Week 1: The Learning Plan Panic (and How a Sunday Morning Spreadsheet Saved Me)

Welcome back to The Homeschool Recap. This week started on a Monday and was a 5-day week. Here's what Week 1 actually looked like — the panic, the spreadsheet, the routine, and the grace.

The Friday Before: My Official Homeschool Journey Began

On Friday, I was sent a learning plan from the charter school that we are enrolled in, and so my official homeschool journey began right before Week 1 started.

I remember reviewing the learning plan and thinking, what did I get myself into? I quickly scanned it, clicked out of it, and did something else to distract myself. I eventually made my way back into the learning plan and slowly reviewed it again.

There were just a lot of words in the Learning Plan and my panic set in immediately.

Why the Learning Plan Sent Me Into a Panic

The learning plan broke down the subjects and the amount of time I was supposed to spend on each subject homeschooling. I remember getting a sick feeling in my stomach and thinking, how am I going to fit all of this in each day? Needless to say, I had a slight moment of panic.

Just a quick example — the learning plan is broken into categories:

• Language Arts – 75 minutes a day

• Math – 60 minutes a day

• History / Social Science – 45 minutes a day

• Science – 45 minutes a day

• Life Skills / PE – 35 minutes a day

• Special Interests – 30 minutes a day

Okay, you see why I slightly panicked? That's a lot to cover per day. And in order to do so, you will need to know what you are doing and have a plan — and maybe a spreadsheet to keep you on track.

I have seen some homeschool parents have hard copy journals that they use, I like spreadsheets on Excel.

The Working Parent Schedule Problem

Did I mention that part of my panic was because of my work schedule? During the summer I re-negotiated with my full-time job to change my work hours to be more flexible. My work start time is 10 am every day, so that leaves me availability to homeschool between 8 AM and 10 AM every day.

That is one thing i told my work, is i don't know what my day is going to look like until I am actually in it and home schooling and well, I was right.

If you can do math correctly, you will notice that the amount of time I have to homeschool does not match the recommended time period spent on each subject during the day.

Luckily, I am able to remote fully from home on Mondays and Fridays, so those are our heavier days where we go longer than 8–10 AM for homeschool.

The remainder of the day, I basically am working while homeschooling and shadowing / watching what my daughter is doing. There are times that she is working on her phonics workbook that she can do by herself, or has free time that does not involve screens, or is watching an instructional YouTube video (something like science or social studies for 3rd grade) in the same room as me so that I can monitor her.

The Sunday Morning Spreadsheet That Saved Week 1

So, the learning plan was sent on Friday and the following Monday was when I was to start school.

We had a normal Saturday and I woke up Sunday slightly panicked. I thought, here we are, tomorrow is the start of the school year and I don't even have anything set in stone yet.

So Sunday morning, as I grabbed my cup of coffee and sat down to enjoy it, I pulled out my trusty laptop and opened up Excel. I looked for calendar templates and I found one I liked. I saved it and I added a few columns.

I basically reviewed the learning plan headings and broke my calendar columns into these headings. I then went through the workbooks and curriculum that I ended up ordering through the school last week and noted them down under each category.

My intention was to build a type of checklist for each week that I can check off because I like checking things off, it makes me feel accomplished. I wasn't planning on spending time on each item, each day, but I thought it was a good idea to have on one form the workbooks / curriculum I had and what was available for each topic.

As we went through the week and added new games at my daughter's requests, I added them to the line items in each corresponding topic. I thought if she likes them now, maybe she will like it next week and I wont have to remember it, since its on my spreadhseet. Example, we played a dice game where we rolled dice and we added the two or three dice together. This is now in the math section as "dice game."

Also included in my weekly calendar are objectives and to-do items for the week. Again, I like to check things off my to do list.

My Weekly Homeschool Calendar System

Since Week 1, I have saved this calendar each week and make sure to mark down each activity we do for the week.

One thing I didn't do in Week 1 and even Week 2 that I should have done is take pictures of items that my daughter doesn't do in a workbook so I can document them and show them to the school. For example:

• My daughter wanted to bake a cake, so we baked a cake and I showed her how to do the measurements and read the cake box. I should have taken photos of that.

