One of the more challenging aspects of homeschooling, especially when following a heavy curriculum like we were, is keeping up with the workload. Having homeschool schedules helped my son and I stay on track and stop worrying that we might fall behind.
Term Schedules
This is the homeschool schedule that I considered the most important, because it was the ultimate deadline guide. No matter what, the lessons, assignments, quizzes, and tests had to be completed by the term end date.
The school was flexible here however, and did allow things to carry forward until the end of the year deadline, but I decided that wasn’t an option for us. My reason was that we had so much material to cover that falling behind would too stressful and start interfering with evenings, weekends, and holidays, which I didn’t want. I also felt that it was important for my son to learn the importance of respecting and meeting deadlines, as this will be something he’ll be dealing with a lot as an adult in the workplace. This is simply what worked for us in our situation, and may not be the right approach for everyone.
While our school did provide a guideline for what should be handed in each term, I needed something more detailed. So, I fired up my spreadsheet software and devised a schedule. I created one worksheet within the spreadsheet for each term. I’ve uploaded a sample one I made for Grade 8 here in case it might be helpful. Please feel free to download and use it if you think it might work for you:
Four Term Assignment Schedule.xlsx
Daily/Weekly Schedule
I like using daily and weekly homeschool schedules that are easy to edit and customize. I created one each week with two goals: work required and a rough timeline per subject. That said, I was happy to let my son work according to his needs and motivation, and shift the daily goals if needed. As long as he made progress every day and finished all or most of his work for the week by Friday, I counted it as a success.
The following is a sample of our typical schedule. I modified a nifty Weekly Schedule from Calendarpedia and added a Goals list that detailed what my son needed to be working on. It helped us both stay organized and on track. I’ve uploaded a copy here, that you are free to download and use:
Daily Weekly Schedule.xlsx
