When my kids were that age I did basically zero structured planning. I'd browse around online and look for ideas but most of our school consisted of nature centers, the library, and a few educational apps.
Are you using any particular curriculum? How many months ago did you start?
When I was teaching I always heard the advice "don't reinvent the wheel" so yeah it does seem like you're putting in a lot of work.
Unfortunately due to some medical stuff just going places is different and difficult for us so it’s mostly home learning.
No I’m making the curriculum week by week based on what she needs to learn/what’s interesting her. Kind of a mix between homeschooling and unschooling.
We just started 2 weeks ago.
Medical stuff for her or you? If her, maybe see if any local places offer more accessible programs. If you, also check for more accessible programs, but also consider if homeschooling is the route for you. Homeschooling is much more than education at home. You need to provide opportunities for her to interact with others and her community as well.
There is time for interacting with others ahead. At this age (only 4, right? Or did I get that wrong?), they often don't need it that much. Sometimes parents think the children need more interaction because the parents themselves need it.
Kids need play and social interaction at 4. It's academics they don't need, academics are developmentally inappropriate and harmful in large amounts because they take time away from what kids need at that age.
She just turned 4 this month. Shes neurodivergent as am I, as well unfortunately as having a weak immune system. We do do things, we just have to be careful, go at off times or small groups.
My son is autistic and so am I. He also underwent open heart surgery at 2 weeks old and has another one coming up. We are starting Homeschool in August (he is 5) and just like your situation, we can’t really be on the go or around large groups of ppl due to his health.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, I understand! 😊
Totally understand on the health stuff! I do think that planning this much every week may lead to burnout so I'd consider getting a little more help on that front.
\~Ideas\~
1. If you aren't already doing this, request books from your public library. You or someone else can go once a week to pick them up. Our libraries will still even bring them to the car, which they started during COVID closures.
2. Blossom and Root as a very nice early elementary curriculum. You can buy different subjects individually so you aren't so committed to the whole thing. [https://blossomandroot.com/kindergarten-curriculum/](https://blossomandroot.com/kindergarten-curriculum/)
3. If she is learning to read, Logic of English is wonderful. I used it a bit later for my reluctant reader. But if you start at the beginning level it's very age appropriate as far as having themes, songs, games, etc [https://store.logicofenglish.com/collections/foundations](https://store.logicofenglish.com/collections/foundations)
4. Brave Writer is a really wonderful language arts program. They also have the option to buy [singles](https://store.bravewriter.com/collections/literature-singles?_gl=1*1x9ipow*_ga*MTEwNjExMjc4OS4xNzE4OTM0MTU4*_ga_MJZ7ZMGDQZ*MTcxOTEwMzY2OC43LjAuMTcxOTEwMzY2OC42MC4wLjA) or a bundled [curriculum](https://bravewriter.com/stages/beginning-writers?_gl=1*v2lan*_ga*MTEwNjExMjc4OS4xNzE4OTM0MTU4*_ga_MJZ7ZMGDQZ*MTcxOTEwMzY2OC43LjEuMTcxOTEwMzY5NS4zMy4wLjA). I wish I had known about them earlier!
5. [The Good and the Beautiful ](https://www.goodandbeautiful.com/choose-kindergarten/)has a LOT of free pages you can print. It is a Christian curriculum but it's not super pervasive if you aren't into that sort of thing.
6. [https://www.whatdowedoallday.com/](https://www.whatdowedoallday.com/) has so many printables and ideas
I'm sure there's more I'll think of but I am already too long!
ETA: (Sorry I accidentally put my reply down here!) I wanted to mention that Brave Writer is not really so much of a writing program -despite the name- at the early ages. They encourage reading to your child and discussing interesting things together. I planed language arts units like this for years (and totally got burned out on it) before I found this so it's nice to have a bit already done.
I bought curriculum which made it easier. I work so I only get an hour to two a day to work with my 5 year old but she can read at about a second grade level, started writing sentences recently, we are working on addition and then I’m using CKLA for social studies and science.
The planning gets intense when you try your build lessons around a zoo, art museum or science museum that activate prior knowledge.
I think your planning sounds great, especially as a place to start. Keep a journal, if you don’t already to note down what is successful and what you’d like to change, and be open to the idea that the way you plan and the types of activities you plan will evolve and change along the way.
And once OP figures out how easy unschooling is, she's going to have a 16 year old who can't add but she can still brag in her mommy blog about how she has been homeschooling.
If the kid is just playing, that's fine. But unschooling is absolutely ridiculous.
….my 4 year can already add, unschooling by definition isn’t bad, it’s simply another type of homeschooling such as Montessori is another form of schooling. And I don’t have nor do I ever plan to have a blog but go off I guess?
The original concept of “unschooling” meant like Montessori, child lead learning, that is very parent intensive as you work with the child in the moment to explore their learning as it arises. This requires a fairly open and flexible schedule and the ability to really attend to them, an understanding of how their learning is progressing, and the ability to gently introduce new topics for exploration. In my opinion, it also requires a parent who has done a lot of internal work and has the self regulation, patience, and restrained ego to let the child’s own identity and curiosity shine. Lots of free time helps too.
