How to Create a Simple Homeschool Planning System

Simplify your homeschool planning system!

The ability to homeschool my children is a blessing that I am forever grateful for, but the need to plan for our homeschool year is a necessary evil that this mama could stand to do without.

It can be pretty difficult to keep track of daily work, attendance, yearly plans, field trips, safety drills, etc when you have toddlers and infants hanging off of your hips 24/7.

You Need a Simple Homeschool Planning System

I needed a clear cut homeschool planner and record keeping system to make it a bit easier. To fulfill this need, I created a homeschool planning system tailored to the needs of the homeschooling mama who needs one less thing on her overflowing plate.

I want to show you how I use this system to simplify the homeschool planning process in our home. This post will also show how you can implement it in your home as well.

What is My Homeschool Planning System?

I start out by printing my Simplified Homeschool Planner. It has sections for all of my homeschool record keeping needs! After I have it all printed and ready to go, I sit down and start working through each page.

The pages provided within the planner are the ones that I have found to work best for our family. Since I have the planner file downloaded to my computer, I can skip printing certain pages if I don’t need to use them all.

Semester Learning Plan

I research the curriculum for each subject that I plan to teach and decide on the one (or three) that I want to use.  Then, I write it all down into the Semester Learning Plan.

The Semester Learning Plan has columns for the subject, the chosen curriculum, and the number of total lessons in that curriculum. Use the total number of lessons to determine how many lessons per week we need to complete.

Homeschool Goals

Each month I set new goals for our homeschool on the Monthly Goals sheet. These goals range from improving my children’s reading level to increasing time spent on a certain subject that we have pushed to the side.

Writing down these goals instead of just making mental notes allows me to really focus in on our goals. I can also make sure that we place the appropriate amount of attention in the needed areas.

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Weekly Lesson Plan

This sheet is vital for my homeschool planning system.

The Weekly Lesson Plan sheet is where I write down what we plan to accomplish on each day for each subject. This helps to keep everything straight in my head and it serves as a checklist and a work record if we were to ever be audited. My oldest child can also look at this sheet to see what he can work on independently throughout the week.

Daily Attendance Log

I keep an attendance log for each day that we do school work, go on field trips, or do community service work. This page only requires that you write the month and you place a mark inside the star next to the dates that your kids are “in attendance”.

This is important if your state requires you to record & report a set number of school days each year. Our state requires 180 days so I use my attendance log to help me keep track of how far along we are.

Reading Log

We are working hard to increase the number of books we read in our household. To help us with this, I keep up with each completed book in this reading log. When it is filled up, the kids get a special treat to celebrate!

Community Service Log

The Community Service Log contains all of the volunteer work completed by the school age kiddos throughout the year. Community service hours vary from serving with the church, cleaning up trash, sending care packages, gleaning produce, and anything else that the children do to serve others.

Field Trip and Vacation Logs

Anytime we go on a field trip, vacation, or complete community service work I write down the date, where we went, what we did, and what the educational purpose was for our records.

Extracurricular Activities

Sometimes I feel a little (or a lot) overwhelmed by our extracurricular activities. Because of this, I created a form in my homeschool planning system to help me keep track. I simply write down the activity type, the meeting time, and any special notes about each activity.

Doctor Visits

Our family doesn’t visit the doctor often, but when we do I always seem to forget which kid had what over the last year. Did the baby have a cold or was that the pre-teen? Mama brain is serious, y’all. The doctor visit form helps me to keep track of any illnesses and medications that my kids have throughout the year without having to keep a mental file.

Safety Drills & Drug Awareness

It is ALWAYS a great idea to practice safety drills (fire, tornado, earthquake, stranger, internet safety, etc) and drug awareness activities with your kids. I like to use the Safety Drills Form so that I can easily see when we are due for a refresher.

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Homeschool planning can be a daunting task, but using a planner such as this helps to take the edge off. This also allows more time for teaching and spending time with the kiddos.

The Simplified Homeschool Planner works perfectly for our homeschool planning needs and I would love to know if it is working for your family as well!

So Where Can You Download The Simplified Homeschool Planner?

Do you want to to give The Simplified Homeschool Planner a shot as you attempt to simplify your homeschool planning process?

You can get yours right here, mama! As I mentioned earlier, I can add or remove sheets if you have additional needs for your family. All you need to do it send me a quick message to let me know what you need!

 >>MORE HOMESCHOOL PLANNING RESOURCES<<

• Homeschool Math Resources for Right-Brained Mamas
• 4th Grade Homeschool Curriculum
• 3rd Grade Homeschool Curriculum
• What Homeschool Method Should You Choose?

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