A Simple Homeschool Lesson Planning Method + FREE Lesson Planner

When I first started homeschooling, I had this vision of homeschool lesson planning where I’d write it all out in our homeschool lesson planner and check things off as we’d do them…except it didn’t happen that way.

Instead, there were minimal checkmarks, arrows moving things around (because I used pen), and chaos in what was to be a plan. How does a plan seem to turn out as a mess?

I got worried, discouraged and upset at myself. There was too much movement in my planner and it made me feel like a failure at not just lesson planning but homeschool itself. I mean, this is my children’s education…how am I to do this?!

Since this type of planning – writing it all out in a lesson planner expecting to get it done – didn’t work for me, I needed to find a new simple homeschool lesson planning method.

What I Did To Create A Simple Homeschool Lesson Plan (That Actually Works!)

The first thing I did to create a new and simple homeschool lesson plan was I stopped planning. Yup, you heard that right!

At the root of planning how I did, I stressed out about the plan and the plan became my master in our homeschool. This was not how I saw homeschooling going.

So I felt that if we naturally found a rhythm to our homeschool lifestyle first that I could develop a plan from there. Below is how it progressed and developed:

FIRST: THE STICKY – In the natural rhythm of homeschool, to know where we were at in the various curriculums, I grabbed a sticky note per curriculum. As a lesson or page was completed the sticky would move to the next lesson or page and this is where we would start off the next time. Just in this simple method, there was progress which brought on such a feeling of confidence.

SECOND: THE NOTEBOOK – After a bit of time and consistency with the moving stickies, I started to add to this method and write down in a notebook the date, the curriculum we did that day and the lessons or pages that were completed. My notebook was more of a lesson journal or record-book indicating what we did. There were no strike-outs, no arrows and there was absolutely no chaos in this notebook. What a relief!

THIRD: THE LESSON PLANNER – From here, after using stickies and a notebook, I developed a simple homeschool lesson planner printable. It’s really become my record-keeper of what we do in our homeschool where I write down what we actually do and not the plan for what we want to do.

As for today, stickies are still very much a part of our planning method; they keep momentum so that we’re not looking back at the previous day finding out what lesson we did to know what lesson we’re going to do. This simple element is such a win!

If you’d also like to take the stress out of homeschool lesson planning or look at a more simplied and clean approach, I’d encourage you to grab my FREE Homeschool Lesson Planner Printable over at WildlyAnchored.com!