The Easy Homeschool Lesson Planner You Need

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Why you should use a homeschool lesson planner to plan next year’s homeschool.

I received Plan Your Year for free and was compensated for my time. All opinions are my honest opinions and I was not required to post a positive review. For more information, please read my disclosure.

As a long-term homeschool mom, I’ve homeschooled for over 17 years.

And one of the survival tricks I learned is to plan as much as possible for the upcoming year.  I filed my papers for the week, picked out curricula, and prepared as much as possible.

And I knew that I needed a homeschool lesson planner.

Despite all the hours I spent filing papers over the summer, I was still spending an hour or two every single week pulling my lesson plans together.

That’s fine. Until we had a crazy weekend filled with guests and activities. You know how those weekends go. They’re fun. They’re great. And nothing gets done!

And we’d stagger through the next week.

I knew there had to be a better way.

And then I had the chance to run through Pam Barnhill’s ideas on lesson planning. Ideas she writes about in her book Plan Your Year.

Instead of creating weekly grids each week, she mentioned creating a written lesson plan for each subject.

Such a simple concept. And one that transformed my homeschool!

So last summer I sat down and created written lesson plans for my tenth-grade son. Not a combined lesson plan but individual lesson plans. He could be doing week 10 in science, week 12 in Latin, and week 11 in history. And they should work.

Guess what…. The plans did work!

My plans have held true no matter how far ahead or behind he fell in any given subject. And I’m not spending hours each week trying to pull these plans together.

We sit down for 10 minutes, chat about what was done and what wasn’t done. I cut and paste the lesson plans into his weekly grid. Print. And away he goes.

What a relief… what a joy… what a transformation!

Plan Your Year: Homeschool Lesson Planner

And that’s not the only nugget of awesome advice Pam includes in her book Plan Your Year.

Nuggets like creating a vision board. Factoring in the true cost of a curriculum. Habit hooks. And more!

In fact, Pam walks you through all the steps to creating a homeschool lesson planner that you’ll actually use. These plans won’t be sitting on the shelf gathering dust. They won’t move too fast for your children. They won’t move too slowly for your children.

Instead, you’ll have the perfect plans for your family.

Instead of worrying about how you’ll plan, organize, and teach your children, you’ll have a workable guide.

And instead of wondering how you’ll give your kids a beautiful classical education, you’ll have a custom-made plan.

I truly wish I’d had Plan Your Year 17 years ago. My life would have been so much easier!

Is Homeschool Planning Overwhelming?

So let me ask you. Are you overwhelmed with the thought of planning next year’s homeschool?

Will you procrastinate thinking about the next school year until it’s too late. And then at the last minute, you desperately grab any old curriculum at hand and a fancy new homeschool lesson planner hoping that this year will be better.

Let’s back up a second and look at why you’re overwhelmed.

You believe you need the perfect plan. After all, anything less means you’re failing your kids.

But striving for the perfect plan is overwhelming.

You’re supposed to spend hours reading aloud, hours on nature study, hours on history projects, hours completing science experiments, hours finding the perfect co-op, and hours enrolling your kids in swimming, soccer, and dance. And don’t forget the hours of volunteer time you’re supposed to put in for your kids’ co-ops, activities, and church.

Tired yet? I am!

Of course, you’re exhausted and overwhelmed! You’re trying to pack more activities into the day than you have time. Instead of searching for the perfect plan, you need a plan that will work for you!

Or to quote Pam Barnhill in Plan Your Year:

My epiphany came when I decided that I was no longer striving for the perfect homeschool plan. Instead I would strive for the perfect plan for us: the plan that I would actually implement and the plan that would work for my children.

But how do you create the perfect plan for yourself?

Drop the Shoulds

Especially when the sheer number of shoulds in your life is overwhelming.

After all, you should teach Latin and Greek and Hebrew and a modern language.

You should use an intensive vocabulary program and a grammar curriculum designed to produce expert grammarians.

History should be intensive, covering the biographies of all the great men and women of the ages. And it must be interesting with extensive projects, detailed timelines, and elaborate period costumes.

Need I go on?

An overwhelming school year is not a beautiful and doable classical education. Instead, it burns us out, makes the kids loathe education, and grinds our homeschools to a halt.

A beautiful classical education looks different in every home.

One family enjoys hours of nature study after spending an afternoon exploring the local hikes.

A second family prefers hours curled up on the sofa reading classic literature together. Another family augments their history studies with documentaries, crafts, and field trips.

A doable classical homeschool is one that you’re able to complete.

After all, a mom on bed rest can’t spend hours hiking the local trails. Instead, it may be a year to focus on reading classic literature together. Nor can a mom with 6 kids spend hours creating elaborate weekly lesson plans for each child.

homeschool planning in action

Homeschool Planning

Once you’ve dropped the shoulds, you need to look at what’s right for you. But how do you get clarity on what is a beautiful and doable classical homeschool for your family? After all, you don’t want to be desperately grabbing any old curriculum in August and hoping it’s going to be enough.

You need a plan which will hold your hand while guiding you through the steps needed to plan a beautiful and doable classical education for your children. A book with clear action items and worksheets to help.

A homeschool lesson planner that helps you create a vision, develop goals, find resources, and plan your year, month, week, and day.

And that’s just what Plan Your Year provides!

Plan Your Year

Plan Your Year is a book that carefully walks you through the process of planning next year’s homeschool. When you’re finished you’ll have a personalized education planned for each of your children without the overwhelm.

It includes ten chapters that guide you through the entire process.

  1. Cast a Vision
  2. Craft Effective Goals
  3. Determining a Course of Study and Purchase Resources
  4. Creating Schedules
  5. Planning a Weeks and Days
  6. Lesson Planning for Homeschoolers
  7. Planning Your Own Study
  8. Organizing Your Materials
  9. Putting It All Together
  10. Planning in Action

I know planning a beautiful and doable classical education for our kids is an overwhelming task, even for a mom who’s been homeschool for over 17 years now. Each year brings new challenges and new adjustments.

But the years I take the time to carefully plan, personalize, and organize the next school year are awesome years. My family is able to stay focused despite the chaos of daily life. We flow smoothly from one subject to another, and nothing is left behind.

So this year don’t procrastinate thinking about the next school year until it’s too late.

You’ll just end up grabbing any old curriculum and a new homeschool lesson planner hoping this year will be better.

Instead, plan a beautiful and doable classical homeschool for your family using Pam’s Plan Your Year.

You’ll thank yourself in February!

Purchase Plan Your Year from Amazon

homeschool lesson planner that works