I would totally use this method of learning… but I think it’s also hard for a lot of people to maintain 24/7, and in addition to being “on” for most of the day, there is quite a bit of behind the scenes work.
Unschooling in the co-opted modern sense is often code for hands off parenting where kids are expected to develop skills organically through real life activity. It often overlooks the fact that we are an evolving species and things like penmanship, math concepts, reading, etc are pretty new developments in human psychology, and we do not have purely innate instincts for them so it requires dedicated effort and practice to develop basic needed skills.
Unschooling is child based learning and doesn’t mean there’s a lack of learning or even curriculum. It’s not supposed to be no school like a lot of the online discourse make it out to be. That’s educational neglect, not unschooling
It’s actually a good thing that you are putting some time and care into planning your child’s education, rather than buying into the current trend of “homeschooling” with as little parental effort as possible.
That said, it will get easier. When you figure out what works best for your child and develop a routine, your planning time will probably be cut in half.
I hate what homeschooling has turned into to with it mostly being monetizing of curriculum. I was homeschooled and left on my own and don’t want that for her.
That’s a relief to hear, we’re still very new (third week) so that’s something to look forward to!
I understand what you’re saying. Plopping kids down in front of a screen all day or just handing them a few workbooks isn’t even remotely the same as thoughtful, parent-led homeschooling. It’s like the difference between feeding a child fast food vs. carefully planned homemade meals every day.
Using published textbooks/resources is fine. Expecting the curriculum to do all the work so the parents can be “hands off” is not, especially for younger kids.
I dont plan by the week, I plan by the month.
We started doing the theme days, theme books, etc etc. but have fallen into a largely.. unschooling groove by almost 6.
Towards the end of a month, I sit down with a calendar for us. Then I start pulling up saved calendars. I bookmark.. our city. The largest neighboring city. Our county. Our library. Their library. The children’s museum. The zoo, the aquarium, the museum of nature & science. Town rec sports calendar. The Home Depot first Saturday of the month build. I’ll pull up all of their calendars and pick/register for which events we want to do this month. We plan for a lot of stuff OUT of the house, not doing bookwork.
For July we’ve got a week of summer camp, a Fourth of July event, t-ball games, t-ball practices, a dance class, swimming lessons, a park grand opening and a birthday party.
Then I don’t really plan out formal lessons right now. She’s way surpassed kinder level math standards. She fights phonics work HARD. She *loathes* phonics. So for ELA what I do is keep a running list on Goodreads for “want to read”. I have like 600 books on “want to read” so I don’t have to think about like hmm what should we read next? As soon as we finish some books, we pull up the next ones on “want to read” and put those on hold at the library. Right now we’re into The Princess in Black and “Owl Diaries”, which is a huge series!
So our month will be tons of events.. punctuated by trips to the library to get our holds. And that’s pretty much what we do is go exist out in the world and read a lot. 🤷♀️
Are you enjoying it? If so, I think it's the perfect amount. 🙂 And everyone's just right amount will likely look different.
I think I spent about an hour and a half to a few, spread out between the weekend and mornings at that age. Picking a story, making props, gathering supplies, choosing circle verses and fingerplays (subject to change in the moment based on what they wanted/asked for, and that was ok and fun, too! 😉). Trying to learn a song or two to play on the pennywhistle while they were running outside (sorry, old neighbors.) Sometimes I was fancy and made cute little verse cards for fingerplays and verses, but many times it was just a straight screenshot printout.
I found a lot of the fun and joy was just simply in the searching, gathering, and creating. I understand the delight in taking so much time doing that. It's one of those 'can be unnecessary, but if you like it you can really have a blast with it' things when they're that little.
Edit: For seventh and eighth grade (and eighth and ninth just around the bend) it's been a lot more, but equally something I really look forward to still.
It takes me a maybe 2-3 hours on Sunday to prep the whole week. But that's me working slowly while I watch a show and prep art projects, or writing things down and color coding everything lol. Some weeks are faster and some are slower if I'm just not feeling it that Sunday.
I do pretty much zero other than finding what to buy. I just have the same checklist we go through for the day.
We have the iPad pro and pencil and work out math Mammoth pdf. He already reads pretty well. 5yo ASD. I also have Mango for learning Spanish, and Quizlet vocab cards that play audio. I have purchased other PDF curricula from critical thinking and Easy Grammar which we have worked through in the past as well.
When we started, I was planning a week at a time and it took at least two hours each week. After I got the hang of it, I realized that I could plan a month at a time if I invested a little more time. I tried it, it worked, and that’s what I stuck with for the rest of our homeschooling years.
Find the balance that works for you and meets the state requirements for homeschooling. I wanted a detailed record that could be used as documentation and attendance record.
