How to Schedule Your Homeschool High School Years

“How to Schedule your Homeschool High School Years” is one of the biggest questions during this age.

The answer to the question about how much time per subject and how to assign that work time to credit hours is in this post What Should we Study while Homeschooling High School.

Scheduling Homeschool High School Days

(This is the fourth post in a series about homeschooling your high school student.)

For our homeschool high school days, my guys found that they got more done and felt like they retained more when they somewhat followed the same type of schedule we had during the elementary and middle school years.

In high school, they worked more independently on subject areas with me acting more as a coach or mentor.

They found that math and literature/writing/grammar and foreign language was best learned and retained in smaller chunks on a daily basis in the morning.

And, other subject areas such as history or science or electives they had chosen could be fit into a block schedule for the rest of the day after they had completed the daily morning work.

Block Scheduling

“Block scheduling” refers to larger chunks of time devoted to certain subject areas during the school week.

They got to pick and choose what subjects to work on each day and how long (and what assignments to complete) to work as long as the work was completed by Saturday at the end of the week.

I would give them a week’s worth of assignments for each required subject and they would follow the Weekly Assignment Sheet they received and check off each subject as it was completed.

They might highlight or underline each individual assignment to keep track of which ones were done as they went along until all were highlighted or underlined for each subject.

They would then return the sheet to me (which served as my lesson plan sheet for record purposes in a loose-leaf binder) and their work so I could correct it or look it over by Saturday.

On Monday morning, I would give them another Weekly Assignment Sheet and any work I wanted to go over with them from the previous week was discussed at this time.

As they were working on subjects that might need a bit more guidance, I was able to work one on one as the other was working independently.

This worked well when we started high school with my older one while my younger was able to work on an independent assignment.

This type of schedule also worked well for us as my guys got involved in a number of different activities that also served as electives or worked a part time job.

They would be able to get the daily subjects like math and writing done in the morning and then work their block schedule subjects depending on their activities for the rest of the day.

As long as they completed all work by Saturday, we were good and their time was theirs to pursue their passions. (Read Exploring Interests in High School Homeschool to see how these activities can greatly complement high school studies.)

Also, I have started a series with Homeschool High School Electives Part One, you might find of interest.

I also have a deeper dive into more unique electives at Selecting Homeschool High School Electives Part 2.

My Homeschool High School Scope and Sequence with Links to Resources gives you lists of elective options with links to explore.

I have created a free Weekly Assignment Sheet you may want to download and use with your high schooler.

Please share these tips with any homeschoolers you think may find them helpful! Also, if you have any tips to share, please comment in the comment box below!

If you have elementary and middle aged children, you might find how we had a different kind of schedule for those years and a Daily Lesson Plan Checklist we followed at Organizing your Homeschool Schedule During the Elementary and Middle School Years.

If you wish to start at the beginning of this series and work your way through, read Why Homeschool High School?