Easy Homeschool Planning – Spiral Notebook Homeschool Schedule SIMPLIFIED

Spiral Notebook homeschool scheduling has been popular for a while.  Spiral notebook scheduling is the idea that parent-teachers should write out their child’s assignments for the next day on a single notebook page the night before.  However, I have found a few major drawbacks to this style of scheduling because I am all about EASY homeschool planning.  Here I will show you how I have remedied those downfalls and SIMPLIFIED my spiral notebooking homeschool schedule.  I also made it MORE USEFUL.  Let me show you:

First, my problems with spiral notebook homeschool scheduling:

Too much time.

5 minutes each night for 180 school nights equals 15 hours.  15 HOURS over the course of the school year.  I have 3 school-aged children, so that means 45 HOURS spent writing lesson plans during the school year.  45 hours, folks.  And, that assumes that it only takes me 5 minutes per child, which may or may not actually be true.  I can’t justify that amount of time.  So, I have never used spiral notebooking.  I just can’t.  It’s unnecessary time.

Every. Single. Night.

In the spiral notebooking schedule model, the parent-teacher writes their child’s assignments out the night before each school day.  This means that if I am tired, busy, or lazy, my children will not be able to start their school day as soon as they want to.  Yes, my children often start their schoolwork before I am even conscious – they’re highly motivated by free time.  Let’s be honest, who wants to be tied to writing out lesson plans every single night?  Who wants the pressure of the start of each school day hinging on whether or not you wrote out the plans the night before?  It’s unnecessary stress.

I want all my school info in one place.

It’s cool to have all of your child’s lesson plans in one place, but I want more.  I want ALL the school information in one place.  I don’t want extra notebooks, pages, or binders.  I don’t want a separate master list each quarter, plus a notebook for my children, plus reading lists, plus field trip lists, plus… It’s unnecessary things to store (and keep track of).

So, here’s the solution:

Turn your spiral notebook homeschool schedule into more a of a bullet journal for the whole year.

I love bullet journalling, so this method of easy homeschool planning actually arose out my own tendency to bullet journal.  Then, I realized that it was simpler and all-inclusive alternative to spiral notebook scheduling, and thought I’d share the love.  In the event that you are like me – and you like your time, your evenings, and simple, too – then this is for you.

Click on the above image to view the video of how to make a minimal homeschool schedule and bullet journal.

You can make one spiral notebook for your whole family!

Here, I show one notebook for one child, but if you’d like to use a single notebook for the whole family, it looks pretty similar.  Your weekly schedule will use colored pens to denote which child is doing what.  OR, you make a page for each daily schedule, and columns for each child.  So, you’d have a page for Monday with a column for each child, another page for Tuesday, etc.  Then, you’ll also want to add a reading list and resources page for each child, too.  The rest of the notebook becomes more of a mom planner, and you will have to save student work samples separately.  It’s super easy homeschool planning for the whole family!

Other notes:

• Please feel free to make your homeschool notebook pretty.  I’m functional.  Our homeschool bullet journals aren’t decorated until my children decorate them.
• Pretty please, with a cherry on top, share this video and blog post with any homeschoolers who are looking for a simple homeschool schedule.  The only reason I made this video, and wrote this post was to help other homeschoolers keep things simple – will you help me accomplish that?

The 30th Minimalist Homeschool Mindset Hack in the book is: Do the best things, not everything.  In this case, I want to keep records and schedule just enough – not extra.  I don’t want to spend the extra time, space, money, or energy on unnecessary elaborate planners, or re-inveting the wheel each night.

>Read more about Minimalist Homeschooling.

What do you think?  How do you accomplish easy homeschool planning?  Join the conversation in the comments below.

Other ways to simplify your homeschool:

1. Check out the book on minimalist homeschooling.  It is available in audio (with all 15 worksheets), or the paperback and ebook versions are available at Amazon.
2. Come see us on facebook where other simple, minimal homeschoolers hang-out and share their wisdom and hacks.
3. Get your FREE Goody Bag for the Complete Minimalist homeschooling Course Simple is the New Smart.

Wishing you all the simple things,
Zara