Stay on Track With an Overall Yearly Plan

As a busy working homeschool mom, I know how important it is to plan ahead. Using an overall yearly plan gives me a good overview of what’s coming up in our homeschool, family life, and also in my businesses. If you’re looking for ways to stay on track with your homeschool, use these tips to stay on track with an overall yearly plan.

Why use an overall yearly plan in your homeschool?

When I first started homeschool my two youngest children, I thought we needed to stick with a regular September-through-June schedule. As the months and years went on though, I changed my mind. I began to see that so much of the children’s learning happened as part of the regular day at our off grid homestead.

And that didn’t stop at the end of June!

I also discovered that using an overall yearly plan, I got a birds-eye-view of potential scheduling conflicts. You know, the kind that would mean too much stress on this busy mama! Planning homeschool through the year let me work in product launches, dance recitals, family trips and gardening season.

Here are some reasons you might prefer a yearly homeschool plan:

• It serves as a guide for all the plans you make throughout the year.
• You can see at a glance where you’re at during the school year. Are you on course or does your child need to be more diligent in a specific subject?
• An overall yearly plan reminds you of the homeschool goals you had at the beginning of the year and helps you stay focused on them. 
• If you had to take a break from school because of illness or other life happening, you can easily see where you left off and pick right back up.

What should be included in an overall yearly plan?

The good news is you don’t have to go into deep details in an overall yearly plan for your homeschool. It’s an overview not a yearly lesson plan. So after referring to your family, work, and homemaking plan, create your homeschool yearly plan.

It should include:

1. A Course of Study for Each Child

A course of study shows what subjects your child will be studying that school year and what materials you plan to use to teach each subject. It’s also great to keep in your child’s portfolio as a handy reference to what you’ve studied each year.

2. Reading List

Make a reading list for each child that is reading on their own or a book list to work through with your younger children. Include all of the books you would like them to read during the year.

Give your children their own copies of their reading lists so they can mark them off as they finish them. Something as simple as marking off the books they’ve finished can help them stay motivated and feel accomplished. Plus you can easily see if they are spending enough time reading to get through the list by the end of the year.

3.Number of Lessons Chart

Make a chart to keep track of how many lessons should be finished each week to stay on course throughout the school year.

• How many weeks are in your school year?
• Divide the number of lessons in each subject by the number of weeks in your school year to give you an idea how many lessons should be completed each week.

# of lessons ÷ # of weeks = how many lessons should be completed each week

For example:

• 16 science lessons ÷ 32 school weeks = 1/2 a lesson each week that should be completed or 1 lesson every 2 weeks
• 160 math lessons ÷ 32 school weeks = 5 lessons of math that should be completed each week

So a simple chart to refer to would like:

• Science – 1 lesson every 2 weeks
• Math – 5 lessons a week

That’s all that you need to do to make an overall yearly plan.

Keep your yearly lesson plan handy in your homeschool planner.

Use it as a reference when you sit down to make your lesson plans or as a guide to make sure you’re children are completing enough lessons each week to stay on course.

Looking for some more free planning resources to help in your working homeschool mom life?

Head over to Thrive@Home to grab your free working homeschool mom survival pack and planning pages!