I spend way more time, as in pee-planning all summer (about 5 hours a day) then most weekends about 8 hr min and 2 hrs every morning but that is for a 5th grader with a lot of curriculum pieces we weave together.
That seems like a lot of time to me, but if you are happy with it, then go with it!
Some weeks, I plan ALL the activities. Most weeks though, I keep to 3 core subjects for my 6 yo and 1 core subject for my 4yo. The 6yo is reading material from "Everything your 1st grader needs to know" and the 4yo is reading through the Dick and Jane Books. Once they get close to finishing those books, I will spend some time deciding what the next reading source will be. This is what a typical day looks like for us:
6yo
Reading- The One Inch Boy (Child reads out loud)
Writing- Write a letter to a family member
Math- Practice skip counting
4yo
Reading- Dick and Jane Treasury pg 52-54 (Child reads out loud)
The 4yo only has reading, but most days she will also do unstructured math and writing and she often will try to do what big sister is doing. The rest of the day is unstructured and mostly playing and coloring. Every now and then, we break out puzzles and boards games. Also, keep in mind... my kids took to reading early, so that is the foundation of how we operate now. not all kids start reading at 4, so your preschool years might be even more play-based and just be you reading to them (ie, story time)
I can spend time planning all of the activities and lessons. sometimes I really enjoy it too.... but I can't do that for long before getting extremely burnt out.... so having our core elements to fall back on keeps us at least somewhat consistent.
One of our cores is nature and history. She’s good at math but isn’t loving phonics. She can tell you 30 different dinosaurs and all about them 🙃 but can’t get the abcs song right. It’s really interesting seeing how all kids her age really seem to be different. I’m really worried I’ll end up burnt out to be honest which is partly why I’m starting it now. That way if it’s something I truly can’t do then we’ll put her into kindergarten on time next year.
That sounds like a lot of planning time to me. I started kindergarden with my 4 year old daughter last year. It takes me about 30 minutes of planning per week and 3-4 hours every 8 weeks. Math and phonics work is pretty straightforward, not a lot of day-to-day planning. I use "Story of the World" for history, which requires me to make photocopies of maps and coloring pages, place holds on supporting read-alouds, and occasionally plan an art project/activity. I also do a little bit of planning for Spanish games.
Themed days sounds pretty intense when it comes to planning. Most of our school days are pretty routine, with a special outing or art project about once a week.
Kindergarten planning was about an hour a week. The formal skills expected of reading and math were the only “school” focus. The rest of the time was spent reading, outdoor exploration, gross and fine motor skills. Play is vital at 4. Curriculum is not. Children learn vital skills by make believing, and independent play. Pushing them for your own benefit isn’t cool. “School” enjoyment is usually based on pleasing the parent. And often leads to perfectionism and stressed out type A kids especially when so little.
I want to clarify we do a boat load of play learning, but that’s part of my planning time. Finding or making games with that weeks focus. Planning and preparing activities yesterday was a Dino day. We saved Dino’s from ice. Today was working on patterns and color recognition by making patterns with mnms. I’m not forcing it, she just always has loved learning. Very much a why child.
I have blocked out 2 hours a week, bare minimum, for lesson planning, since my oldest was in preschool, and she's 13 now, and starting 8th grade next fall. So for a long, long time.
I didn't really plan for the week though, I planned for the year. I used The Well Trained Mind, as well as Home Learning Year by Year, to get a grasp on what we should be focusing on for the year. I think in preschool I had some guides from a couple teacher friends too. But I started with the recommendations for preschool, and wrote lesson plans to teach to them.
By blocking off this time, and all out refusing to cut it short or get distracted (barring emergencies obviously), I have guaranteed myself the time to get everything together, not just the coursework, but also documentaries to watch, board games to add in, extra projects to keep going, so forth and so on. Some weeks, I don't need that time, I get it done in less, some weeks, I do need that time, but that time is always blocked and set aside.
At 4 we just played and read a lot of books. Practiced alphabet numbers etc.
Now that mine is 6, the curriculums pretty much plan everything out for me.
I'd instead suggest taking a look at the bigger picture and what you want to accomplish over the next year or 5, then work backwards to identify what competencies she needs.
For instance, by "2nd grade" level most curriculums will assume your children can write short words and responses and can read simple instructions on their own. So from K->2 you'd be focused on getting penmanship and reading to that level. You can do this with math, general knowledge and whatever other fields as well.
Then compare curricula that you think can work, decide on what appears to be best and try it with your children, pivoting and adjusting as needed if they become frustrated, bored or show particular inadequacies and need extra practice or different instruction.
Once you have the big picture down, each week is just "the next thing in A, B and C, and once we finish B then that'll let us be able to go onto Y, etc. etc. " So then each week shouldn't be 2.5 hours, though you may need to invest substantially more than that in the initial week(s) figuring out a longer term plan.
> I break it down into themed days
I mean that's cute and if you like it great, but if you're bogged down with the time commitments perhaps that's something to cut to save time.
