With my first homeschool lesson plan, I thought that I had to have everything figured out, planned out and written out. What a misconception! I stressed out…and we were just doing Kindergarten! With a change of approach I went from an unachievable homeschool lesson plan to a simple and restful homeschool lesson plan, and you can, too!

Too Much Is Too Much

I cannot handle if things aren’t simple. Too many fields to fill in, too many prompts to complete or really, too much of anything at all and I become paralyzed with overwhelm.

Yes, I’m a recovering perfectionist and high over-achiever. Anything too complicated, overwhelming and busy-feeling equates to stress and inadequacy.

How I Went From Stressed To Rest In My Homeschool Lesson Planning

My first homeschool lesson plan was filled with changes.

Every day of the week we moved something around, every week felt like catch-up from the previous week and every month… well, I could hardly make it a month and knew I needed to change the way I planned.

The first thing I did to simplify our homeschool plan was stop planning. I needed to figure out a way to plan without planning. (Does that even make sense?!)

When I stopped planning, I naturally did some things that turned into more of a record-keeping approach or planning-from-behind approach.

Just because I stopped planning didn’t mean we stopped homeschooling.

As we finished a lesson, chapter or page, I would put a sticky note on the page or lesson that we were to start at the next time. A commonality developed naturally. I saw that we’d complete lessons, units, random side-tracks, nature walks while adding in books, videos and field trips. The stuff I wanted to do in our homeschool got done and the unexpected and unplanned learning also happened. This all worked.

I then had the realization that a homeschool lesson plan for me wasn’t so much about planning ahead, it was planning from behind.

Recording and writing down what we did proved to be outright successful for me in comparison to writing down what we were going to do.

A New Way Of Homeschool Lesson Planning

When I had this “AHA!” moment to a new way of approaching our homeschool lesson plan, we kept doing what we did and I began recording it. I used a notebook to write down the date, the book we did and the pages or lesson we completed. That’s it! There were no check-marks, no strike-outs, no arrows. It was clean, simple and restful.

Being that a homeschool lesson planner isn’t really called a homeschool record book per se, it was that to me.

So after a couple of years, I began using a simple homeschool lesson planner (and now created my own below) to record what we did. I’ve never looked back!

There are so many beautiful planners out there, and honestly, I’d LOVE to try them all, but I’m hesitant.

The expectations I put on myself are unreasonable at times, and because I know this of myself, I need to stay away from it, too. So until I feel confident about one stage of homeschool lesson planning, I begin adding more components.

An Added Method To My Homeschool Lesson Plan

As I continued to record what we did in our homeschool year after year, I felt comfortable and it was doable! As we’re getting into the higher elementary grades, I’ve found that the homeschool curriculum gets more involved. I then began to wonder how long curriculum would take to finish.

Being that we live in Canada near the Rocky Mountains where chinooks and snow can fall from September to May, I cherish our outdoor time in the warmer months. There’s no question in my mind – we get out from May to August with there being NO PLAN of homeschool curriculum.

Now after developing this method of my homeschool lesson plan, I felt like I needed to look at a whole year perspective which would help me with how long curriculum would take. So to solve this challenge, I began adding in a year-at-a-glance homeschool planning method using a spreadsheet.

This gives me a better insight into the full scope of a homeschool year.

(includes a routine, schedule, loop, year-at-a-glance planning, undated weekly lesson planner and undated monthly planner!)

Let me know if this homeschool lesson planner was helpful! Also, what tips do you have when it comes to creating a simple and restful homeschool lesson plan?

Anchored in Christ,
Melanie