The WHEN vs. the WHAT of Homeschool Planning

EP237: Ever penciled “mental math" for next Tuesday and that morning, realized you had no idea what problems to use? This conversation digs into the quiet reason homeschool plans stall: we schedule the when and skip deciding the what. In this episode, Jean shares how a few concrete choices ~ specific words, page numbers, prompts, and simple activities ~ turn a hopeful calendar into lessons that actually happen.

You’ll hear why observation and preparation matter, how to be decisive without overplanning, and ways to lean on open‑and‑go resources or repurpose trusted favorites when energy is low. Most importantly, we show how small starts create momentum, momentum builds rhythm, and rhythm grows confidence for both you and your child.

Homeschool planning is a living and breathing process. For more support, our Inspired at Home community offers masterclasses, a searchable forum, and weekly coaching calls to help you build content that fits your child.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a nudge, and leave a quick review to help more homeschoolers find us. 

Chapters

• 1:01 Planning "what" you'll do for your homeschooling lessons is trickier than just planning "when" you'll do them!
• 1:46 Planning the "when" is fun & easy
• 4:45 Planning the "what" takes observation and preparation
• 6:08 Perhaps it's time to be more decisive
• 8:32 A tip for using your planner
• 9:05 Why it's the doing that counts
• 10:19 Resources to support the "what" vs. the "when" of homeschool planning