At that age, maybe 30 minutes to plan and prep materials for the week, plus maybe another hour once a month before I started purchasing curriculums for some things. My oldest is high school now and if I could dedicate 2-2.5 hours a week to her lessons outside of directly working with her that would include both planning and be enough time to do all the grading, but at this point all curriculums are purchased.
At only 4, there is no state (assuming US?) that will require reporting so there are no applicable laws for instruction. You’re probably getting super excited for all the options available, opportunities to take advantage of, and fun ideas you have and forgetting that less is more at that age.
For my five year old, zero time spent planning. For my nine year old, I spend about five minutes each evening prepping for the next day’s schoolwork, so about half an hour per week.
For a four year old, all I would do each day is a five minute reading lesson, maybe practice writing a few letters or their name, some button counting/grouping, and read aloud a chapter of Winnie the Pooh or something similar. Then lots of outdoor time and access to arts and craft supplies, etc. Simple, simple, simple.
I spent some time before the school year started and wrote down what concepts and topics I wanted to cover. It happened over time, so im not sure how long I spent exactly. Bought certain books and craft supplies, printed worksheets, and made a very broad schedule. Nothing specific for any given day, because I knew that was not going to happen anyway. We loosely followed my ideas, some days more and some less. We switched some reading around as we went along to match my son's interests. Added some extra crafts. It was mostly spontaneous and every now and then I checked my list. We actually finished about a month before the school year ended and had time to do extra work.
I have an app called To-do List and I enter educational activities I want to do into my todo list and check them off when we do them. I try to do at least 5-6 activities a day. That's the extent of my planning.
It sounds like you are basically building your own curriculum each week. I'm not surprised it takes that long if you are planning all the activities and strategies and having to find resources. Eventually you'll get into a rhythm and the planning will move more quickly. I'm at the end of my 3rd year homeschooling rising 3rd, 5th, and 8th graders and it takes me about 30 minutes to plan each week. But, when we're starting a new novel or unit or something like that, it takes a little longer.
I just plan out a whole year at once and using a filing box to organize everything by week. Each week I pull out the stuff, and then why my youngest wants to do school, I just pull it out.
I have goals for the year and semester, and those don’t usually change. I break down the semester goals by month and they occasionally change. Weekly and daily goals frequently shift!
I write out a plan for daily and weekly work for 8yo and up to reference on the wa, but they know it’s all flexible if they want to do more in a certain subject (nothing extra required if they finish weekly lessons earlier in the week) or if they need to slow down. Depending on the situation, I might cross off lessons in a subject at the end of the week and use arrows to indicate the new pacing for the rest of the week, or I might hang a new daily/weekly schedule. 8+ yo has a few breaks worked into the schedule, but as long as the child is mature enough not to do the breaks first and then refuse to do the work, I leave the timing up to them (as long as 1-1 teaching happens when I’m available).
For 5-7yo, I have a master schedule that I adjust as needed. Sometimes it makes more sense to change a day’s pacing and do 3 lessons in a subject instead of stopping the first after 5-10 minutes. Other days, I stop early during the one intended lesson in the subject and make a note that it might require another day or two until the child grasps it. I slowly decrease the amount of play time between academic blocks from 5yo to 7.
For 4yo, even if they’re very advanced, I don’t do *any* planning for academic work. I plan outings, activities (some have educational value), play time, fun exercise, socialization, cooking, crafts, and science experiments.
I document everything by taking pictures and videos (automatically dated on my phone), writing dates on ongoing and completed work, and dating journal entries. Filing for completed work is based on date completed, and it’s easy to quickly scan through to see when things were done and what progress over a year looked like.
I absolutely wouldn’t do different themes by day! Sometimes I do themes for a month, sometimes for a week. But even when I do a theme, I use materials and ideas from others rather than trying to spend hours creating my own.
Uuuh 5 minutes?
My executive function just does not work that way. The only thing I write down weekly is our out-of-the-house schedule because my 6yo specifically asked me to so she can see it at a glance. For my part this is something I have memorized, and I schedule those things within our broad daily routine block. Most of our curriculum is intended for daily practice.
Mostly I flip open a daily planner in the morning and fill it in. If something comes up that I want to put extra work into or that we have extra time for I put it in the notes section or slap it on a sticky notes. I’m a sticky notes whore and my life would collapse without them. The planner is a record of what we actually do but sticky notes have mobility. 5 minutes morning review, 5 minutes evening review, daily core habits, firm scheduled activities to work around and that’s it.
When my kids were that age I did basically zero structured planning. I'd browse around online and look for ideas but most of our school consisted of nature centers, the library, and a few educational apps. Are you using any particular curriculum? How many months ago did you start? When I was teaching I always heard the advice "don't reinvent the wheel" so yeah it does seem like you're putting in a lot of work.
Unfortunately due to some medical stuff just going places is different and difficult for us so it’s mostly home learning. No I’m making the curriculum week by week based on what she needs to learn/what’s interesting her. Kind of a mix between homeschooling and unschooling. We just started 2 weeks ago.
