One of our favorite things about homeschool is planning out all the amazing things we want to teach our kids. Over the years we’ve experienced both extremes: over-planning and under-planning. Both can be frustrating, but will a few of our best tips, you can plan an awesome school year of your own.

#1 Take Notes

Take notes throughout the year of ideas, resources and goals you think will be good for the next school year. I usually keep a list in notes on my phone that I add to through out the years. It’s helpful when I’m at a museum, library or bookstore and see something that might be handy for the future. Sometimes I’ll take photos and sometimes I’ll even find items on Amazon and add to my homeschool wishlist to review later.

#2 Start Planning Early

Give yourself time to plan, take breaks, and then come back to the plan with edits. It can be helpful to begin early as planning unit studies and reviewing curriculum can take some time. It can be a lot of work to plan over the summer with enough time to order items before starting the new school year.

#3 Make Lists

I find it helpful to see everything as a whole, so I love to make lists and spreadsheets to make sure I’m not missing anything. In fact, my lists are a big part of tips 1 and 2 above. I often start lists in January for the next school year and include all ideas I pick up along the way. Then, when I’m ready to refine my plan, I have a place to begin. It then serves as an inventory for getting all the curriculum, supplements and planning field trips that I’ll need.

#4 Include Your Kids

Include your kids in the planning!! It is their education after all. While you may already have a plan for when your kids study specific topics, it can be helpful to know what their interests are and what they are excited to learn about. Then, it’s up to you to use that information how you want. For more on this tip, see our previous post Ask Your Kids: Planning Your Homeschool Content Around Your Kids’ Interests

#5 Review Previous Years

Taking the time to look back at how certain curriculum, subjects, approaches have gone over can help you make plans for going forward. Sometimes we use curriculum that just didn’t work and you’ll want to note that and consider something different moving forward. It’s helpful to understand why that curriculum didn’t work to avoid accidentally using one that may be similar. We discuss this in more detail in Looking Forward to Planning Your Year with the Benefits of Looking Back

#6 Plan Things That Excite You!

Homeschooling should be fun, or at least interesting, for you as well. One of my favorite things about homeschooling my children is getting to learn alongside them. When I’m planning certain subjects or topics, I think of what I enjoyed learning, what I didn’t learn, and how I can teach my kids better than I learned. When I’m excited about what and how I’m teaching, the experience is better for all of us.

#7 Research

With so many content options out there, it is critical to research what you are planning. It’s totally okay to have preferred curriculum, but sometimes there are resources that could enhance your plans just waiting to be found. Besides just searching on the google, search different homeschool forums, like Facebook groups,

#8 Plan Some Magic

Don’t forget to add magic into your plan! Magic can be anything that enhances your academic studies: field trips, games, hands-on experiences, school at the park, read alouds during tea time, or learning with friends. Think beyond the curriculum pages and add some excitement to your plan.

#9 Add Variety

Similar to magic, add some variety to what you plan. If you have a few studies heavy in reading, find something to offset that for the other subjects. Perhaps outsourcing science by participating in a co-op will help, or do social studies through a video program. Variety will help everyone from feeling burned out.

#10 Plan to be Flexible

Plans change, it’s just a fact of life. While it can certainly be disappointing when a plan doesn’t go exactly right, it doesn’t have to be a disaster. Being flexible and giving yourself permission to deviate from a plan will make any changes easier.

BONUS TIP: find a planning system you love!

Not everyone loves a super detail oriented day/week/month planner, but surely there is a system that will work for you. Even if you just take Tip #3 and list out your plan, you can organize it and work from that during the school year.

Happy Planning!