My Top Tips for Lesson Planning

• Some pre-lesson planning work includes setting up a time schedule, selecting textbooks or other curriculum items, deciding in which order to teach units, breaking down units into lessons, and cross referencing lessons with other subjects.

• You should decide how far in advance that you want to lesson plan. Planning everything at once, planning monthly or weekly, and planning day-to-day all have advantages and disadvantages.

• Working subject to subject, knowing how many lessons need to be covered in a week, writing down specific instructions, and prepping for the next week are some of my top tips for lesson planning.

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5 Factors to Think About Before You Begin

1. Set up a homeschooling schedule. – A homeschool schedule just outlines the days and times that you plan on doing school. For a more in depth look at setting up a schedule, check out How to Set Up a Homeschool Schedule.
2. Select subject textbooks, curriculum books, online resources, and other materials that you plan on using for the year. – For this you may want to refer to your state’s learning standards or follow a pre-made curriculum to make sure that the resources that you use will cover all of your child’s learning targets. To find your state’s standards you can check out our States Standards tab or to browse through our collection of free resources check out our Resources tab.
3. Decide in which order to teach units. – You can decide this by using either the curriculum textbooks as guides or your state’s learning standards as guides.
4. Break down the units into smaller lessons. – Each school subject is made up of multiple units. Also, each unit will have multiple lessons. For example, a life science unit, such as animals, may be broken down into the following lessons: the classification of animals, characteristics of the different classifications, animal habitats, camouflage, animal needs, and animal life cycles.
5. Cross reference lessons between subjects. – For example, if you are teaching lessons on Native Americans for social studies, maybe plan on doing a Native American art project or read a book about Native Americans in language arts.

Beginning to Lesson Plan

When Should You Lesson Plan

There are several different approaches as to when to lesson plan. Some people like to plan everything for the entire year all at once. Others like to plan only a few weeks or months in advance. Then there are those who only plan day-to-day. There are advantages and disadvantages to every approach.

Planning everything all at once means that all of the lesson planning is done before the school year even starts. This means there is a certainty that all learning targets will be covered. However, if changes need to be made, such as the order of the units taught or a subject needs to be added or taken away, there will be a lot of changes needed to be made and there will be little wiggle room for unexpected events. 

When planning a few weeks or months in advance not as much time will need to be spent at once. Also any adjustments that need to be made can either be made during the next planning period or changed immediately. You will have to set aside some time every couple of weeks or months for lesson planning. Finally, if planning day-to-day you can make any changes necessary immediately. Furthermore, there is less pressure to get things completed that day as they can be passed on to the next. However, having to plan every day will mean you are not as prepared for what is upcoming and it may become more time consuming in the long run.

I like to plan a few months in advance. Usually, I spend free time during the summer planning the first couple of months. This means once we start the school year, we have several months already set up. After that, I spend one Friday and Saturday evening a month working on planning for the next month. This means I can easily adjust our schedule if our pace is different than I had planned originally or if more material needs to be added.

Tips on How to Lesson Plan

Now that you have broken down the subjects into units and lessons, it’s time to place the individual lessons into your schedule.

• Choose a subject to start with. – In my experience it is easier to work by subject than by day. This will keep you from jumping back and forth between curriculum books, workbooks, and resources. It also makes it easier to focus on each subject. For the rest of these tips I will use math as an example.
• Consider how many weeks you intend to do school versus how many lessons that subject has. – For example, if I have broken down math into 70 lessons and I intend to do the typical 36 weeks of school, then I know I need to cover approximately 2 lessons per week. Keep in mind that some lessons may take longer than others. Therefore you may need to spread one lesson out over several days.
• Know the amount of time that you intend to spend on that subject. – Some lessons may only take 30-45 minutes to cover and can be completed in 1 day while others may take a full week of 30-minute daily sessions. Knowing that you intend to only spend 30 minutes on a lesson will help you better decide how to split individual units. Be mindful of the fact that some days may run smoother than others. Also, some concepts may be easier for your child to grasp, or your child’s pace may change over time. Don’t fret over having to make some adjustments as you go.
• Write down any instructions that you may need to give for that day’s lesson. – This will be the one-on-one time that you spend with your child(ren) for this lesson. Instructions may be an explanation of the lesson and then examples on a white board, reading from an instruction guide, or some other method such as having the child watch a video that explains the concept they are currently learning. Make sure to write down exactly what you plan to do. Include curriculum book pages, using a whiteboard, or any online resource you plan to use. Writing this down will cut down on stress and make prepping for the week easier.
• Write down any independent work. – Independent work includes workbook pages, printed resources, online assignments, videos, or any other schoolwork done independently by the student. Be specific such as writing down workbook page numbers or the name of a printed worksheet.
• Prep for the Next Week. – This includes putting together all materials needed for that week. I like to spend an hour on Sunday printing any online resources that I plan on using and collecting all supplies that I will need throughout the week. This includes art supplies, science project materials or anything else I may need. I place the resource pages into daily folders and place the other items into our schooling box. Use this prep time to pick up needed books from your local library or use an online library.

Do you have a great tip for lesson planning? Please leave it in a comment below to help other homeschooling families on their journey.