How to Use Assignment Sheets for Your Homeschool Students
When you begin homeschooling, there are many things to consider. What philosophy will guide you? What curriculum will you use? How will you include language arts, geography, and math? What about history and literature? All of these are big things to think about and can take a lot of time and research. Eventually, however, when we’re ready to start that first day of school, we’re usually prepared to dive in, having chosen all of our books and resources.
Sometimes, however, the little things can slip through the cracks. These are usually the things you don’t know you need to think about until you’re going through your homeschool day or week and realize you don’t have a way to implement something or are missing a resource needed for a given task.
This happened to me in Year 4 when my son entered Form II and began completing some of the readings on his own. I had a beautiful planner for myself with the week’s assignments laid out, but when I finished writing out what I would read with him, I wasn’t sure how to let him know what readings he would be doing on his own.
My first solution was a lined sticky note that I stuck in the cover of his homeschool binder each week and then added back into my planner when the week was done so I could keep track of what he had completed. This worked well until I started adding more readings and responsibilities to his list, and it no longer fit on the sticky note.
That’s when I decided I needed something more and designed a homeschool assignment chart for him. I had a space on the top for the readings specifically assigned for that week (like history, science, literature, etc.) and another space at the bottom for repeating tasks that happen every week (like his Book of Centuries, nature journal, and news articles). Here is the layout:
When he entered Year 7 (Form III), we found that his readings took up more space than I had allotted for non-repeating tasks, so I made a new sheet with no weekly assignments section on the bottom. The second design behind the one pictured above is for my daughter, just for a little variety.
How We Use Homeschool Assignment Sheets
Before the start of each term, I go through my term overview sheets (I download the ones from AmblesideOnline into my spreadsheet program and modify them to fit our needs) and decide which books I will have my kids read on their own and which I will read with them. For those they read on their own, I highlight the rows so they stand out.
Then, when I’m doing my school planning each week and laying everything out, I have one of these assignment sheets (with the date, grade/year, and week number written at the top) on the table next to my planner, along with my term overview sheets. As I go down the column for that week’s tasks on the term overview, I write the tasks we’re doing together in the weekly schedule section of my planner, and then the tasks they will be doing on their own I write in another section of that week’s layout in my planner as well as on their assignment sheets. That way, in my own planner, I can check each reading or task off as they narrate or show me what they’ve done.
At the bottom of the assignment sheet, I write in the tasks that we do every week. Once it’s all complete, I stick it in their homeschool binder as the front page, and they know to find their assignments there.
As they complete assignments throughout the week, they check the box for that day. My daughter likes to schedule things in advance and block off which assignments she wants to do on which days. My son reads what he feels like reading on a given day (this term, it usually starts with electronics), so his checkmarks look slightly different.
Though it doesn’t happen often, occasionally, they won’t complete a task in the week it’s assigned, so I’ll write that task again on their new sheet and highlight it. They know that they need to do that task before anything else is done.
Common Questions About Homeschool Assignment Sheets
I’ve been sharing our assignment sheets on Instagram in my Sunday planning posts for the last few months and often get questions about them. Here are a few common ones:
I do not assign specific tasks for specific days for either of them, mainly because I want them to get into the habit of managing their time well. At the beginning of the week, I let them know if we have anything planned away from home in the afternoons (aside from our regularly scheduled events) and let them plan their week accordingly.
When I’m reading to one of them during our lesson time in the mornings, the other kid has time to get their own readings done then. They also have a large chunk of free time each afternoon, during which they can get these tasks done as well. If they opt to do their tasks more toward the beginning of the week, they know they’ll have more free time later. If they wait until the end of the week, there’s usually a mad scramble to get everything done on Friday afternoon if we don’t have something planned. Which brings me to the next question…
Sometimes, life happens, and we have more things scheduled in a week than I intended. In this case, I usually give them a little more grace and allow them to finish tasks by the following week, writing any remaining ones they have on the following week’s assignment sheet. They know they need to start with these tasks before they do those assigned for the new week.
On the other hand, kids (and some adults…) sometimes make bad decisions and put off getting their tasks done until the last minute, not remembering that we have something planned for Friday afternoon. In this case, they know they have to finish everything before they can have certain privileges on the weekends. Because of this, everything is usually done by early afternoon on Saturday. It’s obviously not ideal for them to do school work on the weekend, but I’m hoping they learn better time management when this happens.
And that’s how we use assignment sheets, in a nutshell! Feel free to use this post as inspiration to create your own, or you can find printable versions of the ones I made available in my shop!
In the Shop
Printable Homeschool Assignment Charts
Thank you for sharing these! I use a similar approach, also for ambleside, but your assignment sheets will look a lot tidier than how I’ve been squeezing them into our generic planner! I always appreciate your perspective and your generosity in sharing what has helped you. I, too, am hopeful that a couple of weekends with leftover school work will serve as some powerful weekday motivation in the future!
My post-it notes were definitely not tidy. 🙂 It’s an ever-evolving process.
I’d love to see a filled out sheet if possible? I’ve used a checklist for years for my kids. They have a tabbed binder with 11 weeks of reading or mapping, etc. and then weekly checklist they that use to complete their assignments for the week. I don’t use a weekly planner or anything. But I’m trying to imagine what your description of how you use the sheets actually looks on the sheet and seeing it would help a lot!
That’s a great suggestion, Karen! I will add a picture to this post of one we’ve filled out. You can also see one that I have filled out but that hasn’t been completed here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DGbobziSf-2/