Creating a Custom Scope and Sequence

We are slowly wrapping up school for this year and I am deep in planning, purchasing, and organizing for next year.  I love planning and I love homeschooling, so the planning our homeschool brings me a lot of joy!  Today, I’m going to share with you how Husband and I went about creating a scope and sequence for our homeschool, but first, I wanted to pass on some planner news to you all.

I’ve gotten several emails for you all about creating a smaller Catholic planner, and I’m happy to announce that it is finally finished, printed, and available on Amazon and Etsy.  It is similar to the larger planner, but there are no pages behind each month for notes/goals/tasks.  The menu planning section on the weekly pages is also absent, so it makes it a perfect planner for men too!  It’s smaller size makes it cheaper to print and, therefore, it is less expensive than the larger planner.  It would make a perfect Mother’s Day or Father’s Day gift (hint,hint…nudge,nudge!).

Here is where you can find the two different planners:

• Catholic Home Executive Planner
• Simply Catholic Planner

Now, onto that scope and sequence I promised…

In March, I read Managers of their Schools by the Maxwells.  I’ve been working my way through all of their “Managers” series of books.  I don’t agree with everything the Maxwells believe or practice, but I always come away from their books renewed, encouraged, and inspired.

Anyways, while I was reading Managers of their Schools I saw this:

Knowing we were not going to be following Mother of Divine Grace to a tee this coming year, but still wanting accountability and structure in our homeschool, I began sketching a little table reflecting our own homeschool curriculum.

I started with a scratch piece of paper and a pencil.  Before long, Husband was sitting beside me and we ended up spending our entire Saturday morning discussing, creating, and editing our very own scope and sequence.

Husband and I are on a quest to make our homeschool  a custom “boxed curriculum.”  I want to know exactly what I need for each year and to eliminate as many of the yearly decision points as possible.  We want structure, rigor, and an intentional program of study for our family.

We certainly don’t have our whole homeschool curriculum or plan of study figured out, but we are well on our way to knowing what works for us.  Creating our own scope and sequence has really helped me visualize where we are going and what we need to do now to get there.

I thought it would be helpful if I shared how we did this.  Here are the steps I followed to make our own custom homeschool scope and sequence using our free OpenOffice program.  You could use Excel if that is what you have on your computer.

To create your own scope and sequence, you should:

• have a basic knowledge of Excel or OpenOffice
• have been homeschooling for a few years (you could do this at the beginning of your homeschool adventure, but you will have a lot more editing to do!)

How to Create your Own Homeschool Scope and Sequence:

STEP 1:  In Excel (or OpenOffice), label the top rows with the grades Pre-K, K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.  Leave the farthest left column blank.

STEP 2:  In Column #1, begin plugging in subjects that you have done already and intend on keeping.

 

STEP 3:  Input subjects into the appropriate grade columns.  (i.e. put math in Columns B – O if you intend to teach Math from PreK to 12th)

 

STEP 4:  Over time, add subjects as you think of them and then add them to the appropriate grades. We were editing our scope and sequence off and on for a week, though the bulk of it was completed the first day.

(Following is what our family’s scope and sequence ended up looking like.  You can see I added another column on the left with overarching subject material so the table was easier to read at a glance.)

 

STEP 5:  Shift studies around based on how many subjects are taken each year.  (For instance, I had plugged in too many subjects for 4th grade, so I dragged several around until there was a more even workload throughout all the grades.)

STEP 6:  Format your scope and sequence for ease of printing and reading.

Consider:

• Changing the page margins, font size, column/row widths/heights so it can be printed on one page.
• Adding shading to cells.
• Merging cells to show relationship.
• Adding borders to cells.
• Adding color if you like to get super fancy!  (I’m a black and white girl myself!)
• Adding a title like “So-and-so’s Family Homeschool”

Step 7:  Add in curriculum choices

Once you have your subjects figured out, you can begin filling in curriculum.  I created a completely different table for this.  Follow the same directions as above for filling in subjects.  Start from what you know and build upon it.

Here is our scope and sequence with curriculum choices.  You can see many of the upper grades have not been filled out.  We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it!

Step 8:  Enjoy your family’s custom homeschool scope and sequence!  A box curriculum made just for you!

I’d love to know if you do this or if you’ve done it already!  Leave a comment or shoot me an email!

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