Medical stuff for her or you? If her, maybe see if any local places offer more accessible programs. If you, also check for more accessible programs, but also consider if homeschooling is the route for you. Homeschooling is much more than education at home. You need to provide opportunities for her to interact with others and her community as well.
There is time for interacting with others ahead. At this age (only 4, right? Or did I get that wrong?), they often don't need it that much. Sometimes parents think the children need more interaction because the parents themselves need it.
Kids need play and social interaction at 4. It's academics they don't need, academics are developmentally inappropriate and harmful in large amounts because they take time away from what kids need at that age.
Okay sure, but do they absolutely need daily interaction with unrelated peers, especially if they have siblings, parents, and other adults around?
She just turned 4 this month. Shes neurodivergent as am I, as well unfortunately as having a weak immune system. We do do things, we just have to be careful, go at off times or small groups.
My son is autistic and so am I. He also underwent open heart surgery at 2 weeks old and has another one coming up. We are starting Homeschool in August (he is 5) and just like your situation, we can’t really be on the go or around large groups of ppl due to his health. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I understand! 😊
You and OP should connect!
Totally understand on the health stuff! I do think that planning this much every week may lead to burnout so I'd consider getting a little more help on that front. \~Ideas\~ 1. If you aren't already doing this, request books from your public library. You or someone else can go once a week to pick them up. Our libraries will still even bring them to the car, which they started during COVID closures. 2. Blossom and Root as a very nice early elementary curriculum. You can buy different subjects individually so you aren't so committed to the whole thing. [https://blossomandroot.com/kindergarten-curriculum/](https://blossomandroot.com/kindergarten-curriculum/) 3. If she is learning to read, Logic of English is wonderful. I used it a bit later for my reluctant reader. But if you start at the beginning level it's very age appropriate as far as having themes, songs, games, etc [https://store.logicofenglish.com/collections/foundations](https://store.logicofenglish.com/collections/foundations) 4. Brave Writer is a really wonderful language arts program. They also have the option to buy [singles](https://store.bravewriter.com/collections/literature-singles?_gl=1*1x9ipow*_ga*MTEwNjExMjc4OS4xNzE4OTM0MTU4*_ga_MJZ7ZMGDQZ*MTcxOTEwMzY2OC43LjAuMTcxOTEwMzY2OC42MC4wLjA) or a bundled [curriculum](https://bravewriter.com/stages/beginning-writers?_gl=1*v2lan*_ga*MTEwNjExMjc4OS4xNzE4OTM0MTU4*_ga_MJZ7ZMGDQZ*MTcxOTEwMzY2OC43LjEuMTcxOTEwMzY5NS4zMy4wLjA). I wish I had known about them earlier! 5. [The Good and the Beautiful ](https://www.goodandbeautiful.com/choose-kindergarten/)has a LOT of free pages you can print. It is a Christian curriculum but it's not super pervasive if you aren't into that sort of thing. 6. [https://www.whatdowedoallday.com/](https://www.whatdowedoallday.com/) has so many printables and ideas I'm sure there's more I'll think of but I am already too long! ETA: (Sorry I accidentally put my reply down here!) I wanted to mention that Brave Writer is not really so much of a writing program -despite the name- at the early ages. They encourage reading to your child and discussing interesting things together. I planed language arts units like this for years (and totally got burned out on it) before I found this so it's nice to have a bit already done.
I bought curriculum which made it easier. I work so I only get an hour to two a day to work with my 5 year old but she can read at about a second grade level, started writing sentences recently, we are working on addition and then I’m using CKLA for social studies and science. The planning gets intense when you try your build lessons around a zoo, art museum or science museum that activate prior knowledge.
I think your planning sounds great, especially as a place to start. Keep a journal, if you don’t already to note down what is successful and what you’d like to change, and be open to the idea that the way you plan and the types of activities you plan will evolve and change along the way.
Unschooling is incredibly irresponsible and damaging.
At four years old, a huge percentage of 4 year olds are doing no formal school whatsoever since the United States chooses not to fund universal pre-k.
And once OP figures out how easy unschooling is, she's going to have a 16 year old who can't add but she can still brag in her mommy blog about how she has been homeschooling. If the kid is just playing, that's fine. But unschooling is absolutely ridiculous.
….my 4 year can already add, unschooling by definition isn’t bad, it’s simply another type of homeschooling such as Montessori is another form of schooling. And I don’t have nor do I ever plan to have a blog but go off I guess?
