be concerned about whether or not you have time to take off for that neat opportunity you just heard about yesterday, having the schedule with it's down time built in gives you the freedom to see where you have wiggle room or when you can reschedule so that you are able to say yes to more of the opportunities that come your way. On the flip side it also let's you see when you need to pass on something and stay home, to focus on academics.
And remember if you like the photos you see, I'm an affiliate with One Stop Planners, and I'd appreciate it if you'd order through this link. While it won't cost you any extra, I will get paid a small amount. I hope you'll plan to tune in to the final article in the series, on weekly planning, and share your own tips and tricks for planning out a school year with the rest of us. Planning out our homeschool is a privilege and joy that truly lets us influence our child's education and create the kind of life we want as a family. It lets us control our schedule and the pace of our days in a way that other educational options don't. So, enjoy the process and create something as unique as your family.
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