(Not new to homeschooling, but need help organizing?--No shame...Keep Reading OR Skip to Links listed in the Table of Contents!)
Table of Contents:
Tip#1: Try not to Overwhelm your self with ALL that is out there
Link#3: Free Homeschool Forms, including Daily Planner, Curriculum Plan, & More
Link #4: Free Editable Pacing Guide- Prefilled school year dates
Link#5: Homeschool Multi-Child Scheduler- Spreadsheet on Google Sheets
Are you wondering how in the world you are going to start organizing your new homeschool? Are you overwhelmed with ALL the information out there? (I was too!!) I hope this blog post can ease some of that burden! I played tug a war with my thoughts and doubts of being able to make homeschooling work. On one hand, I knew I could handle elementary stuff...Easy, right? BUT then those doubts crept in (as they do for many I have found): Will I be good enough? Will I fail my children? Will I be able to teach them ALL that they need to know? All these very common worries were overcome (for the most part...I am a work in progress) by both time and preparation. You will get there, too--keep the faith! The "time" part will take just that, but you WILL find a groove that works for you once you get started. The key here is to just get started (and let go of your worries--the best you can!). I am hoping to help you get started with setting up a plan to tackle the preparation part by giving your some tools that helped me. Once I found planning resources and started scheduling my days, my worries eased more and more--which led to me feeling more prepared and confident in my homeschooling.
But first, a backstory. I started my "practice homeschool year" back in 2017 when I taught my firstborn Pre-K. I was DETERMINED to get it all figured out that “practice” year. It was the year I planned to test out if homeschooling would be "the right fit for us", with little to lose. After all, I could put her in public school for Kindergarten if it didn't work out. Did I figure it all out? Um, far from it. BUT I did find you don’t have to for it to work! I have found homeschooling is a journey of learning that continues year-after-year. Surprise: I have learned right alongside my children every year. And each year I have grown to love it more and more (and learned to plan ahead more and more each year too). Here are some helpful links and tips I have to offer that can benefit you:
TIP #1: My first tip for Preschool or Kindergarten is to not sweat the WHAT to cover too much at this stage. I recommend focusing more on the HOW at this point. Don’t worry, I do have suggestions on WHAT to cover below too!! One of my regrets is wishing I had worried less in this regard during my firstborn's preschool year. There was so much information and material for these grades my brain was on overload! Having a lot of information can be great, but THAT much was the opposite of great for me. It would have saved me unneeded stress if I had prioritized planning out our days. Embracing the thought of "less is more" couldn't have hurt either. Many days I tried to pack material in that I downloaded on a whim that were not planned (because I thought "OOo, she must know this too"!). Like I said, sooo much out there for these 2 grades! Try not to get sucked in by everything or feel the need to do it ALL...I know too well where that can go wrong! Now, if you plan to have a "Pre-K tester year"--MY advice...try to put most of your focus on planning your days out well and following a good routine! [A routine that works for your family is a "good routine"--it can look completely different from another homeschool family’s routine (and it likely will)]. The structure you are setting up will help you all for the more robust (material/subject wise) years to come. Now on to some time-saving planning links that will help you plan so you can flawlessly (or at least "more easily") map out your routine...
Link #1: First, I always recommend seeing what the requirements are for your state. The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) is a great source. Go here and click where you live to see your state's specific Laws to Homeschool. I am lucky to be in a state with very low regulations, so I have a lot of options on HOW to homeschool here in Texas. Make sure you follow whatever requirements your state spells out. Here is a small tidbit directly from the HSLDA website for Texas Requirements:
“Texas Homeschool Law At a Glance
Click "Get Ready to Thrive in Your Homeschool" for the guide
I especially love the sections that show time suggestions per subject by grade.
Paola's website also has a ton of great resources on her main page geared to the Catholic Homeschooler--the linked Planning Guide is not limited to Catholic homeschoolers in terms of benefits to help plan. She does tie in praying into her planning which I personally love, but this resource can serve homeschoolers of all faiths. You can also see her homepage here: https://catholichomeschool.online/
My suggestions for time spent per subject for Pre-K to Kindergarten follow:
Language Arts (15-20 minutes max)
Math (15-20 minutes max)
All other optional subjects (10-15 minutes each)
These are rough guides, and are not meant to be set in stone. I encourage you to be lenient and flexible. Little ones in PreK & Kinder can get frustrated learning something new. Take as many breaks as necessary and try to keep it as fun and lite as possible. Children learn so much from play, and they retain much more when having fun during lessons__Not every grade will be fun and games, but Pre-K and Kinder really should/can be).
For Language Arts I recommend sticking to the very basics:
Letter Identification by name
Letter sounds (For this I highly recommend All About Reading. They offer a FREE Phonogram App to learn accurate sounds)
Building patience in sitting through stories/listening skills
Optional lite handwriting practice, etc.
