It is time! You have divided your history curriculum into reasonable chunks for each week, and you have decided what to do with any extra weeks. Now it is time to grab your planning docs and a pencil and really get to work.

This part of the process can be super easy or more complicated depending on the curriculum. I will continue with using Mystery of History as my example. Each week of my Mystery of History curriculum has three lessons. It is simple enough to just write “Week 1” or “Lessons 1-3” in my first document and proceed on. In fact, this is exactly what I do with other curriculums like math. However, with history, I like to know more so that I can integrate our curriculums as much as possible.

I know I am going to do all the readings for week 1, but I still need to decide on the activities. Honestly, history is my most time-consuming to plan because I read through all the activities and decide which ones each child will do. This is where the integrating begins. Some weeks there might be an excellent computer assignment or an engaging writing assignment. Instead of doubling the amount of time we spend on “history,” I put those assignments into the computer or writing block. I also make notes on what history topics we will be covering so that I can pick literature that correlates.

Once I have made it through history, I do the same thing with the elementary science. I do not attempt to correlate science once the kids have reached middle school science. At these grades, the curriculums are starting to separate, and there is so much more work that they need to do. However, at the younger ages, it is still a great idea to find computer and writing assignments that relate to science.

After history and science are written out, I begin the literature planning, but that sounds like a great topic for another time!