Homeschool Planning: Where to Start and How to Make It Work for Your Family
Homeschool planning can feel like a lot—especially when you start thinking about ALL the things. When should you start planning? How much should you plan? What if you change your mind? Let’s break it down.
When to Start Planning?
March is a great time to start thinking about next year. Why? Because many homeschool curricula go on sale between April and June. If you have your wish list ready, you can keep an eye out for discounts and avoid last-minute scrambling.
Some homeschoolers take the big picture approach, planning everything from kindergarten to 12th grade. If that brings you peace of mind—go for it. But if it stresses you out, let it go. Trust me, I made a detailed spreadsheet mapping out history and science for all my kids across all their school years… and then reality hit. What I’ve found is that when I do extensive multi-year planning, I focus so much on “the plan” that I don’t see the kid in front of me.
I take a more balanced approach now. I have a general idea of topics we want to cover, but I also recognize that homeschooling allows us to choose what’s meaningful and valuable. That said, I do believe we owe it to our kids to give them all the tools they need for their future—whatever that may look like. See my post on accountability for more on that.
Step-by-Step Homeschool Planning
1. Start with the Basics
Before diving into a million options, make a simple list of subjects and jot down some notes:
Subjects to Consider:
Language Arts
If your child is learning to read (K-2), focus on an evidence-based reading program and plenty of read-alouds. Check out my post on How to Choose a Reading Program for more details.
Consider your child’s spelling needs.
From 2nd grade on, add in explicit writing instruction. Check out these posts: A Week of Writing in Our Homeschool and Writing in the Primary Years
Literature doesn’t need to be a huge production—once your child is reading chapter books (3rd grade+), literature studies should be the bulk of your reading instruction. Check out my post on literature selection here.
Math
For a big picture on math, head here. Also check out my post on Math Through the Years.
Stick with a systematic and explicit program.
Unless something truly isn’t working, consistency is key.
Once you’ve figured out your core subjects (reading, writing, math, spelling), think about science and history. Do you want to take a “mastery” approach (deep dive into one topic) or a spiral approach (revisit topics over the years)? If you have multiple kiddos, will you do family-style content learning or individual studies (and it’s totally ok to change this from year to year!)?
Science
See my post on choosing a science curriculum for my thoughts on science.
Social Studies
Check out my year-by-year page for a breakdown of what we have done. You can also check out my posts on History Resources in the Early Years and American History.
For a detailed breakdown of the programs we have used through the years, head over to my Year-By-Year page.
Resources/Method Pictured
I am a planner nerd and have fallen in love with Schoolnest homeschool planners. I have used these planners for 4 years, which work great for me. I use Canva, an Epson Ecotank printer, and vinyl sticker paper to print images. Printing tip: when printing pictures on an Ecotank, set your quality to “best” and change the paper type (I select matte photo paper and override the printer when it’s confused about the vinyl paper).
2. Make A Curriculum Wish List
Make a list of all the programs you will need to purchase. If it’s something you can get secondhand, set up an alert on eBay and start perusing the BST groups on Facebook. Subscribe to the newsletters for the different programs so you can watch for sales. Many homeschool programs have an annual sale in the spring. Make a wishlist on Amazon (if that’s your jam), and you’ll be able to see when items go on sale easily.
3. Loosely Map Out Your Year
(I have two kids in performance arts, which means we have several “tech weeks” a year. Tech weeks mean hours a day in the theater and I definitely need to plan with those weeks in mind).
Look at a calendar and plan your breaks first. How many weeks do you have left? How will your curriculum choices fit into those weeks?
If you have 36 weeks of school and your math program is 32 weeks, don’t rush to “fill” the extra time. Start at the beginning and let life happen—you’ll appreciate those buffer weeks.
If your science or history curriculum is unit-based, plan for those units to wrap up before major breaks (e.g., finishing a Simple Machines unit before Thanksgiving instead of dragging it through the holiday chaos).
Once you’ve mapped out your year, start another set of notes for topics. This can be paper or digital—whatever works best for you:
A simple notebook with a page per subject.
A Google Drive folder with topic-based docs.
Apple Notes (my current favorite—quick and easy to save links, screenshots, and ideas).
The key is to have a place to dump resources when you see them. If I find a cool Rube Goldberg machine video, I immediately save it to my Simple Machines note. Easy.
4. Choose a Planning System That Works for YOU
There’s no perfect homeschool planning tool—just the one that actually works for your brain. I am die-hard Schoolnest planner gal. Check out Megan’s planners here. I’ll share more in the coming weeks about my planning system. But, for now, check out this post on our daily and weekly routines.
5. Don’t Over-Plan Your Weekly Lessons
Having a general idea for when units will fall? Great. Planning out every single week for the entire year? Not so great.
If you’re using a unit-based curriculum, plan one unit at a time.
Be open to switching things up as needed.
And if you find yourself switching content curricula or methods—that’s totally fine. I started with a structured 4-year history cycle planned through high school. That lasted… one year. My history-loving kid wanted to do American History for a year. My daughter got obsessed with American Girl Dolls, so we rolled with that. The kids in front of me needed something different, and that’s okay.
For foundational subjects like reading and math, consistency is not only important but rooted in the research on how children learn reading, writing, and math; but for content areas (history, science), flexibility is your best friend. New knowledge sticks to old knowledge—there’s no single “right” order. For more on the Science of Learning, check out this post.
