The year: dates and big rocks (one evening)
- Put the fixed dates first: state or regulator deadlines (notice, reports, evaluation, test), holidays, family events, travel.
- Block the terms: four nine-week terms, three twelve-week terms, or six six-week terms with a week off between. Plan 36 weeks and expect to teach 32.
- Place the big rocks: two to four major units (a history period, a science theme, a novel study, a project), one per term, in the term when everyone is freshest.
- Write it on one page: the year at a glance template. Pin it up. Revise at each break.
The term: subjects and programs (one afternoon)
- For each child, list the subjects for the term and the program or approach for each: the math book and where they are in it, the phonics level, the history spine, the science unit, the read-aloud list.
- Decide the shared subjects (history, science, read-alouds, art) and the individual ones (math, phonics, writing).
- Estimate pace: 'a math lesson a day gets to chapter 9 by December' is enough. Do not schedule individual lessons to dates.
- Note what you need to buy or borrow, and buy it. Half of failed terms failed on the missing book.
The week: the planner (ten minutes on Sunday)
- Fill the weekly planner with what happens, not what you hope: 'MM 3B pp. 44–46', 'SOTW ch. 12 + map', 'AAR lesson 23', 'read Charlotte's Web ch. 5–7'. Specific enough to start without thinking; loose enough to survive a bad Tuesday.
- Plan four days. Friday is for co-op, catch-up, field trips or nothing.
- Use a loop for the content subjects so nothing is skipped when a day is lost.
- Keep the completed sheets. A binder of filled weekly planners is a portfolio in most US states and a record of work everywhere.
The day: the rhythm (decide once a term)
- Hard subjects first, short blocks, real breaks, done by lunch until high school.
- One child with the parent at a time: stagger math and phonics, share history and read-alouds.
- A morning basket to start (read-aloud, poem, memory work, song) gathers everyone and sets the tone in fifteen minutes.
- Write it on the daily schedule template, pin it where school happens, and let the older children run their own column.
Planning for several children
Plan the shared subjects once, at the level of the oldest child, and note the output for each: the youngest draws and labels, the middle child narrates, the oldest writes. Plan the individual subjects (math, phonics, writing) per child but keep them to a line each in the planner. The staggered daily schedule does the rest. Kuraplan can generate the levelled outputs from one lesson, which is the part that otherwise takes three times as long.
Planning mistakes
- Planning lessons to dates. Plan pace, not dates; the calendar is a guide, not a contract.
- Planning everything in August. You do not know the year yet. Plan the year and the first term; plan the rest at the break.
- Buying a planner app before you have a rhythm. Paper first; digitise what works.
- Not planning breaks. A term without a week off is a term that ends early.
- Planning alone. Ask the children what they want to learn this term. Their answers go in the big rocks.