When planning lessons without relying on textbooks, you would want to know what are the lessons required by the accrediting institution you are enrolled under for the school year. For DepEd accredited homeschooling, you may check their website (https://www.deped.gov.ph/k-to-12/about/k-to-12-basic-education-curriculum/) for a comprehensive curriculum guide from K to 12. From that guide, you may list down specific lessons you need to cover per quarter in a spreadsheet. Afterwards, you may list down topics you want to cover under each lesson and further list the possible references and activities you want to do under each topic. You may include supplementary activities, living books and videos to further enrich the lessons. Be sure to include project making at the end so that the student can create an output based on the lessons learned. As you have an overview of all the lessons you need to cover for the whole school year, you may also combine certain topics or re-arrange the order of the lessons so that it is easier for the student. Sometimes, you may use unit-study approach on certain topics.
For those who don’t have the time to plan the lessons and you already have bought books from your homeschool providers to use for the school year, you may look at the table of contents of the book then divide it to 4 quarters so you get an idea how much content you need to cover. Then use that as your guide to make your lesson plans for the quarter. This will allow you to prepare for the activities or experiments which you may want to include. There are some subjects that you would need to do daily, but then others can be less frequent.
While your students are between K to Grades 6, their daily schedule will depend heavily on your availability, but as they become more independent, their daily schedule may vary already. For our family, reading aloud together and family devotions are important so we try to do it everyday at a specific time.
The time spent everyday by Kinder to Grade 2 students probably last around 1.5-3 hours while Grade 3 to Grade 6 spends around 2-4 hours daily. For Grades 7 up, it would probably take 4-5 hours daily.
Planning is important because it will help you navigate your days and it will help you reach your goals in homeschooling. But remember, no plan is perfect. If your current setup or plan doesn’t work, be flexible.
