Are you more confused than you’d like to admit about lesson planning? If you want to know how to lesson plan for homeschool in a simple way, you’ve come to the right place.
In this article I’ll walk you through the process, discuss some of the different planning tools and methods out there, talk about the best ways of using them and show you an effective, repeatable strategy for effective homeschool planning.
Let’s jump in.
New to homeschool lesson planning?
One of the reasons new homeschoolers get put off with homeschool lesson planning is that they think it’s complicated, time-consuming and just too hard.
But I want you to know that it doesn’t have to be. I believe planning should be straightforward. In just a moment, I’ll share an effective planning strategy that will help you lesson plan for homeschool in a single sitting.
To ensure the long term success of your homeschool, an effective planning strategy that works every time is key.
Before I explain what that is, let’s look at what it should NOT be.
How NOT TO lesson plan for homeschool
Homeschool lesson planning should NOT be:
- A long drawn-out exhaustive process that takes the best part of a few days to complete.
- Overly detailed.
- It should not hold you to account for every minute spent homeschooling or have short time slots.
- It should not be unrealistic.
If you’re using a planner or a planning strategy that encourages one or all of the above, then that’s a sure sign that it’s over complicating the process.
And that means it could be difficult to maintain and depend on throughout your homeschooling years.
What you need is a way that you can use time and time again, that helps you direct your planning energies most economically and effectively.
Wouldn’t it be great to know how to lesson plan for homeschool in a quick, easy way that you can rely on every time?
Let’s start by first explaining what a lesson plan even is.
What is a lesson plan?
A lesson plan is a template or framework that helps you prepare and plan out your homeschool lessons by completing the template.
There are different types of lesson plans available, but for the purposes of planning our homeschool we’ll be focusing on just two of them.
- The lesson planner
- The weekly planner
#1 The lesson planner
The lesson planner usually looks something like this:
On this lesson planner there’ll be a space for writing out a learning objective (which is the key takeaway of the lesson, the main point you’re trying to teach). There’ll also be a space for writing out the various stages of the lesson.
Filling out this lesson planner requires you to put a great deal of thought into your lesson before you teach it.
There’ll be a beginning, a middle and an end to your lesson. And it will be like a nice neat little educational experience all wrapped up nicely.
How to use a lesson planner
This type of lesson plan is ideal for:
- A special one-off type of lesson.
- A very specific lesson.
This type of planner is not for every lesson in your everyday homeschool and should only be used on those occasions when you have a very specific lesson to deliver for a special reason.
Usually, this is for a lesson that is outside your normal day-to-day homeschooling lessons, curriculum and subjects.
For example, you want to teach your 12-year-old child how to manage his pocket money.
This skill isn’t covered by any of his subject specific curriculum books. It will be a one-off lesson you’d like to teach, let’s say, on a Friday afternoon.
Use this type of lesson planner to input all of your details for this pocket money management lesson.
Write the learning objective as something like “learn how to manage pocket money and keep a personal record of transactions.”
Plan out the different stages of this lesson and think about how you would like to start and finish the lesson.
Think about the materials you’ll need such as a small log book for transactions you’d like your son to use and have some money ready to use for the lesson.
Write the date of the Friday you’ve chosen and make sure you’ve completed this lesson plan before the lesson delivery date.
This type of planner is perfect for this one-off special type of lesson, as it encourages you to think about how to make your lesson useful and beneficial to your child as well as planning out all the materials you’ll need.
For the most part, it’s a planner you’ll only use occasionally, but is great to have on hand when you need it.
The biggest mistake with this type of planner I see people make is that they think they are supposed to use it for every single lesson in their everyday homeschooling.
This is completely unnecessary and will make your day-to-day homeschool lesson planning difficult to maintain.
There is a time and a place to use this type of lesson planner, but your everyday homeschooling which makes up the bulk of your homeschooling time, is just not it.
So, what is the best type of planner to use for your day-to-day homeschool planning?
The best type is a weekly planner that let’s you fill out which pages of your curriculum you’ll cover each day. This basically let’s you create a pacing schedule.
#2 The weekly planner
This type of planner looks something like this:
There’s a small section for each subject on each day.
In this small box write out which pages you’d like to cover in your child’s curriculum book.
I recommend this type of planner for all of your everyday homeschool lesson planning because it offers you the most flexibility.
This gives you the best chance to pace out your lesson content fairly quickly and spread it across your chosen time frame.
Let’s take an example to show you just how simple and highly effective this type of planner can be.
How to lesson plan for homeschool in a single sitting
Let’s say Halimah has 2 kids. She decides to plan her daughter’s year 3 (7-8 years old) homeschool year. She plans out one subject at a time.
Starting with maths, she takes all of her daughters maths curriculum books for the year. She has two maths books in total.
One is the main maths book for the year and the second one covers mental maths practice for the year.
Both books have 44 pages each. Adding up all the pages of both books Halimah works out that she has 88 pages of maths material to cover this year.
Halimah wants to complete all of her homeschool maths content between the months of September and July, which is 44 weeks.
So Halimah divides her 88 pages between these 44 weeks. This means Halimah has to cover two pages of maths per week.
As long as she completes at least two pages each week, she will complete her content within her target time frame.
