HOW TO LESSON PLAN FOR HOMESCHOOL

The process of lesson planning seems to be a mystery because so much of what is shown are the final stages of lesson planning, the point where page numbers and book titles are being added into the lesson plan, but how it got there is still a mystery. How do you choose books? Which ones are assigned to the student? Which ones are read alouds? Though you’ll see me do this as well, I’m going to attempt to show you my process of how I pick which resources will go into which weeks of our six week main lesson block for Ancient Roman History.

This kind of lesson planning may be different than what you’re used to. Instead of a continuation of books and workbooks that span the year, each new unit is a lesson plan unto itself. The benefit of this is that every 1-2 months is like starting school again which is exciting and something we look forward to, at the same time, it requires time to put the lessons together.

I try to plan out the lessons for the whole block at one time, but if it weren’t for sharing on this platform, I would have only done one week at a time. It’s better to do the whole block at one time, even there are blank spaces in the lesson plan to be filled in later because it gives you a bird’s eye view of the unit and allows for better planning overall.

For this unit, since we had all the materials already, I won’t show you the process of choosing which books to buy. In general I’ll check out the books and projects at Rainbow Resource and choose from their offerings. I did pick up some new books for this unit that I’m excited to use and we’ll be returning to some old favorites. For a complete review of these materials, check the last video in the Ancient Roman History playlist at the conclusion of this unit to see how we liked the books and projects and which ones we skipped and why.

There will be changes to the lesson plan, so at the end of this main lesson block, I’ll share the updated lesson plans so you can see the changes.

When putting together a history unit, I look for books/resources in the following topic areas:
History (famous people, timeline history, historical events)
Biographies (picture books work great for biographies)
Geography (a single atlas book does fine)
Historical fiction (a great way to get your history/culture in a fun book)
Culture/food/clothing (cook up a dish from the time period)
Audio books/songs (music from the time period is fun to listen to)
Projects/Activities (pre-made kits are a go-to staple around here)
Games (Professor Noggins are our favorite)
Workbooks (use sparingly or skip and do narrations)
Picture books (surprisingly informative & fun)
Activity and project books (Lauri Carlson has several)
Science/math (adding other subjects rounds out your unit)

Two more things I use for lesson planning are full back Post-its sticky pads and a pencil. I write notes about each book/resource on the sticky pad and stick it on the front cover of the book for easy lesson planning.

Lesson planning has been in flux for about a year or two. Currently you can find lesson plans for this unit graciously assembled by Sayeda at Precious Years exclusively for Homeschool Panda. Follow link below to access.

Ancient Roman History Lesson Plan:

Steps to import lesson plan from Homeschool Panda:
Step 1: Log into Homeschool Panda
Step 2: Click on “Lesson Planner” from left hand pane
Step 3: Click on “Import Lesson Plan” located on the top right
Step 4: Paste this link:

https://app.homeschoolpanda.com/lessons/export/a2e33ed4afaaf02e3366

Once Lesson Imported, you can assign to a student.

You can also download Ancient Rome Lesson Plans Week 1-6 I’ve left it as is so you can make changes to the lesson plan and customize it for your homeschool needs.

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2 thoughts on “HOW TO LESSON PLAN FOR HOMESCHOOL

  1. Your ancient Rome lesson plans are corrupt 🙁 I tried to download them but it downloaded as a numbers file? I tried to open it with Excel but that’s what said the file was corrupt.

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