Homeschool Planning with Notion
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Have you been looking for a Notion homeschool template to help with your homeschool planning this year? Homeschool planning with Notion can seem overwhelming but once you get started it can be transformative for your homeschool journey! Using Notion as a digital homeschool planner is a great way to get organized and implement all of your homeschool ideas! A Notion homeschool planner is the perfect way to plan your upcoming homeschool year. Read more for tips on how to use Notion for homeschool!
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Homeschool Planning with Notion is a GAMECHANGER! Getting your yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and even daily planning done in Notion makes it a breeze to organize your curricula and activities, track your child’s progress, and quickly make changes when you need to! There are so many ways to use Notion for homeschooling, I’m excited to share a few of my favorites with you today!
If you’re ready to dive right in and fully customize your Notion Dashboard, check out the 31 Day Dashboard Roadmap! It has step by step instructions for your to-do list, plus everything else you need to create an aesthetic, functional Notion Dashboard in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide!
Homeschool Planning with Notion: Long Term Planning
A great way to get started with homeschool planning with Notion is through long term planning. Especially as your children get over, there are more subjects to cover with more complicated curricula and requirements.
There’s no wrong way to go about your long term planning in Notion. The simplest option would be to create a new page for your child, create a Toggle Block (maybe a Toggle Heading 3) with the school year or grade, and list out everything that needs to be taught that year inside the Toggle Block.
You could also create a Database and organize your long term planning by grade or even subject. Almost every Database View could be helpful here! I don’t normally use the Timeline view but this would be a great opportunity to try it out!
Yearly Planning
I always start with my Yearly Planning when planning our Homeschool Year in Notion. I created a Calendar Database and add our school breaks. Then I’ll map out our important events, holidays, family trips etc.
I also create an End of Year Goals page and record everything I hope to accomplish by the end of the school year. If you’re using a book like Home Learning Year by Year or your state’s standards, you can add those here as a starting point for your quarterly or unit planning.
If you have documentation requirements, this would be a good place to store these. You can add regular check-ins to your calendar linking back to this page to ensure you have everything you need ready to submit!
Quarterly Planning
I use Quarterly loosely, I tend to break our year into three 10-12 week sessions. During our breaks, I plan out the units and major projects for the curriculum for the upcoming chunk of the school year.
I add all of the major components of the upcoming quarter to my Calendar Database. If there are projects or resources I already know I want to use, I’ll add those to each Database Page I’ve created on the calendar to reference later. Having these already set up means I can add an activity I find for a unit when it pops up in my feed ASAP without having to rely on deciphering my Notes app. Everything I could possibly need is ready when I sit down to do my Unit Planning deep dive.
Using Your Notion Homeschool Planner for Unit Planning
Unit Planning with Notion is great. You can make it as complex or as simple as you’d like it!
On the simple side, you can create a new Page, either on it’s own or in your Calendar Database, and add your objectives, goals, materials, and resources to the page. It’s easy to set up, clean to look at, and gets the job done.
On the more complicated side, you can create a new Database within a Calendar Database page. A Calendar, Table, or Timeline View would likely work best for this. Add each project, book, and activity to the Database to organize your Unit.
The best part about creating Units in Notion is you can easily save them for a younger child or modify your plans to create an entirely new unit!
Creating a Unit Planning Database Template
If you’re anything like me, you love a uniform planner page. I created a Unit Planning Database Template to help keep my Units organized! I have a summary of the unit at the top of the page, followed by two columns that outline the objectives of the unit and hold my materials list. Underneath the two columns, I have a unit Database, usually on Calendar View, that houses all of our projects and activities.
Your Unit Planner can look like mine or can be completely different! Maybe you want to plan out each week in a Toggle Block. Maybe you only want to keep track of resources. The best part about Notion is you can customize it to your needs completely!
To create a new Database Template, click the blue down arrow at the top right of your Database. Select “+ New Template” and create away! When you’re done, click out of the page. Now, whenever you want to create a new Unit Plan, you can either click New and select that template from the list inside the card or click the blue down arrow and select the template!
Organization with a Notion Homeschool Template or Planner
I find myself much more organized since I started using a Notion Homeschool Template! I have a to-do list, my Morning Basket Planner, schedule, and more all organized on my Homeschool Dashboard!
I also have my monthly and weekly plans organized in my Calendar Database. This makes it easy for me to get ready for the next month and keep track of the many projects, activities, and books we want to complete!
You can organize your curriculum choices in Notion as well! Did you know you can embed PDFs and save links right in Notion? You can even save videos right in your Planner! Just about everything you could need for planning and executing your homeschool year can be stored in Notion!
Notion for Homeschool Materials Organization
But what about physical materials? Can you organize those with a productivity app like Notion? Well…yes actually!
I keep inventory lists of our art supplies, books, and learning resources right in Notion! I find this so incredibly helpful because the majority of our supplies are housed in bins in the closet. If they’re out of sight, they’re out of mind when it comes to my brain!
But having an inventory list of our learning resources means I can filter my database by subject (let’s say Math) and easily check out what books and games we have that cover that subject! This means our materials are used more often and I don’t take 10 books out of the library that we already own!
This is also incredibly helpful when I’m unexpectedly at Target or Michaels and can’t remember what we needed to restock! I just pull up my inventory list, sort our supplies by what is running low or out of stock, and can add it to the cart! No more groaning when I get home and remember we needed more black Sharpies!
Using Notion as a Digital Homeschool Planner
If you’ve been on the fence, I strongly encourage you to check out Notion as your Digital Homeschool Planner. It’s more than just a calendar. It’s a powerful piece of software that can streamline your work and make it easier to plan your homeschool days and actually implement your plans!
Notion is a great place to store your ideas, brainstorm, and even record the work you’ve done. You can create portfolios for your children or even create “workbooks” for them to use right in Notion, complete with embedded Youtube videos, response questions, and more!
Implementing Your Daily Routines with Notion
We have Notion up on my computer all day, every day. It makes it easy to check in with my plans, find links I need, and check off what we’ve done to stay on track. If you want to use Notion for even more than planning or need support implementing your plans, check out this article on Notion Automations. I use buttons to help keep my daily checklists organized and ready to use!
For more support in creating a completely customized Notion Dashboard, check out the 31 Day Dashboard Roadmap! It’s full of tutorials, tips, and resources!
I hope this article inspired you to get started with your Notion Homeschool Planner! If you’re completely new to Notion, check out this article about getting started with Notion! It has everything you need to get your first pages up and running just in time for your next unit!
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