When I started out homeschooling I tried to plan out (in a Teacher’s Assignment book) what we would do each day of the week, but over the past few years that hasn’t worked very well for us.

Things would come up, impromptu park days, doctor apps, etc. or plans would get cancelled and we would have extra free time…

Either way, I have found that planning out what I want to get done per week rather than per day has helped relieve the stress to get things done on a certain day.  If I think Tuesday is going to be a day where we stay home and get a lot of schoolwork done but then it turns out to be a beautiful day where we just have to spend it doing something fun outside then we know on the other days there will be extra to do which is fine.  Or if we have made plans with a friend on a Thursday afternoon and then they have to back out that is the perfect unexpected free time to use for something time consuming like an art project or science experiment.

The curriculum I use for my oldest two (7th grade and 4th grade) assigns things per day but we write everything for the week on our big dry erase board so that they can see what needs done for the week and plan accordingly.  For example, they can choose to do all the science in one day or spread it out over the whole week. They know they are expected to have everything done by Friday afternoon.  If we have a week with not much going on they may finish everything Thursday and have Friday free, or occasionally if our week is really busy with out of the house activities they will have to finish something on Saturday.  This has worked especially well for us this year because both of them are pretty independent with most of their subjects.

I do things a bit differently for the younger ones since they are not independent for most (if not all) of their schoolwork.  My 2nd grader knows she needs to do a lesson of math per week and she will plan for that herself (as far as how many pages she does per day, knowing that she will have a test on it on Friday), but she relies on me to do pretty much all other subjects with her on my time frame.  My 1st grader, kindergartener and preschooler are completely dependent on me as far as doing schoolwork.

And that is my biggest challenge in homeschooling right now.  Because I have several kids who are not readers (or at least not well enough to read a history lesson or even directions on a page) it is very hard to fit in everything for everyone.  I lean heavily on the philosophy that they are learning a lot through play at their young ages!  BUT… I still try to get in some actual schoolwork done with them as well (which honestly doesn’t happen everyday).

That’s is why planning things out per week rather than per day works better for me.  Most of the time days don’t go as planned but knowing that there is always tomorrow(or the day after) to get something done or catch up helps to not feel “behind” because it didn’t get done on a certain day.  Sometimes a kid will finish a weeks worth of math in one sitting and then sometimes an entire week (of planned schoolwork) has to just be moved to the next week because none of it got done, it happens.  I often see homeschooler’s letting themselves feel stressed or guilty when schedules and plans don’t go accordingly, take some of that pressure off yourself, mama!  It all ends up working out in the long run!