Planning Your Homeschool Year, Even When It’s Challenging

These sure are some crazy and unprecedented times that we are living through. The influx of CODID-19 all the following changes have drastically changed every aspect of our lives. Yet, even in uncertain times, one thing is certain – it’s time to start planning your homeschool year now!

Planning For What You Do Know

So, let’s start planning our 2020 homeschool year by thinking about what we do know.

• How many kids you will be homeschooling.
• Their age/level/grades.
• The direction you want your homeschool to take.
• Curriculum options you want to consider.

Kids and Grade Levels

Regardless of how the prior school year went, your kids are going to be a set grade or level come next year. You know their skills, their strengths, and their weaknesses. You already know what they are passionate about learning about and which subjects have them running for the hills.

This information is good to have on hand, and better still to write down. In fact, I have a free planning coordinator that you may want to grab now before we do too much farther to help keep you organized.

Take this time to think about your kids and to talk with them. Ask them what they would like to learn more about or if there is a new topic of interest for them. Perhaps there was something they learned this year but they would like to go deeper into that subject. Start these conversations now so you have time to figure out how to make it work.

The Direction Your Homeschool Will Take

Perhaps you already know. Maybe you have a good thing going already and you simply want to continue on the path you are on.

Perhaps you are ready to make a change. Maybe with all of the changes this Spring has brought you are thinking you would like to keep some of them. Have you found a new rhythm to your days that you prefer over the old way? Have you discovered your child is freer with more free time? Did your child find a creative pursuit they could finally explore now that co-ops and field trips are out of the picture?

The start of a new school year is always an ideal time to evaluate the direction of your homeschool. But the start of the 2020/2021 school year is different because so much change has occurred this Spring and that change has brought so many of us to a point of questioning just what we fill our time with – and why. Use this time to really reevaluate which activities are truly helping your homeschool and which are simply filling your time.

Curriculum Choices

As the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Yet now is the time to start looking into curriculum options, reading reviews, and asking for advice from other homeschoolers.

Now is the time to look at each program you use, books you teach from, and products you utilize in your homeschool and see if they still help you reach your goals for your children.

If they do, great!

If not, it’s time to find something that will.

Planning For What You Don’t Know

This is the hard part. Planning your homeschool year without knowing how social distancing and closures are going to affect your year will make it challenging. Not knowing if outside activities can continue makes selecting courses difficult.

This is where having some flexibility built in now can help. Consider the following:

• If the co-op doesn’t reopen, what would your children learn there? How can you recreate that?
• If sports are not on the table, what can you do in their place?
• If field-trips are still unknown, what can you do instead to take the learning outside and away from books and programs?

Here is where we create some if/then planning into the 2020/2021 homeschool year.

• If the co-op doesn’t reopen then we can…
• If sports are cancelled then we can…
• If (insert favorite field-trip destination) is still closed then we can…

If we can’t do this, we will instead do that. Planning for the unplannable and having a backup plan.

Maybe it’s as simple as taking a virtual field trip or doing some night start gazing. Maybe it’s more complicated, learning how to teach a class normally resigned to the co-op leader.

Either way, it’s creating some clarity in a situation that doesn’t quite have full clarity yet.

Planning A Better Way

Now I don’t know about you, but since the Coronavirus became a reality our life has been in a constant state of recalculating. My kids had a lot of outside activities that kept us busy and helped to anchor our days.

There was a certainty to our days that right now, we don’t have.

On the flip side though, there has been clarity with the removal of the chaos that truly has me evaluating every aspect of our home and homeschool.

It has also given me the time to think about planning and how I want to be able to plan out our days, weeks, and months. To think about the things in life that are given versus the things that are more left up to chance

How I need both consistency in a planner and freedom at the same time.

And how every planner, system, or method I have tried out there has left me needing something better.

Sounds Familiar?

If you find yourself in the same boat – trying to plan for the unknown, surrounded by planning systems that promised to do it all but left you more confused than ever, I invite you to learn more about The Ultimate Home & School Planner.

It’s a customizable planner designed to allow busy homeschool Moms to create the planning system they need to record not just homeschool items, but all of the other areas of life as well.

A planner with plenty of space for your family, your home, your homeschool, and you. With daily, weekly, and monthly pages, cleaning lists, meal planning pages, and even goal setting information to help you make the changes you want to help you be the best for your family.

Plus all of the pages you need to both plan and record your homeschool year.

It’s planning reinvented just in time to plan for an unknown future, and the perfect tool for every homeschool mom working hard at planning your homeschool year.

Planning Your Best Homeschool Year Ever

Planning your homeschool year certainly requires more versatility than years before, but that’s what homeschoolers are best at. Thinking outside the proverbial box, learning on our feet, and taking what life throws at us.

We adapt. We change. We grow and keep on going each and every day. Nurturing our homeschools the best we can and guiding our children through the wonderful world we live in. Showing them how to ask questions and how to find the answers. Guiding them when things are challenging. Pushing them when they need it, and giving them space when it’s time.

Homeschooling is not a one-size-fits-all approach to schooling. It’s uniquely tailored to each child. And our planning needs to be just as unique as well.

This upcoming homeschool year may require more adjusting and flexibility than years past – but that is where we homeschoolers excel.

And with The Ultimate Home & School Planner, you will be ready to plan for anything, adjust at every step, and keep on nurturing your homeschool without missing a step.

Check out some other great homeschool posts!

• Master Books American History: The High School Curriculum We’ve Been Waiting For
• 9 Best Christian Homeschool American History Curricula for High School
• 2026 Amazon Prime Day Tips & Tricks for Homeschoolers
• Common Sense Science Human Body: A Homeschool Mom’s Honest Review