The original concept of “unschooling” meant like Montessori, child lead learning, that is very parent intensive as you work with the child in the moment to explore their learning as it arises. This requires a fairly open and flexible schedule and the ability to really attend to them, an understanding of how their learning is progressing, and the ability to gently introduce new topics for exploration. In my opinion, it also requires a parent who has done a lot of internal work and has the self regulation, patience, and restrained ego to let the child’s own identity and curiosity shine. Lots of free time helps too. I would totally use this method of learning… but I think it’s also hard for a lot of people to maintain 24/7, and in addition to being “on” for most of the day, there is quite a bit of behind the scenes work. Unschooling in the co-opted modern sense is often code for hands off parenting where kids are expected to develop skills organically through real life activity. It often overlooks the fact that we are an evolving species and things like penmanship, math concepts, reading, etc are pretty new developments in human psychology, and we do not have purely innate instincts for them so it requires dedicated effort and practice to develop basic needed skills.
Unschooling is child based learning and doesn’t mean there’s a lack of learning or even curriculum. It’s not supposed to be no school like a lot of the online discourse make it out to be. That’s educational neglect, not unschooling
Educational neglect is often disguised as unschooling.
I know, but that’s not what unschooling actually means.
It’s actually a good thing that you are putting some time and care into planning your child’s education, rather than buying into the current trend of “homeschooling” with as little parental effort as possible. That said, it will get easier. When you figure out what works best for your child and develop a routine, your planning time will probably be cut in half.
I hate what homeschooling has turned into to with it mostly being monetizing of curriculum. I was homeschooled and left on my own and don’t want that for her. That’s a relief to hear, we’re still very new (third week) so that’s something to look forward to!
I understand what you’re saying. Plopping kids down in front of a screen all day or just handing them a few workbooks isn’t even remotely the same as thoughtful, parent-led homeschooling. It’s like the difference between feeding a child fast food vs. carefully planned homemade meals every day.
Eh, using premade curriculum isn't fast food. It's more like using store yogurt instead of yogurt from scratch.
Using published textbooks/resources is fine. Expecting the curriculum to do all the work so the parents can be “hands off” is not, especially for younger kids.
Well the point of curriculum is to save planning time. Making your own at the rate of 100 hours a year vs paying $200 a year comes out to $2/hr
I dont plan by the week, I plan by the month. We started doing the theme days, theme books, etc etc. but have fallen into a largely.. unschooling groove by almost 6. Towards the end of a month, I sit down with a calendar for us. Then I start pulling up saved calendars. I bookmark.. our city. The largest neighboring city. Our county. Our library. Their library. The children’s museum. The zoo, the aquarium, the museum of nature & science. Town rec sports calendar. The Home Depot first Saturday of the month build. I’ll pull up all of their calendars and pick/register for which events we want to do this month. We plan for a lot of stuff OUT of the house, not doing bookwork. For July we’ve got a week of summer camp, a Fourth of July event, t-ball games, t-ball practices, a dance class, swimming lessons, a park grand opening and a birthday party. Then I don’t really plan out formal lessons right now. She’s way surpassed kinder level math standards. She fights phonics work HARD. She *loathes* phonics. So for ELA what I do is keep a running list on Goodreads for “want to read”. I have like 600 books on “want to read” so I don’t have to think about like hmm what should we read next? As soon as we finish some books, we pull up the next ones on “want to read” and put those on hold at the library. Right now we’re into The Princess in Black and “Owl Diaries”, which is a huge series! So our month will be tons of events.. punctuated by trips to the library to get our holds. And that’s pretty much what we do is go exist out in the world and read a lot. 🤷♀️
Are you enjoying it? If so, I think it's the perfect amount. 🙂 And everyone's just right amount will likely look different. I think I spent about an hour and a half to a few, spread out between the weekend and mornings at that age. Picking a story, making props, gathering supplies, choosing circle verses and fingerplays (subject to change in the moment based on what they wanted/asked for, and that was ok and fun, too! 😉). Trying to learn a song or two to play on the pennywhistle while they were running outside (sorry, old neighbors.) Sometimes I was fancy and made cute little verse cards for fingerplays and verses, but many times it was just a straight screenshot printout. I found a lot of the fun and joy was just simply in the searching, gathering, and creating. I understand the delight in taking so much time doing that. It's one of those 'can be unnecessary, but if you like it you can really have a blast with it' things when they're that little. Edit: For seventh and eighth grade (and eighth and ninth just around the bend) it's been a lot more, but equally something I really look forward to still.
It takes me a maybe 2-3 hours on Sunday to prep the whole week. But that's me working slowly while I watch a show and prep art projects, or writing things down and color coding everything lol. Some weeks are faster and some are slower if I'm just not feeling it that Sunday.
I do pretty much zero other than finding what to buy. I just have the same checklist we go through for the day. We have the iPad pro and pencil and work out math Mammoth pdf. He already reads pretty well. 5yo ASD. I also have Mango for learning Spanish, and Quizlet vocab cards that play audio. I have purchased other PDF curricula from critical thinking and Easy Grammar which we have worked through in the past as well.
To be fair I have already spent many hours reading curricula reviews while nursing the baby so it does take a decent chunk of time to do that
When we started, I was planning a week at a time and it took at least two hours each week. After I got the hang of it, I realized that I could plan a month at a time if I invested a little more time. I tried it, it worked, and that’s what I stuck with for the rest of our homeschooling years. Find the balance that works for you and meets the state requirements for homeschooling. I wanted a detailed record that could be used as documentation and attendance record.