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:09

You're listening to the Art of Homeschooling podcast, where we help parents cultivate creativity and connection at home. I'm your host, Jean Miller, and here on this podcast, you'll find stories and inspiration to bring you the confidence you need to make homeschooling work for your family. Let's begin. Hello there and welcome to the Art of Homeschooling podcast. I'm Jean, a longtime homeschooling mentor, and I'm so glad you're here today. This is the Cozy Corner where we share stories, encouragement, and practical ideas to bring more peace and confidence into your homeschooling life. Today's episode is about something I see so often in the homeschooling world. Something that can trip us up even before our lessons get off the ground. And it's this. Many of us love planning out when we'll do all the things, looking at the calendar, plotting out our monthly block topics, even deciding which days we'll do lessons. But when it comes to the what, what we'll actually be doing during those lessons, that's where things often get a little sticky. Today we're going to talk about the when versus the what of homeschool planning. Let me explain. The when is fun. The what takes effort. It's easy and even fun to sit down with a planner, pour yourself a cup of tea, and map out the days and the weeks. You start envisioning your rhythm, maybe main lessons in the morning, a nature walk in the afternoon, some math review after lunch. You write it all down and it feels so hopeful, so energizing. Often when we are in that planning mode, that stage of planning, we have this aspirational thinking. We imagine ourselves having all of the energy and we're pretty excited about what's to come. But here's what often happens: you've scheduled mental math for Monday at 9 a.m. And then when Monday comes around, you suddenly realize wait, what mental math problems are we going to do today? Or perhaps you've planned to do a drawing with your child for their main lesson book. But what drawing will that be? You might have planned to work on vocabulary for your geography block, but without a list of some vocabulary words, along with definitions and an idea of how you'll work with that vocabulary with your child or an idea of an activity that will meet your child right where they are, it's hard to do a vocabulary lesson with your child when the time comes. And that, my friend, is the difference between the when and the what of homeschool planning. You can write down all the things you hope to do, but without deciding what those things are actually going to be in some detail, in a concrete way, you're not really ready. And when we're not ready, it's easy to get stuck, maybe even avoid lesson time altogether. Of course, much depends on your personal relationship to a particular subject, right? For some subjects, you might be able to spontaneously show up with your child and jump right into lessons without even knowing what the lesson will become. For example, for folks who are confident with art, showing up with art supplies and a simple idea might be enough, but others might need to prepare by looking at images to illustrate the theme that you're working with from your main lesson story, or looking for lessons from Waldorfish, for example, or other online art programs, practicing the drawing beforehand, even, or drawing the image on the chalkboard the night before. But all of this are important pieces of the planning process. Here's the thing: the what requires observation and preparation. This is where the real planning work happens with the what. To plan what to teach, you need to observe your child where they are developmentally and academically, know where they're headed, what the next steps are on their learning journey, and choose lessons, activities, or resources to help them make progress. Let's say you've noticed your child struggles with a spelling pattern, for example, maybe the silent E or vowel pairs, and you tell yourself, we'll work on that next week. Great intention, but what does that actually mean? To really support your child, you need to identify the spelling pattern that's tripping them up, gather a list of words to explore that pattern, demonstrate that pattern, think through how you'll introduce the lesson gently without judgment. Plan how to practice the concept, maybe through a game, chalkboard work, or a hands-on activity, and decide how you'll review or track their progress. That's the what. And this is the part that we sometimes put off because it takes effort, it takes some real thought. But stick with me here because I have some suggestions for you to help you flesh out your lessons. Just remember, you can't do it all. So choose with some real intention here. If you find yourself getting hung up on the what and not doing anything, we've all been there, then I suggest it's time to be more decisive and just choose something and jump in. Now I know this might seem counterintuitive. Some of us tend to overplan, and then that can be really frustrating too. But being decisive and jumping in with something is really the way to go. And that something might be a simple activity from a curriculum you own or a game that you played last year, a book that's been sitting in your book basket, or even a challenging activity that you don't know if your child is ready for yet, or a math problem or concept that you're not even sure you understand. Show up and make your best guess about what your child needs. Share with your child that you're just gonna jump in and give it a go. Get started, see how things go. You can learn together as you go along. It is important to remember that you cannot plan every single what for every subject in detail all the time. That's just not possible for one human to do, nor is it sustainable. That's the truth, though, isn't it? We can't do all the things all the time. So you might need to have a resource on hand for some subject that is more open and go, or at least can get you started. Sometimes we lean on these existing resources. Sometimes we follow along in a packaged curriculum using it as a resource. Sometimes we pull from something we've done before, as I said, a favorite story, a favorite activity, and repurpose it. So if you're feeling stuck on the what, I encourage you to choose something, anything, one idea, one activity. Just begin. You might say to your child, hey, we're going to try this today and see how it goes. That's how you begin to build momentum. And one last tip. I always liked to jot little notes in my planner of the what so that when the day would arrive, I could see, for example, a short list of words to explore, or a sketch of a drawing that I had in mind to put into the main lesson book, or the page numbers to a math resource for the lesson, or even the page numbers of a book that we'd be reading. At least some detail of what we'd be doing together to get us going when the day arrived. Now, showing up helps clarify what's next. That's the surprising thing. It's not actually more and more and more planning that we need, it's having some ideas that are starters and then showing up. Often, when you take action, even without full certainty, the next step becomes clearer. You try a math concept and realize your child needs more practice with the basics. Or you introduce a story and it sparks an unexpected curiosity that leads to further investigation. Learning what your child needs often comes through doing. That's why I often say it's the doing that counts. Because we can plan all day long, but if we never jump in and try those things out, we cannot get a feel for where our child is and what comes next. Just remember you can learn together with your kiddos, and you don't have to know everything ahead of time. The beauty of homeschooling is that it's a living, breathing process. And sometimes just showing up is the most powerful tool of all. Here are some resources to support the what. Here at The Art of Homeschooling, we have so many resources to help you figure out the what to help you go from a calendar filled with ideas to lessons filled with purpose and engagement. Inside the Inspired at Home community, you'll find over 30 masterclasses on topics like the lively arts, math skills through the grades, writing along with language arts, inner work, many, many different topics to support you. There's a searchable forum where you can ask your specific questions and get real answers from other homeschooling parents and me, weekly coaching calls on Zoom where I can support you directly, our ages and stages guide to help you understand your child's development, and our block topics resource for grades one through eight with topic ideas, specific resources, and suggestions for each main lesson block of every grade. These tools are here to help you build out the what of your homeschool plans in a way that's doable, meaningful, and uniquely suited to your child. A final thought for you: keep showing up. So if you find yourself in this season staring at your planner, unsure of what to actually do next, come back to this idea. The when is the container and the what, the rich, thoughtful content of your lessons, that's what brings the lessons to life. And when you get stuck, don't freeze. Just start. Try something, choose something simple, something known, or even something you're curious about. Because momentum builds rhythm. Rhythm builds confidence, and confidence leads to a homeschool life filled with connection, creativity, and purpose. Thank you so much for tuning in today, and I'll catch you the next time here on the Art of Homeschooling podcast. That's all for today, my friend. But here's what I want you to remember rather than perfection, let's focus on connection. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you on the next episode of the Art of Homeschooling podcast.