If she covers more than two pages she will be ‘ahead’ of her schedule. If she covers less, she will be ‘behind.’
It’s up to Halimah if she wants to complete all of one maths book and then move onto the second maths book, or if she wants to do one page a week of each maths book.
Either way, she will complete all of her content within her target time frame, if she paces herself in this way.
So, Halimah schedules two pages a week into her weekly planner.
She decides to do one page of the main maths book on Mondays and one page of the mental maths practice book on Tuesdays.
Now she’s finished with maths. Halimah plans out the rest of her daughter’s subjects in this same way.
Using this method is quick and easy. Best of all, it allows Halimah to draw up her daughter’s plan in a single sitting.
All she has to do is fill out one weekly planner template for each child.
Rinse and repeat
Then Halimah moves on to her younger son’s lesson plan for homeschool.
He’s in year 1 (5-6 years old). And she does the same planning for him on a separate weekly planner.
Taking one subject at a time. Because he’s younger, his books consist of fewer pages. And she notices that she can complete all of his content in a much shorter time frame.
As you can see, this type of homeschool lesson planning is actually more like pacing.
This pacing offers you plenty of flexibility in all of your homeschool lesson planning and lesson delivery.
Making your homeschool lesson planning more realistic, robust and fairly quick to complete.
Halimah may find she has a morning or afternoon free somewhere in her weekly schedule.
If this happens she can schedule some catch-up in this space to increase her chances of following through with her plans and building in some flexibility.
Quarterly planning is optimal
I advise planning out the year in quarters, rather than the whole year in one go.
Because a few months into your schedule you might notice that the pacing is a little off and something needs adjusting. If this happens, you can make those adjustments in the upcoming quarter.
For example, in the scenario above, Halimah planned out the full year, but forgot that she doesn’t want to homeschool in Ramadhan.
Because of this one forgotten detail her planning (or pacing) is now off.
But if she planned out just the first quarter of the year, she could make the necessary adjustments required in pacing in the second quarter if needed, and so on.
That’s exactly why quarterly planning can work so well when you lesson plan for homeschool.
Halimah’s technique above is an effective way to plan lessons. Done every quarter of the year, this method is pretty quick and can provide you with the direction and clarity you need. Whilst also catering for any adjustments along the way.
But, what if there was a way to plan without using any lesson planner at all…
The pacing list
At this point, you might have realised that there is a way to lesson plan for homeschool without using any planner at all.
And this becomes clear when we drill down a little further on what Halimah did in the example above.
When Halimah worked out that she needed to cover two pages of maths per week, she scheduled those two pages into her weekly planner on Monday and Tuesday.
But what if she didn’t schedule it anywhere?
What if she just knew that for her daughter’s maths she needs to cover two pages a week, then Halimah wouldn’t actually need any planner at all…
But what about the adjustment needed after Ramadhan?
Because of the unplanned Ramadhan break Halimah can simply commit to completing three pages per week instead of two, once Ramadhan finishes. That will rectify things or even get her ahead.
Now it’s clear to see that Halimah can lesson plan for homeschool without having to complete any planner at all.
A simple pacing list like this would suffice her:
Using a pacing list like this would reduce Halimah’s planning down to just working out how many pages she needs to get through weekly for each subject. Then she can write out a pacing list with the subject and number of pages next to it, as above.
Super simple, right?
We can even take this one step further.
Are you ready?
Pacing all in your head
If Halimah can remember the number of pages per week for each subject, she wouldn’t even need to write the little pacing list down.
She can even make it easy to keep a track of this in her head by evening out the numbers of pages per subject and just committing to 4 pages a week for every subject.
Then she knows that she is either on track or ahead for every subject, all the time….
If she gets too far ahead she can commit to three pages for every subject each week from the next quarter.
As you can see, you have more options and flexibility than you might have realised.
The only potential drawback to using the pacing list or pacing all in your head is that there won’t be a record anywhere of what you planned, or what you have completed.
Even though your planning is still completely sound, in essence.
If you really want a record, you could keep one by simply recording everything you’ve done once you’ve taught it.
Using the weekly planner, write in the pages you’ve covered for each subject. Then you’ll have a record of everything you’ve done without investing so much of your time up front in initial lesson planning.
Writing down what you have already taught is sometimes called reverse homeschool planning (not to be confused with backward lesson planning).
Which method should I use to lesson plan for homeschool?
It’s really up to you how you lesson plan for homeschool.
As you can see, there are a couple of ways to do it ranging from using a detailed lesson planner for those special lessons, all the way to lesson pacing that all happens in your head.
Using a weekly planner like Halimah did in the example above, is a highly effective repeatable strategy to lesson plan for homeschool. Completing this every quarter of the year is pretty straightforward.
Using the pacing list or pacing all in your head is not for everyone. But if it works for you, you’ll find them dependable and stress-free techniques.
Whichever method you choose, I advise staying away from planners that use short time slots, encourage over-thinking or make the process long and drawn out for you.
Ultimately, the way you lesson plan for homeschool has to be effective, repeatable and straightforward and it has to help pave your way to long term homeschooling success.
Whichever planning method you go for, our range of Muslim Homeschool Planners has you covered.
Which of these homeschool planning methods above do you like or use?
I’d love to hear your thoughts, please leave your comments below.