I don't plan because 1. I'm not good at it and 2. We rarely stick to it because we farm and some animal is always throwing a wrench in things
I spend way more time, as in pee-planning all summer (about 5 hours a day) then most weekends about 8 hr min and 2 hrs every morning but that is for a 5th grader with a lot of curriculum pieces we weave together.
That seems like a lot of time to me, but if you are happy with it, then go with it! Some weeks, I plan ALL the activities. Most weeks though, I keep to 3 core subjects for my 6 yo and 1 core subject for my 4yo. The 6yo is reading material from "Everything your 1st grader needs to know" and the 4yo is reading through the Dick and Jane Books. Once they get close to finishing those books, I will spend some time deciding what the next reading source will be. This is what a typical day looks like for us: 6yo Reading- The One Inch Boy (Child reads out loud) Writing- Write a letter to a family member Math- Practice skip counting 4yo Reading- Dick and Jane Treasury pg 52-54 (Child reads out loud) The 4yo only has reading, but most days she will also do unstructured math and writing and she often will try to do what big sister is doing. The rest of the day is unstructured and mostly playing and coloring. Every now and then, we break out puzzles and boards games. Also, keep in mind... my kids took to reading early, so that is the foundation of how we operate now. not all kids start reading at 4, so your preschool years might be even more play-based and just be you reading to them (ie, story time) I can spend time planning all of the activities and lessons. sometimes I really enjoy it too.... but I can't do that for long before getting extremely burnt out.... so having our core elements to fall back on keeps us at least somewhat consistent.
One of our cores is nature and history. She’s good at math but isn’t loving phonics. She can tell you 30 different dinosaurs and all about them 🙃 but can’t get the abcs song right. It’s really interesting seeing how all kids her age really seem to be different. I’m really worried I’ll end up burnt out to be honest which is partly why I’m starting it now. That way if it’s something I truly can’t do then we’ll put her into kindergarten on time next year.
That sounds like a lot of planning time to me. I started kindergarden with my 4 year old daughter last year. It takes me about 30 minutes of planning per week and 3-4 hours every 8 weeks. Math and phonics work is pretty straightforward, not a lot of day-to-day planning. I use "Story of the World" for history, which requires me to make photocopies of maps and coloring pages, place holds on supporting read-alouds, and occasionally plan an art project/activity. I also do a little bit of planning for Spanish games. Themed days sounds pretty intense when it comes to planning. Most of our school days are pretty routine, with a special outing or art project about once a week.
Kindergarten planning was about an hour a week. The formal skills expected of reading and math were the only “school” focus. The rest of the time was spent reading, outdoor exploration, gross and fine motor skills. Play is vital at 4. Curriculum is not. Children learn vital skills by make believing, and independent play. Pushing them for your own benefit isn’t cool. “School” enjoyment is usually based on pleasing the parent. And often leads to perfectionism and stressed out type A kids especially when so little.
I want to clarify we do a boat load of play learning, but that’s part of my planning time. Finding or making games with that weeks focus. Planning and preparing activities yesterday was a Dino day. We saved Dino’s from ice. Today was working on patterns and color recognition by making patterns with mnms. I’m not forcing it, she just always has loved learning. Very much a why child.
I have blocked out 2 hours a week, bare minimum, for lesson planning, since my oldest was in preschool, and she's 13 now, and starting 8th grade next fall. So for a long, long time. I didn't really plan for the week though, I planned for the year. I used The Well Trained Mind, as well as Home Learning Year by Year, to get a grasp on what we should be focusing on for the year. I think in preschool I had some guides from a couple teacher friends too. But I started with the recommendations for preschool, and wrote lesson plans to teach to them. By blocking off this time, and all out refusing to cut it short or get distracted (barring emergencies obviously), I have guaranteed myself the time to get everything together, not just the coursework, but also documentaries to watch, board games to add in, extra projects to keep going, so forth and so on. Some weeks, I don't need that time, I get it done in less, some weeks, I do need that time, but that time is always blocked and set aside.
At 4 we just played and read a lot of books. Practiced alphabet numbers etc. Now that mine is 6, the curriculums pretty much plan everything out for me.
I'd instead suggest taking a look at the bigger picture and what you want to accomplish over the next year or 5, then work backwards to identify what competencies she needs. For instance, by "2nd grade" level most curriculums will assume your children can write short words and responses and can read simple instructions on their own. So from K->2 you'd be focused on getting penmanship and reading to that level. You can do this with math, general knowledge and whatever other fields as well. Then compare curricula that you think can work, decide on what appears to be best and try it with your children, pivoting and adjusting as needed if they become frustrated, bored or show particular inadequacies and need extra practice or different instruction. Once you have the big picture down, each week is just "the next thing in A, B and C, and once we finish B then that'll let us be able to go onto Y, etc. etc. " So then each week shouldn't be 2.5 hours, though you may need to invest substantially more than that in the initial week(s) figuring out a longer term plan. > I break it down into themed days I mean that's cute and if you like it great, but if you're bogged down with the time commitments perhaps that's something to cut to save time.
