We are just coming back from a whole week off for spring break! I’m glad to be getting back into it this week though. Our school routine adds much needed structure to our morning and keeps my kids from going absolutely feral before lunch (most of the time).
While the kids had the week off I still had to do prep work to get ready for the next week. Should I have started earlier in the week? Probably. But, I was very busy online shopping and to be honest I always put off doing lesson planning.
It has taken me a while to figure out the most efficient way to get it all done. When we first started I was pulling an all nighter at least once a week to get everything ready, and there is not enough coffee in the world to make that a sustainable life choice. And I don’t have a solid hour or two to sit and get it all done during the day without getting side tracked or being interrupted by what sounds like a cage style wrestling match happening in the next room.
As I have mentioned in previous posts I planned out our weekly themes for the year before our school year started. (I’ll link it at the bottom of the page if you are looking for some theme ideas!) Even with that part done I have to find or make activities to go with each theme. I still have a good amount of planning to do each week even though our daily routine stays the same.
Because I don’t have a dedicated time frame to get it all done I try to split it up to do a little bit everyday. (Most of the time while I am doing other things.) Here is what I have been doing to keep lesson planning for each week under an hour.
- Request books from the Library (I do this every Tuesday while I put my youngest to sleep to make sure I have them in time for the next week.)
- Find or make the worksheets that go along with the theme. ( I always go to Teachers Pay Teachers first then, I decide if I need to make additional worksheets.)
- Fill out my weekly planner and decide what activities to do for each day (You can download the planner below!)
- Mark pages in workbooks by day. ( I do this while my son is working in the workbooks and mark the pages for the next week.)
- Organize worksheets and workbooks by day into folders .
- Pick out all letters and numbers of the day for the board for the entire week.
- Clean up and set up the playroom (Sunday night).
And that’s it! Lesson planning has gotten a lot easier (and less time consuming) for me with this method. I’m a newbie at this homeschool thing so I am definitely figuring it out as I go. Like, should I have even had a spring break? I don’t know! But, we are rolling with it!
You can download the weekly planner and themes here:
If you homeschool how do you lesson plan? I would love to hear about it!