Real Life Homeschool Lesson Plans: Week Two

To paint a picture of what strength based, interest-led learning entails on a daily basis, 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.

Please know, my son is sixteen years old. Any links to resources I share may not be suitable for some children and families

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Last Week’s Homeschool Lesson Plan Vs. Reality

Here’s what our homeschool actually looked like last week vs. the original plan.

Monday Plan

What Actually Happened

Both YouTube videos were selected by my son. I brought up the Northern Lights article on BBC. Then we looked up another video about it.

Who is the best person to help my child with special needs

Tuesday Plan

  • Audiobook and Discussion
  • Driver’s Ed Module 8 and Quiz
  • Math – Real life multiplication and division word problems (I create these based on animals, rock climbing, music and stories about his friends)
  • Mapwork – Rock-climbing locations around the world
  • Online Voice/Music Lesson – one hour

What Actually Happened

  • Audiobook and Discussion
  • Drivers Ed – half of module 8, no quiz
  • Math multiplication and division word problems (I made up word problems about his friends all going rock climbing. He was allowed to use a calculator to find the answer, once he was able to prove he understood the equation needed.)
  • Online Voice/Music Lessons – 1 hour

Wednesday Plan

  • Rock climbing all morning
  • Guitar lesson – 30 minutes
  • Driver’s Ed Module 9 and Quiz
  • Audiobook

What Actually Happened

This day spiraled out of control almost immediately. As I mentioned, my oldest son is still in town this week. The two of them cooked up a plan to go to a really extensive computer store to spend their Christmas money on new accessories. This store is an hour away, each way. They spent the morning looking online at various options and prices. Then we spend the entire afternoon driving to the computer store, wandering for about an hour and a half looking at all the things, and then an hour driving home.

I can see the value of this day across the board – relationship building with brothers, money math, and consumer research to name a few wins. But absolutely nothing happened that I would consider to be “school.”

Thursday Plan:

  • Audiobook and Discussion
  • Social Time with friends – 1 hour
  • Art class – 1 hour
  • Rock Climbing with friends – 3 hours

What Actually Happened:

Because we were not able to find a COVID test for my son, he did not attend his private school classes. His friend also rescheduled rock climbing to Friday. Here’s what we did instead –

My son loves The Maker. It is an award winning, stop motion short film. His favorite part is how detailed and intricate the creators were with everything, including creating a new cipher for The Maker’s written language. We hadn’t seen it for at least a year and he asked to watch it again.

Friday Plan:

  • Play games
  • Make a cake

What actually happened

  • Rock climbing – 4 hours
  • Dirty Jobs, new episode
  • Play card games with brother
  • Measure and help hang up new mini-blinds (Our blinds fell down in the bathroom. He helped with measuring and installing the new ones.)

That’s how week one shaped up.

Now let’s take a look at what I have planned for this week.

Our Homeschool Lesson Plans For This Week

Monday

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

  • 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

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 – two hours
  • Driver’s Ed Module 9 (continued) and Quiz
  • Audiobook
  • Science Lab – BookShark (since it did not happen last week, we are trying again!)

Thursday

This is our lesson plan for 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

  • Drivers Ed – Begin Module 10
  • Audiobook and Discussion
  • Doctor’s Appointments – all afternoon

New Lesson Plans And Updates, Every Week

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    Additional Resources For Strength Based And Interest-Led Learning

    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.

    Here are resources to help you get started with strength based learning.

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    5 Comments

    1. Thank you. I can’t tell you how very helpful and encouraging this new series is for me. You are a blessing!

    2. Love your vulnerability and your and your sons’ willingness to share. Thank you!

    3. What do you use for drivers training?

      1. We use an online course through the state of CA. It’s not ideal, so I sit with him and help navigate the site and some of the reading.

    4. Brandie Vaughan says:

      Thank you for your honesty. I have a 10-year-old boy that struggles with reading and spelling. He has been diagnosed with ADHD and Dyslexia. He’s not hyper just easily distracted. His private school wasn’t equipped to help him, so we have been homeschooling since August 2020. I have really struggled with feeling that he doesn’t do enough “school” learning. I am grateful for your insights. God has helped us with so much this past year. My son is reading better than before and thanks to Youtube he has Science and Social Studies he enjoys.

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