How to Write Your Own Homeschool Lesson Plans

I’m glad you want to learn how to write your own lesson plans for your homeschool! It’s easy! I’ve done it for 20 years and I would highly recommend it. You know your children best and know what you want them to learn. Let me walk you through it.

Pick Your Textbook

Let’s start with history. Pick your time period and start looking at books that fit that. I love to browse library or bookstore shelves to see if they have what I’m looking for. Something that stands out that has the pictures I want, the text I want (not too boring, too long, too detailed, or too superficial.) I also like Amazon and Christianbook.com because they have “search inside” options. Go with your gut of what you’re looking for. Some years I get a couple of books and take what I want from each book. This is what’s awesome about homeschooling. You don’t have to confine yourself with one textbook but can use several. You can use a homeschool textbook or an encyclopedia or a college book or a series of non-fiction books. You can also choose how long to spend on each event, person, chapter. Spend longer on your favorites and skip stuff that doesn’t appeal to you. When I decide what I want I either get it from the library (if it’ll only be used for a month or two) or buy it used.

Browse Through It and Brainstorm

Once you have your book or books start browsing through them to familiarize yourself with the contents. See what topics excite you. Let your brain go wild thinking of other things that will make it more appealing and special to your kids such as crafts, food to make, a scene to act out, a report to write. For example, I may see a sidebar about Pocahontas. I think, “Ooh! The kids will have fun learning about her.” I decide to go deeper than this textbook and jump on our library website putting picture books on hold for the little ones, an easy reader for Samuel, and a chapter book for Kaitlyn and Makenna. I remember my MIL saying she’s related to Pocahontas’s sister so I send her an email asking how we’re related because I’ve looked it up before and have never found it. Going back to the library website, I place a hold for the movie too. I make a note in my school notebook that I’ll have the kids do a report on other Native Americans from that time period who are lesser known. Everyone can pick out someone different and that will be a great research/writing assignment as well. I google foods Indians ate and plan a few meals and who will help make them, keeping in mind other activities we have that week and who is available. I add “Colors of the Wind” and “Just Around the Riverbend” to our piano songs for that week. You get the idea! You pick up a textbook and your brain will go crazy thinking of how you want to teach a topic in ways that will excite your children.

Divide the Book up Over the Year

Okay, so once you’re familiar with the book you decide if you’re going to do the whole thing or which pages. If you’re going to use the whole book cover to cover, that’s easy because then you just divide it by the number of days you’re going to do that subject. Will you do it every day? Two days a week? Three? I generally do group subjects like history and science 3 or at most 4 days a week. If there are 32 chapters then it’s easy and you can assign a chapter a week. Look and make sure the chapters are roughly the same length or see if there’s a chapter that needs to cover 2 weeks or 2 short chapters that can be covered in the same week. If the book has more than 32 chapters I double up on them because I like to have several “review weeks” where we don’t learn a new chapter but review the past 6-8 weeks or catch up on school. I do this the week before fall break, Christmas break, spring break, and summer vacation.

If there are only 15 or 20 chapters then figure out how long you want to spend on each chapter to spread it out over the school year. You can divide it evenly or do it like I do. I am a trial and error person and just dive right into my plans without dividing things up. I open the book and skim the first few pages and organize it into a topic or two for day 1. In a cheap spiral notebook I write “Day 1” and the page numbers and topics. Then I skim the next few pages and write that down under Day 2. Then maybe the next page has several interesting topics for me that I want to expound on so it will be Days 3 and 4. I do that throughout the book until the end of the school year or the end of the book. Then I go back and modify–maybe combine some lessons if I had more lessons than days or stretch some out or add some if we have more days than lessons. I usually skip group subjects on birthdays and the last week of each unit when we’re reviewing so I make sure to include that too.

Add Other Subjects That Correlate

When I’m done with that then I add other subjects we’re going to do that correlate, which is most subjects except science. I do history Monday through Thursday. Then Monday, Wednesday and Fridays I do subjects that correlate with the history lesson. Monday is Music so I plan music from that time period or a musician to study. Wednesday is writing so I think of a writing assignment to go with history–an essay question, write a newspaper article of an event, write a diary entry, etc. Friday is art so I think of/find an art project that correlates with the time period or event. Tuesday and Thursday I do science, which usually doesn’t have anything to do with our history lesson. I get to work planning activities or lessons in those correlating subjects and either write them as a rough draft in my notebook or make a table like this one:

Read aloud books: Pocahontas
Piano songs to learn: Just Around the Riverbend, Colors of the Wind

Don’t Forget To Add All The Fun Things You Want To Do

I hope this gives you a good idea how easy and fun it is to make your own lesson plans. The ideas will come shooting out of your head at all times of the day and night so be sure to have your notebook handy to write them down or lots of scratch paper. Then you’ll just have to decide which one to use this week and which to save for another week. I love to use history as my main subject and then plan music, writing, art and other activities around the history topic. Sometimes I make a category for “other” just to list the fun things I want to do. For example, while studying 20th century we made model airplanes when studying the Wright Brothers, learned lots of dances such as swing and Lindy-hop during the 20’s, did fashion shows in the 40’s, and made floor plans and models of famous buildings built in the 50’s.

Immigrating on the ship “Hartley.” I moved the couch away from the wall and made a perfect squishy spot for steerage. I collected tickets and these 8 immigrants crossed the gangplank onto the ship. We pretended to rock back and forth during storms, be sick, bored and squished. I served pea soup that was supposed to be nasty but everyone loved it and asked for seconds! I also served cold boiled potatoes and only 3 hard rolls the immigrants had to share between them. Everyone had a great attitude and it made for a very memorable immigration lesson.

A Final Thought About How To Write Your Own Homeschool Lesson Plans

I really hope you decide to write your own lesson plans for your homeschool! It’s a lot of fun to plan what your children are interested in. It’s also fun to teach subjects you’re passionate about. A creative outlet of sorts. You and your children will enjoy homeschooling more and bond better when you’ve written the lesson plans than with a curriculum written by someone who doesn’t know your child from mine. And I must add, it is delightfully satisfying getting your chart all filled in with correlating assignments or activities. (wink:))

Email Me if You Need Help

I’d love to help you out so let me know if you have any questions. Marcie@singlemomonafarm.com. Best of luck, you can do it!

PS If you want help planning your yearly homeschool schedule check out this post.