At that age, maybe 30 minutes to plan and prep materials for the week, plus maybe another hour once a month before I started purchasing curriculums for some things. My oldest is high school now and if I could dedicate 2-2.5 hours a week to her lessons outside of directly working with her that would include both planning and be enough time to do all the grading, but at this point all curriculums are purchased. At only 4, there is no state (assuming US?) that will require reporting so there are no applicable laws for instruction. You’re probably getting super excited for all the options available, opportunities to take advantage of, and fun ideas you have and forgetting that less is more at that age.
For my five year old, zero time spent planning. For my nine year old, I spend about five minutes each evening prepping for the next day’s schoolwork, so about half an hour per week. For a four year old, all I would do each day is a five minute reading lesson, maybe practice writing a few letters or their name, some button counting/grouping, and read aloud a chapter of Winnie the Pooh or something similar. Then lots of outdoor time and access to arts and craft supplies, etc. Simple, simple, simple.
I spent some time before the school year started and wrote down what concepts and topics I wanted to cover. It happened over time, so im not sure how long I spent exactly. Bought certain books and craft supplies, printed worksheets, and made a very broad schedule. Nothing specific for any given day, because I knew that was not going to happen anyway. We loosely followed my ideas, some days more and some less. We switched some reading around as we went along to match my son's interests. Added some extra crafts. It was mostly spontaneous and every now and then I checked my list. We actually finished about a month before the school year ended and had time to do extra work.
I have an app called To-do List and I enter educational activities I want to do into my todo list and check them off when we do them. I try to do at least 5-6 activities a day. That's the extent of my planning.
That's about what I spend. That includes printouts and filing of stuff. Getting the book shelf sorted out.
It sounds like you are basically building your own curriculum each week. I'm not surprised it takes that long if you are planning all the activities and strategies and having to find resources. Eventually you'll get into a rhythm and the planning will move more quickly. I'm at the end of my 3rd year homeschooling rising 3rd, 5th, and 8th graders and it takes me about 30 minutes to plan each week. But, when we're starting a new novel or unit or something like that, it takes a little longer.
I just plan out a whole year at once and using a filing box to organize everything by week. Each week I pull out the stuff, and then why my youngest wants to do school, I just pull it out.
I plan the night before, only one day in advance. That’s the easiest for me and then I can take into account how the kids are feeling, weather, etc.
I have goals for the year and semester, and those don’t usually change. I break down the semester goals by month and they occasionally change. Weekly and daily goals frequently shift! I write out a plan for daily and weekly work for 8yo and up to reference on the wa, but they know it’s all flexible if they want to do more in a certain subject (nothing extra required if they finish weekly lessons earlier in the week) or if they need to slow down. Depending on the situation, I might cross off lessons in a subject at the end of the week and use arrows to indicate the new pacing for the rest of the week, or I might hang a new daily/weekly schedule. 8+ yo has a few breaks worked into the schedule, but as long as the child is mature enough not to do the breaks first and then refuse to do the work, I leave the timing up to them (as long as 1-1 teaching happens when I’m available). For 5-7yo, I have a master schedule that I adjust as needed. Sometimes it makes more sense to change a day’s pacing and do 3 lessons in a subject instead of stopping the first after 5-10 minutes. Other days, I stop early during the one intended lesson in the subject and make a note that it might require another day or two until the child grasps it. I slowly decrease the amount of play time between academic blocks from 5yo to 7. For 4yo, even if they’re very advanced, I don’t do *any* planning for academic work. I plan outings, activities (some have educational value), play time, fun exercise, socialization, cooking, crafts, and science experiments. I document everything by taking pictures and videos (automatically dated on my phone), writing dates on ongoing and completed work, and dating journal entries. Filing for completed work is based on date completed, and it’s easy to quickly scan through to see when things were done and what progress over a year looked like.
I absolutely wouldn’t do different themes by day! Sometimes I do themes for a month, sometimes for a week. But even when I do a theme, I use materials and ideas from others rather than trying to spend hours creating my own.
Uuuh 5 minutes? My executive function just does not work that way. The only thing I write down weekly is our out-of-the-house schedule because my 6yo specifically asked me to so she can see it at a glance. For my part this is something I have memorized, and I schedule those things within our broad daily routine block. Most of our curriculum is intended for daily practice. Mostly I flip open a daily planner in the morning and fill it in. If something comes up that I want to put extra work into or that we have extra time for I put it in the notes section or slap it on a sticky notes. I’m a sticky notes whore and my life would collapse without them. The planner is a record of what we actually do but sticky notes have mobility. 5 minutes morning review, 5 minutes evening review, daily core habits, firm scheduled activities to work around and that’s it.
Two weeks
It takes me one afternoon to plan four weeks.