• She likes to do yoga on YouTube. I should have taken a photo of that because that counts as PE.

• She likes to go for a 20-minute walk a day. I should have taken a photo of that.

Anyways, all stuff that as I homeschool more and get into my groove, I will get better at.

Week 1 Was About Establishing Routine

Week 1 was really about establishing a routine and seeing when my daughter was ready for school. I took notes for each day and wrote down what we did. I have read that it takes about 4–6 weeks to establish routine in homeschool; therefore, we are both in new territory here trying to gather our footing.

Now is the time for a lot of grace for both her and I.

What Our Homeschool Morning Routine Looks Like

I will say that her brother leaves the house at 7:30 AM and she is usually ready to go at 7:45 AM, and that is when we typically start.

We start with a review of the calendar, the specific date; month, day and year, that I bought at the teacher store.

We have an Alexa and I ask Alexa to give us a fun fact about today. Normally it's something silly like, "It's National Teddy Bear Day," and that gets my daughter immediately excited about today. One time it was National Waffle Day and she wanted to draw a waffle, so later in the day, I turned on a YouTube video and she made a waffle drawing as her art project. It's these spur-of-the-moment things that get her creativity going that I love to see.

We then do the Pledge of Allegiance because that is something that she used to do in school and I always did in school, so that is part of our homeschool routine.

The first topics we tackle are our core topics; this is Language Arts and Math, the other topics we rotate in as time permits. I have noticed my daughter really likes Science so she asks to do Science a lot.

Language Arts: Journaling, Phonics, and Blackbird & Company

After the calendar, we move onto ELA / Language Arts.

Here we have a few options; we either journal using a question of the day book or we use a phonics workbook for grade 3 from Evan Moor.

Other items on our list that we don't always do are copy work from a book we read that week — not every page, just sentences or pages she finds interesting.

There is an Evan Moor spelling workbook that we like. Her actual curriculum is Blackbird and Company Grade 3 Curriculum, so we will do a page of Blackbird a day.

Other items include an Evan Moor Cursive workbook and Typing Club. Typing Club is something my daughter likes that I didn't know about until she mentioned that she did it at her prior school.

We spend the aloted time on ELA / Language Arts required by her Learning Plan.

We then move onto Math and Math is a struggle for us. I am hopping it gets better once we get our backordered cirriculum.

Math: Making It Fun for a Kid Who Doesn't Love It

After ELA, we move onto Math. Right now, I don't have my math curriculum from Singapore Math, so we are reviewing a daily Evan Moor workbook for 3rd grade.

I have noticed my daughter's least favorite subject is math, so I try to make it a point of finding something fun about math. I also have dry erase multiplication, addition, and subtraction tables that I grabbed from the teacher store that she sometimes does.

History, Science, Life Skills, and Special Interests

We then move to History and Science and use Evan Moor's daily 3rd grade workbooks for each subject.

For Life Skills, I have added a financial literacy workbook that she started this week.

Her special interests include learning ballet and German. I had no idea she liked either.

Week 1 Taught Me to Give Grace (and Breaks)

Week 1 was all about testing the waters and seeing what we could get through. It was about finding our rhythm, which I know we will be doing for a while.

This week taught me that although I can have a plan and want to get through topics, sometimes there are distractions or my daughter needs a break. I make sure to give her a break. She needs to use the bathroom, go ahead. She needs to grab a water, go ahead. She needs to grab her stuffy or a squishy, go ahead.

This classroom is not your typical classroom. I have one kid, not 28.

This week, I believe she breathed a sigh of relief. We are deschooling from her prior school and experiences and that is okay. This is fun for her and me. This is new and we are both taking it in at this point.

She gets really tired at the end of the day, I am excited for what this home school year will become.

What to Expect in Week 2

Week 2 is coming next — and I'll share whether our routine held up, what curriculum finally arrived, and what we're adjusting.

A Note for New Homeschoolers

If you're staring at a learning plan wondering how you'll fit it all in — you're not alone. Start with a plan, stay flexible, and give yourself (and your kid) a lot of grace. Week 1 isn't about getting it right. It's about getting started.