2022-2023 Homeschool Planning: How to Plan Your Year Well – Elementary, Middle, & High School

It is time to start my 2022-2023 homeschool planning! Honestly, this is one of the things that helps propel me through the end of the current homeschool year. The ability to have new books on the horizon to look at is always a good thing in my world! I tend to follow the same formula every year when I start to think about the new homeschool year, but the questions I ask myself always have different answers.

Now, my 2022-2023 homeschool planning is going to be a bit of a long process. I know there are some homeschoolers who are really quick with their decision making on curriculum and then are able to plan everything out for an entire year over one weekend. This is not me. I want to warn you ahead of time! I always take my time, and want to be well versed in the resources I choose by the time we start using them for our new homeschool year.

2022-2023 Homeschool Planning Playlist

2022-2023 Homeschool Planning – Lists, Lists, and more Lists

Every year, the first place I start is with lists. Lists are my jam. If you have been reading here, or watch my YouTube channel, you will know that I am a list maker by heart. So the first place that I start with my 2022-2023 homeschool planning is with a list.

I like to have a list for each of my kids and then also a “family” list. Anytime I see something new and shiny on instagram or on YouTube, I will write it on my list. If my kids mention something to me they want to learn about, I write it on the list. Do you see a theme here?

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My Erin Condren Teacher Planner is where I tend to do most of my planning for the year ahead. Even though I haven’t gotten my new planner yet, I use the notes pages in June for this specific purpose. I know that by the time June rolls around, I won’t need to use the notes pages how I do the other months of the year (which is where I jot down information for my monthly homeschool updates and for my monthly conferences with the kids.)

Interest-led Learning

It may sound a bit strange, but I actually take a lot of time to plan for interest-led learning. I think oftentimes, people only believe that child-directed learning happens in an unschooling setting, but I don’t think this is the case. However, I also know that unschoolers are great at being able to shift gears when new interests arise for their kids.

Part of my 2022-2023 homeschool planning is to account for my kids’ interests. But, because I am more of a long range planner, I need to take all the observations that I have been making over the prior months, and translate that into new resources for my kids.

We are year-round homeschoolers, and because of that, there are certain times of the year where we are able to lean more on interest-led learning than others. I still use a curriculum, I still plan lessons, but I want to also have room for my kids to lean into their passions and see that what they want to learn is important.

After the end of our homeschool year, we have a couple of months of time off, but it isn’t really time off. This is where I give my kids a lot more leeway as to what they are doing each day. And I spend the time observing how they choose to spend their time. What are the interests they have? What are the projects they are drawn to?

Free Resources

Start with free resources. Things like books from the library, documentaries, craft supplies you already have around the house, YouTube tutorials and Khan Academy. These resources can show you, as the parent, if you need to look for more in depth resources, or if it was just a passing whim that your child experienced and then they moved on from it.

Once you know whether or not it is going to be an interest for the long-term, that is the time to look for more in-depth resources and perhaps resources that cost money.

2022-2023 Homeschool Planning: Shop Your Shelves

One of the benefits of homeschooling is that you can reuse materials for younger children. This is one of the reasons that I have felt good about spending the amount of money we do on Sonlight. Literature-based learning can be incredibly expensive because of the sheer number of books you use, but when you can reuse those books for multiple years, it ends up being pretty economical in my opinion.

Most years I am able to pull books from the shelves for my two younger kids. I will sometimes need to update an instructor’s guide, or buy a new book, but overall, I already have the majority of the books I need, and that makes life a little bit easier.

We do not use a lot of consumable products in our homeschool. Because of this, most of what I need for Lucy’s 2nd grade year is already down on our homeschool shelves even though we haven’t used that curriculum in the past five years. So definitely go through what you have already and see if you can reuse any of it with your younger children.

End of Year Homeschool Review

The next step in my planning process is actually to evaluate how the previous year has gone. This is always a great time to figure out what went well and what your challenges were. Then I use these answers as I am thinking ahead to our rhythm for the new homeschool year. It also gives me a good understanding of what I want to keep and what needs to change – both for rhythm and resources we use. I have a free printable of the questions I use to evaluate my homeschool year. You can see my answers to all of the questions and how I am using these answers below.

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My Teacher Planner

I have been using an Erin Condren Teacher Planner as my homeschool planner since 2015. It is what works best for me. There was a time in 2016 when I went through all of the different options for homeschool planners out there, but they were incredibly overwhelming to me. They had so many sections, I was flipping through so many pages. I realized it was not for me.

But, my EC Teacher Planner has everything that I need to plan and keep track of a successful homeschool year! You can see my full walkthrough and initial setup of my planner below.

2022-2023 Homeschool Curriculum Choices

I am including my homeschool curriculum choices in this post because it is one of my favorite things. I believe that most homeschoolers love to see what other people are using for resources in a given year. But, just because these resources are what work for me, that doesn’t mean that you have to use all or even some of them! Homeschooling is an incredibly individual experience based on your family, and your student. I hope that you get some good ideas, but do not feel like you need to copy my resources to have a successful year.

9th Grade Curriculum Choices

7th Grade Curriculum Choices

2nd Grade Curriculum Choices

Brave Writer Choices

2022-2023 Homeschool Planning: Create a Yearly Plan

There are so many different ways to structure your homeschool year. We have been year-round homeschoolers for the past 7 years, and have really enjoyed the ability to take days off when we need to. This year, I decided that I wanted to build in a couple more planned breaks instead of just powering through to Thanksgiving for our long winter break, and then powering through to the end of the homeschool year. In the video below I share some different options on how YOU can structure your homeschool year, and what we have decided for this year.

Choosing a Monthly Theme & Focus

Every year I tend to create themes or choose a focus for each month. This started when my older two were very little. Think, apples in September, pumpkins in October etc. And it has morphed into more of a focus for the months for my older two. At the same time, I have started implementing those early elementary themes that my older kids loved when they were little, for my youngest. You can do this on a quarterly basis, or map it out for the entire year like I do. This helps when I do my monthly planning on my planning day, to make sure my focus is where it should be, and to make sure I have some of the fun activities planned for the themes that I have chosen.

This is where I am with homeschool planning for the 2022-2023 homeschool year at the moment! I know that there will be more planning coming soon, so bookmark this page so that you are able to see when I have added more resources for you! You can also sign up to be part of my e-mail community below to receive weekly updates from me as well as new content I have created.

Have you started planning your new homeschool year? Do you have any questions for me? Let me know in the comments!