How to Organize your Homeschool Schedule
Scheduling and even knowing how to organize your homeschool schedule can be extremely daunting. It can be tempting to throw the schedule to the wind and just wing it. While that can work for some families, for the majority of homeschoolers that can be risky and can set your family up for frustration down the road. Deciding how to organize your homeschool schedule is a great first step to a successful homeschool experience for parents and children alike. Remember that flexiblity and grace are two of the keys to a great educational experience.
Where do I start?
If you’re using a curriculum, it is really all planned out for you and you just need to figure out how you want to work it into your family schedule. Remember, in Colorado we are required to have 172 days of school with an average of 4 hours a day. Some states have more days required and some have less or even none. Some states track hours and not days. Some require you to track hours at the home versus outside of the home. Always know your state homeschool laws and follow them!
First, I start my planning process by figuring out when I want to start our school year and when we want it to end. Then I fill in desired breaks, vacations, business trips, family visits, birthdays, other special days, etc. Remember that there is no need to follow the local district's schedule - we all have 365 days to get our 172 days completed. Decide if you are going to school year round or within a 9 month schedule or 6 weeks on and 1 week off or any other variation that you desire. Remember, if you’d rather have winter off instead of the hot, hot days in summer – do it! If you want to do a couple things over the summer like math and reading, do it! Second, I take each curriculum and look at how many lessons are in each one and then I divide the book up over my allotted school days. For example, if one book has 120 lessons, I decide how many days a week we are going to need to do that particular book to finish in the allotted time and then I put it in my planner. I also take into account which student this class is for and if they will want to finish faster or if they’d prefer to go at a slower pace. I have been known to combine smaller lessons together to make the class shorter overall.
How far out should I plan? Sometimes, I plan weekly. Sometimes, monthly. Lately I have been planning the whole year at once. The whole year at once works best with an online planner that is easily edited, I would not recommend it with a paper and definitely not pen (unless it’s pretty & erasable)! If you are new to homeschooling, consider planning in shorter time spans until you find your groove and are comfortable with your curriculum and have your routines established.
You can also journal what you did that day instead of planning it all out in advance. For this style, you can use a composition notebook, a pretty journal, or a planner from Mardel, Hobby Lobby, Well Planned Gal, or even your grocery store or dollar store. For me this became a bit tougher once the kids were in middle and high school. For older kids, you can get a journal for each student, which is great for them to learn how to use a planner so they can learn how to manage their own time. Let them help you record what they did each day or even plan it out with you and then on their own. Alternatively, you can block schedule and do all your history in one semester and science the next , or do them both all year. You can alternate days you do certain subjects (Science on M & W, History on T & Th, PE & Music on Fridays). This is YOUR FAMILY’S plan, make it work for you!
Get some pretty pens and page markers and stickers and make it fun! Remember to write in pencil, not pen, because life is full of changes and you don't want to be stuck to your schedule when someone gets sick or the spring weather is calling you to go outside and play.
Enjoy the Journey!