Grammar and Writing Skills can wait, and you can introduce them in 1st grade. But you know your child best, and you can introduce any subjects or lesson ideas earlier if you see fit. (Another benefit of homeschooling=you can move at your child’s needed pace).
TIP #2: Jot down some goals on paper: If you are a pen-to-paper kind of planner like me, get started there. You can transfer your thoughts to a more formal format later. Below you will see my very informal handwritten list in my notebook. It was for some (not all) of the overarching goals I set for my children’s starter years for Language Arts and Math. Doing a web search can also lead you to some good information on what to cover. Search "what a Preschooler/Kindergartener needs to know” in the search bar for starters. I also have lots more topic ideas within the sections below on pacing guides & checklist! Photo sample (please pardon the messy handwriting--messy planning is still planning, right? hehe):
Link #3: Free Homeschool Forms and Planning Guides- I found the forms I use on the linked blog by Beth (she has tons of other free information and printables geared to homeschoolers too!). You can find all the fully editable record-keeping forms from her here. I do not use all the forms, but having several options is great. The idea is to go from broad to narrow, and use as many forms as you feel you need to be an effective planner. For example, this past school year I had the following for planning:
1. Daily Schedule that details what subjects are done what days/times (all children on one form)
2. Curriculum Plan for each child--this and the Daily Schedule come from Beth's blog linked above.
3. Kindergarten Weekly Checklist-- I created this since I pieced a lot of things together for Kindergarten and used less set curriculum. I go into more detail later in this post where you can get it FREE!
4. Pacing Guide (all children on one form-filled out 1-2 weeks in advance)
5. A displayable Day-to-day Weekly Planner filled out for the current week
All of the numbered items above have photo references and more details in other areas of this post (click on any highlighted # to jump to the section). You may want less or more depending on your planning style and needs. This year I decided to go a step further in my planning. I created a spreadsheet to help me with Multi-Child Scheduling. --I call it the Homeschool Multi-Child Scheduler ( I bet you saw that coming)! I will go into more detail a bit further within the post and will link to where you can get it, or you can jump to that section now HERE.
Now, back to previous year samples & forms...Here is a sample of the Curriculum Plan form I edited for my Kinder Girl this past year (I opted to use the "Cost/Where Purchased" column for Notes instead:
This form is from Beth's blog linked above. :)
This Pacing Guide, designed for classroom teachers, can also serve well for homeschool. I have been using it the last 5 years for homeschooling my oldest child and love it! This past year when adding my Kindergartener daughter to the mix I had to edit it to make room for 2 instead of 1. It was an easy fix. I added some space to the original design by adding length to one of the rows within the table. I did this for each week to fit my Kindergarten planning in, along with my 3rd grade planning. Jennifer at Simply Kinder has made this resource editable, so you can make it work for you! I also add a key at the bottom along with acronyms for various subjects and curricula I use. She updates this every year too! It is so helpful to have the dates pre-filled for you. I love the layout of this particular Pacing Guide compared to others I have seen. It allows for each subject to be briefly detailed by week. It is my go-to for my broad overview for each week. I have this printed out for the year, but only fill it out a week or two in advance (just my personal preference). You can fill it out as far ahead as you like, of course. Just know this: the further you plan out, the more things will likely need adjusting along the way. Not the worst problem, and while homeschooling being comfortable with change is necessary. Something I had to get used to that did not come natural to me! Heads up for those that need to hear it: change is ok, and expected (in homeschooling, but I suppose in life in general too).
Here is a sample of half a page of my pacing guide from last year. (Again, with messy handwriting--I have a new goal for next year: work on Mom's handwriting skills!)
If you want some inspiration on week-to-week samples of topics to consider do a quick web search. Put “Free Pre K Pacing Guide” or "Free Kindergarten Pacing Guide” into the search bar. Free pre-filled pacing guides are available to download from many teacher resource creators. Many of these guides come loaded with weekly topics already filled. Across the board, the topics covered in these grades are very similar from one teacher to another. When I did a quick search, many options popped up for Kindergarten, including this FREE Prefilled Kindergarten Pacing Guide from the Printable Princess blog: https://www.theprintableprincess.com/free-kindergarten-pacing-guide/).
A prefilled pacing guide is especially helpful if you are creating weekly topics on your own for Pre-K or Kindergarten. It is less necessary if you choose an all-encompassing program that gives you guides and topics to follow each week (i.e. a boxed curriculum). I chose to create my own for Pre-K and Kindergarten rather than use a boxed curriculum. For Kindergarten I also planned some topics around the programs I chose to use for Reading and Math. Reading, Math, and Religion are the only subjects I consistently used outside curricula with preset lessons laid out for me. Versus piecing lessons together as I did for other Kindergarten subjects and topics.
