Homeschool Lesson Plans Week By Week: Week Three
For all of 2022 I am sharing our interest-led, weekly homeschool lesson plans. I am also checking back each week to be completely transparent, let you know exactly what we did, and maybe more importantly, did not do.
I have heard from so many of you that you are finding encouragement from my lesson plans! I am so glad to hear it. Now that we are three weeks in, I have a couple of ideas to share.
The first is that I plan to show you, after a few months, how I use these weekly records to create transcripts for my son. This will help anyone (high school level or not) who is wondering how to correlate all of these random bits of learning into specific subjects and educational progression.
Second, many of you have asked for more details on how we practice reading, as my son is profoundly dyslexic. I have included more details in this week’s recap, but will likely create a post in the next few weeks about how we naturally practice reading throughout our interest-led learning. Stay tuned!
For now, here is our recap from last week.
Last Week’s Homeschool Plan vs. Reality
Monday
The Plan
- Audiobook – The Island Of Doctor Moreau
- Infusion – 4 hours
- You ARE An Artist – Medieval History
- YouTube Video – Fish Biologist Reacts to Fish in Medieval Art
What Actually Happened
- Infusion- 4 hours
- YouTube Video – Fish Biologist Reacts to Fish in Medieval Art
- Art – Create your own fish art
- Oceanology Book Study
My son was so impressed with the YouTube video, rather than completing our Medieval History with You ARE An Artist, he asked instead to use the chalk pastels to create his own fish drawing. This reignited his interest in marine life for the rest of the week, as you will see below.
Tuesday
The Plan
- Audiobook and Discussion
- Driver’s Ed Module 9 and Quiz
- Math – Real life fractions word problems (I create these based on animals, rock climbing, music and stories about his friends)
- YouTube Video – his choice, something “educational”
- Online Voice/Music Lesson – one hour
What actually happened
- Audiobook and Discussion
- Driver’s Ed Module 9, Part 1
- Math – Because we did the word problems last week with multiplication and division, I decided instead to have him complete his next lesson in CTCMath.
- YouTube Video – Megladon Fact vs. Fiction (The interest in marine life is back!)
- Spelling Practice with Big Boggle
- Online Voice/Music Lesson – one hour
Wednesday
The Plan
- Physical Therapy – two hours
- Driver’s Ed Module 9 (continued) and Quiz
- Audiobook and Discussion
- Science Lab – BookShark (since it did not happen last week, we are trying again!)
What actually happened
- Physical Therapy – two hours
- Driver’s Ed Module 9, Part 2
- Audiobook and Discussion
- YouTube Video – Invasive Species, Fish Biologist
- BBC News Discussion – Sea Dragon Found In Rutland Reservoir
- Oceanology Book Study
Still no science lab (0-2 on this one), but plenty of reading practice and interest led learning around marine life.
Thursday
The Plan
- Audiobook and Discussion
- Social Time with friends – 1 hour
- Art class – 1 hour
- Rock Climbing with friends – 3 hours
What Actually Happened
- Rubik’s Cube Course
- Audiobook and Discussion
- Social Time with friends – 1 hour
- Art class – 1 hour
- CTCMath
My son has wanted to learn to solve a Rubik’s Cube for years. We have tried videos and live classes on Outschool, but he has never been able to keep track of all the steps. I purchased a cube as a Christmas present that links to an app on his phone and directs him, step by step, through the algorithm. He has learned more this week than ever before and is reading each screen to understand how to proceed. It’s visual and tactile – perfect for his need for multisensory learning. This was a total learning win for him this week.
Rock climbing was postponed again so we were also able to get to a bit more school than a usual Thursday.
Friday
The Plan
- YouTube – His Choice
- Audiobook and Discussion
- History – Reading to him
- Doctor’s Appointments – all afternoon
What Actually Happened
- YouTube – Mike Shake, Overnight In A Cave With No Experience
- Audiobook and Discussion
- Creative Writing and Reading Practice
- Rubik’s Cube Course
- Mapwork – Indian Ocean
- Doctor’s Appointments – all afternoon
The mapwork was influenced by the YouTube videos earlier in the week. For creative writing, he dictated a story to me about what would’ve happened to Joe Exotic if his closest friend hadn’t died early on and how much better his life would be today. (He’s 16 so I let him choose whatever topic he wants. It would not be my first choice, especially knowing I am sharing it with all of you, but I promised to show you exactly what we do.) I typed as he spoke. Then, we printed it up, double spaced in an easy to read 18px font and he read it back to me.
We had a productive morning, but learned in the afternoon that he will need outpatient surgery in a few weeks. Both of us were absolutely done after hearing the news, so we began our weekend early by binge watching Harry Potter.
Our Homeschool Lesson Plans For This Week
Monday
- Audiobook and Discussion – The Island Of Doctor Moreau
- Rubik’s Cube Course
- YouTube Video – Aquatic life themed
- Infusion – 4 hours
Reference Notes: Every Monday, my son has subcutaneous immunoglobin infusions. Because of this, our Monday routine is very light. We do the minimum and prepare for his medical treatment in the afternoon.
Tuesday
- Driver’s Ed – Finish Module 9 and Quiz
- CTCMath
- Spelling Practice using Spelling Plus – we are on list #21
- YouTube Video – His choice, something educational
- Online Voice/Music Lesson – one hour
Reference Notes: Tuesdays are our first full school day of the week. Because my son always feels better post-Monday’s infusion, we typically do a large percentage of our more traditional homeschool work on this day.
Wednesday
- Physical Therapy – 2 hours
- Driver’s Ed Module 10, Part 1
- Audiobook and Discussion
- Science Lab – BookShark (third time’s the charm???)
Thursday
- Audiobook and Discussion
- Social Time with friends – 1 hour
- Art class – 1 hour
- Rock Climbing with friends – 3 hours
Reference Notes: We spend Thursdays in lessons mostly outside our home. My son attends a program on Thursday afternoons through a local private school.
Friday
- CTCMath
- Driver’s Ed Module 10 and Quiz
- Rubik’s Cube Course
- YouTube Video – his choice and educational
- Creative Writing or History – his choice
New Lesson Plans And Updates, Every Week
Additional Resources For Strength Based And Interest-Led Homeschooling
Research shows that a learner allowed to spend the most time studying in areas of strength, tends to perform exponentially better in all areas including the areas of weakness.
These resources will help you get started!
I am so enjoying this series, Shawna! Thank you for sharing the plan… and the reality. I’m so sorry for the news about the need for outpatient surgery; praying for you both right now!
Amy – thank you for always being such a wonderful source of encouragement for me. I am grateful for you, friend!
These are encouraging to read, so thank you for taking time to do this.
I am curious about the math word problems you create. Would you be willing to provide an example? Thank you for your encouragement and helping us see everything as learning!
I will put together a few examples and include a link to them in next week’s plan. I will try to remember to email it to you as well!
I am grateful you are sharing your plans and realities with us! I am so sorry to hear about his surgery. I hope it helps with long term healing and is not a sign of a set-back. Medical appointments can be so draining, even without unexpected information. I don’t even know who Joe Exotic is(!) but I relate to letting our kids write about whatever sparks their interest. I know you mentioned other readers asking you to share more about reading and I would like to hear more about writing (thoughts to paper, pencil to paper, typing, etc.) One of my kiddos is quite dysgraphic. Thank you!
Appreciate your blog and openness to share! I’m curious to know more how you do spelling with the game and spelling plus word list. Thanks so much!