How to prepare for Homeschool Lessons This post is sponsored by BookShark. I am a BookShark partner and a portion of our curriculum was provided by them. As always, I only work with companies that I have previously used as a product. We used and loved BookShark when we homeschooled for Pre-K and are very happy with their 1st-grade curriculum.
The main reason we chose to homeschool this year was because of the pandemic. Our daughter did very well in her public school this past year for kindergarten and we had intended to send her there for first grade. We decided early on, whether or not our school would be doing virtual or in-person that we would homeschool. We loved homeschooling for pre-K with BookShark and we knew it would be the best option for this school year.
With a 2-year-old at home, I knew I needed to do BookShark again because there is virtually no prep work! I’m so happy we went with BookShark because I’m now working a few hours per day from home and would have been stressed out trying to plan her curriculum, blog, and do my job.
How to Prepare for Homeschool Lessons
There are 5 easy steps that I do to prepare for our homeschool lessons. You could probably get away with 3 steps but I like planning ahead.
1. Keep your school zone organized.
We do not have a full room with a table for our schoolroom. We do have an awesome 2 x 4 cube shelf that organizes all of our school materials. Each cubby is labeled to make it easy for my daughter to get her materials out and put them away after each school lesson. We don’t put any extra books or art supplies in this area to keep it simple to find exactly what we need when we go to do our lesson.
One tip I’ve learned is to have an abundance of pencils, an electric pencil sharpener, and lots of paper (lined and blank). Those seem to be the pain points with most homeschool moms!
2. Make your binder more manageable
BookShark comes with a massive binder to hold the year’s worth of curriculum. There are tabs that separate each week making it easy to keep them straight. I got a smaller binder that held 3 weeks perfectly. At the end of the three weeks, I put the past three weeks into the massive binder and pull out the next three.
This makes flipping through the lessons each day much easier. Our small binder also has pockets at the front that hold our attendance sheet and small cutouts for the week (like sight word cards or animal cards). This is my favorite tip for how I prepare for homeschool lessons.
3. Look over the lessons for the week on Sunday
Who else has a much better week when they do some basic prep/planning on the weekend? It is noticeable in our family when we’re out of town for the weekend and I don’t get to plan. We order out more. We eat unhealthy meals. I feel like I’m taking the whole week just to get caught up on cleaning.
If I’m able to have a few hours to clean, plan our week, meal plan, and look over the curriculum, it makes everything go more smoothly the next 5 days.
With BookShark, they make it really easy to see the overview of what will be taught for the week. They also have a special section in the notes that tells you if there are any materials you need to get for the following week (science projects often require household materials that I’ll pull that Sunday for the week.)
There isn’t any prep other than the 5-10 minutes it takes to look over what you’ll be teaching and grabbing a few items. I do use this time to review math if we’re learning a new lesson. That’s only because I do not have confidence in the subject of math and I want to be well prepared to teach our daughter.
4. Plan a Unit Study (But only if you want)
We love having a 4 day school cirriculum. BookShark has it planned that way so you can save one day for a co-op, field trips, or extra cirriculars. Since we are not participating in any of these right now, (pandemic) we save that day for unit studies. These are rather loose and are meant to be a time when we can explore a subject my daughter is interested in.
Keep in mind, this unit study could be one day or stretch over a few months, depending on the interest of your child. Mine wanted to continue learning about oceans for multiple months. Thankfully there are tons of free resources on Pinterest and at the library. If you’re unsure of how to set one up, search ‘unit study ____’ and fill in the blank with whatever your child is interested in.
Homeschooling can be done anywhere
One thing homeschooling parents tend to get caught up on is the actual physical portion of homeschooling. The materials, curriculum, schoolroom area, etc. I’m here to tell you that YOU are what matters most in your child’s learning experience. You, showing up every day, with a smile, ready to learn along with your child. Wherever that may be. For us, it’s usually on the floor, in calm quiet voices as to not wake our youngest. It can be outside on a blanket, in a hammock, at Grandma’s while you visit, on a camping trip, or anywhere else. THAT’s the beauty of homeschooling. It can be anywhere, anytime.
Let me know what ways you prepare for homeschool lessons or where you like to do your lessons! We’re always interested in new ways of doing school.
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