Part 1 – Outline your beliefs
Part 2 – Finding your child’s preferred “intelligence(s)” and learning style
Part 3 – Choosing a learning style
Part 4 – Locating the curriculum/program and finding resources
Part 5 – Adapting/Modifying the curriculum

Planning far in advance can be intimidating, but it doesn’t need to be.

Planning the year is all about looking at how many days you have and chunking them into smaller parts.

Mapping out the year using a calendar

You might already have a sense of how you’d like to homeschool. Will you follow your province/state’s academic calendar, or do you plan to do school year-round? Whatever the decision, there’s a calendar for that!

Since I’d like my son to be able to spend time with his family and friends when they have time off, I’ve decided to follow the local academic calendar. That means holidays and dates like spring break will coincide.

Steps to planning the homeschool year

1- Start by printing off one of the yearly calendars (see the resources link). The one I used is editable in Word, and it allowed me to change the US-based holidays to Canadian ones. I also added spring break and summer holidays (see left-hand column).

Printing off a free editable calendar lets you set local holidays.

2 – Using a highlighter, block off all holidays/breaks. In my province, we have 180 school days for students and 20 pedagogical days for teachers. When I counted, I had 190 “school” days (not including weekends—those are bonuses!), giving me 10 weekdays to play around with.

Block off all holidays, including summer break.

You don’t have to be strict about the number of “school” days. Counting the days just gives you a broader picture and a point of reference. Learning happens all day long, including weekends and holidays. I’m using the set days for more formal planning because I like to have things in order that way.  Feel free to count or not count—whatever suits your style best!

3- I like to separate my year according to the seasons. I’ve blocked off 13 weeks (more or less) for each of the seasons using different colors. What I have now is a great visual for myself for planning the year. Instead of worrying about 52 weeks in the year, I can now focus on one season at a time. For instance, I know that the Autumn session will run from Sept to the end of November. Three months of planning is easier to manage than 12.

I broke the year apart into seasons.

You might choose to separate your year into months, or perhaps several weeks on with one week off and repeating that year-round.

How do you plan your homeschool year?  

Resources:

• Academic monthly calendars – You can print July to June, August to July, or September to August (as I have done) – use the layout you prefer – free printables

Related article:

• Yearly Goal-Setting: 3 Main Things (+ Freebie Planner)
• Freebie: Your 3-Month Academic and Therapeutic Planning Guide

I can help you create a general yearly homeschool plan so that you don’t have to do it alone!

Check out my one-on-one consultations here.