Plan a Great Homeschool Year
It's time to plan a great school year! In the Peaceful Press Planner we give you step by step instructions for planning a school year that works, but we wanted to share those tips here as well.
Each year, when I begin to plan for my homeschool, I follow several steps to create a sustainable year. When I have taken these steps first, I can build margin into my days so that my young children have sufficient time to transition from one activity to the next, which is a huge factor in creating a peaceful life with young children.
1. The first thing that I do, is to reevaluate our overarching family vision. I write down 5 or 10 things that our family loves to do, as well as check back with our family vision statement to make sure that the activities I am scheduling in are in line with our family goals.
Some of our top 10 are; hospitality, worship, missions, travel, time outdoors, gardening, and learning through living books. What are your top family goals and values?
2. Once I have revisited our family vision, and updated what we love to do, I spend some time in prayer to get a verse or word for the year. Some words that helped guide our homeschool in past years were excellence, diligence, playful, and experience. Your guiding verse or word may be different, but having a theme or goal for the year will help you create a year that you can look back on with satisfaction and joy.
3. Plan a sustainable week. When I have our vision and words for the year, then I can begin the nitty gritty planning. I write down all the days of the week, and pencil in possible activities for the week. I want to make sure that I have some time built in to stay home and build relationships, so I make sure that activities are limited to one or two days a week. Once I have written them down, I can see if I will be able to add any lessons or co-op activities.
4. Plan school subjects. After writing out a weekly schedule, then I start actually planning our school subjects and chores. You can check out our Chore and Routine Pack for help with habit training, or purchase one of our year-long resources that make planning simple.
5. Create a daily schedule. In our daily schedule, I make sure that we include time for chore training, morning time, and basic skills, such as math and reading. When we take time daily to work on these skills, even a little bit of time can build up to great results.
The Peaceful Press resources include daily lesson plans that can be used with multiple children, eliminating the need for daily lesson planning.
However, with The Peaceful Press Planner, you get pages that can help you set up a meal plan, manage weekly activities, goal plan for yourself and your children, and keep a weekly schedule visible so that you don’t overbook your time. It also includes helpful tools for homeschoolers, such as a grade and test log and a wish list.
These tools will help you to map out a year that is sustainable and fun for your family!
"Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential."
Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less