TIP #3: For my Narrow day-to-day Planner, I use this 18x12 Weekly Planner. I love how big it is and that I can see it from across the room. I transformed it into a dry erase board by laminating it after running out of sheets (this format is hard to find now in this size). One option to transform paper planners is to get it laminated at an office supply store, BUT if you are super frugal like me: Use super clear packing tape overlapping until covered!
Each week I would take a photo using the scan option in Google Drive, crop it, and save it to a folder. I make folders for each year of planning to have a good reference of what I did each Grade. Having a road map of where I have already been has proven helpful and has kept me from starting over. When my youngest learner enters a Grade I have already covered, I go back and look at my saved plans and simply adjust from there!
Here are some links to some good options for calendars:
FREE Templates for Day-by-Day Weekly Planners from Calendarpedia: https://www.calendarpedia.com/weekly-schedule-pdf-templates.html
Want a large Dry-Erase Calendar similar in format to mine? Click HERE for one that looks comparable listed on Amazon (took a bit of searching, but I found one!). I might have to get one once I no longer can stretch use out of this one!
Link #4: Free Weekly Topics Planner- Kindergarten Prefilled & Fully Editable
This helpful planning tool is designed to save you time and provides fields for you to fill in weekly topics for each subject you plan to cover in the upcoming school year. It also comes with PREFILLED Kindergarten Weekly Topics by subject for your consideration (not all-encompassing & can easily be added or edited to your desired topics). Click the image to get this FREEBIE from me to you!
I created this resource when coming up with topics to cover for my soon to be Kindergarten daughter. I wanted a checklist to ensure I covered all that I wanted her to learn that I didn't see in our chosen curricula. As mentioned, we only used a few set programs for Grade K. Those being reading, math, and religion. All the rest I filled in the subjects and topics using this handy planner.
This planner is especially helpful to reference and use if you do not have a boxed or written curriculum to follow and want to plan your own curriculum or weekly topics. Another option for those who choose to use a written curriculum with laid-out weekly topics is to add those topics to this planner plus any extra topics you would like to cover over the course of the year per subject area for better organization. HERE is the link again in case you missed it. :)
Link #5: Homeschool Multi-Child Scheduler
I am excited to share this resource with you all! You might not have more than 1 child to homeschool quite yet, but if you do, or will soon enough: bookmark this item! It has been on my mind the last couple years...especially when the dreadful thought of "How am I going to figure out how to schedule our days homeschooling multiple children!!??" I found out last year what a headache that can be (and also found out how to go through lots of scratch paper trying to figure, then re-figure, what days and times would work out best for us). I also had a 2-year-old I had to factor in (I mostly tried to think of things for him to do besides destroy the house--which mostly did not work, toddler life, right?). THIS year, I made a point to make scheduling a smoother process! In another time in life, I loved creating spreadsheets, so I figured why not create one for this task! And so came this jewel. This Online Multi-Child Scheduler helps you input each of your children's subjects into a color-coded organizer. Once data is entered into the spreadsheet for each child, you will be able to see clearly:
where independent work needs to be scheduled to other children while you work with one child
where group work can be scheduled
allotted time amounts that match up between:
one subject that can be done independently by one child and
other subjects that cannot be done independently by the other child(ren).
Plus a sheet to transfer all your data over to a Monday-Friday "Daily Schedule"
Color-Code Conditional Formatting applied to "Time Allotted" cell (in increments of 5 minutes up to 60 mins).
Color-Coded Conditional Formatting applied to Children's name (formatted by 1st initial).
I finished scheduling for the Fall today and, Wow, what a relief it is to have that done early (that was my main goal this summer)! I worked my little guy into the scheduler too in hopes THIS coming year he WON'T be quite so destructive while we school (fingers crossed)! This scheduler was soo helpful in my planning process. Here is page 1 of my scheduler:
Note: All of the Shading and Coloring of Cells is done Automatically as you type...everything has conditional formatting to help you visualize what needs to be done.
After finishing this sheet, I transferred all that neatly organized data into a Monday-Friday Daily Schedule included on another sheet (see where I extracted cells to copy over to the Daily Schedule based on days and times shown within the scheduler).
Want a Homeschool Multi-Child Scheduler of your own? Click HERE to go to my TpT Store where can purchase this handy resource! I hope it helps you as much as it did me!! Also see this blog post for more details on how to use this Homeschool Multi-Child Scheduler on Google Sheets (includes Video Tutorials!).
I truly hope some of these links and tips can get you off to a great start! What other questions do you have about starting (or continuing) homeschooling? I'd love to hear from you in the comments!
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