Welcome to the series all about using Teachers Pay Teachers resources, for homeschooling! Using Teachers Pay Teachers to plan ahead is a great strategy. I love being able to bop over to the search, and find niche items to complement my lesson!

If you’re new to this series, here is what we’ve covered so far:

How resource website Teachers Pay Teachers changed my homeschooling

Why Teachers Pay Teachers is THE tool all homeschool moms need

My favorite FREE stuff on Teachers Pay Teachers: Part 1, and, Part 2

My favorite paid resources on Teachers Pay Teachers, here (one I’m using this summer!)

Today, I will share how I use resources on Teachers Pay Teachers to plan out my homeschool lessons–both short term, and long-term.

Teachers Pay Teachers for Last Minute Planning

Teachers Pay Teachers is a special website with many free and paid teaching resources, available to teachers and parents. I love that they have a direct search engine, and you can browse dozens of resources on any topic imaginable. I can almost always find several versions of even very niche products that I search for–typically a free version or two, as well as paid versions.

If I am searching for something last-minute, it is usually because I want to supplement a lesson. Maybe we read about the brain in Anatomy that week, and I’d like some supplemental activities to emphasize those concepts: this “brain hat” ($5) or free coloring worksheet (here) are perfect.

One of my favorite things to do with my own kids, as well as the kids I teach at our co-op, is to read aloud to them, and glean every possible multidisciplinary tidbit from the books as we can.

I love to devour books Five In A Row style: deep-diving into various aspects of the book that interest us, that we’ve learned about before, and of course, learning new concepts too. We may do a baking project with something related to the book, a craft or art video, a field trip to a place we saw in the text, or write a reflection on what we read.

Teachers Pay Teachers has been an awesome resource for this. There are often little worksheets, games or visuals available for specific children’s book titles. I can jump onto my computer, do a quick search for that niche product, and instantly download and print something to use. Recently, I’ve been leaning in even harder to read-alouds, because it feels like a dying art and I have been dismayed at the slow decline of quality, in children’s books, that I’ve seen published in recent years. (You can read more about that, here. I’m curious if you’ve seen the same, where you live!)

Regardless, I love being able to pop onto TPT to grab a small supplement–especially when they’re free, which they often are. Using TPT as supplement helps us expand our learning, try concepts out in new ways, and reinforce concepts I am trying to instill.

Teachers Pay Teachers for Long-Term Planning

Along with grabbing supplemental work on TPT at the last minute, I like to use the search engine for long-term planning, too!

I mostly commonly look for supplements related to history, science, and our chapter books. We read specific chapter books using Treehouse Schoolhouse’s book studies. This year we will do Intermediate Collection 3, and I cannot wait! The book studies come with amazing discussion questions, and ideas to expand on the concepts within each title. I love using a mixture of those ideas, and my own! The same goes for Five In A Row, my favorite book studies for picture books–I love using a mixture of those book study recommendations, as well as my own. (I am a proud affiliate of THSH-you can get 10% off your cart shopping with this link, or the code at the end of this post!)

Using Teachers Pay Teachers & YouTube (paired with SafeShare) is my preferred way to plan lessons in advance. I love being able to grab a few paper products from TPT, and then a few helpful videos from YouTube, to supplement the lesson and give my kids a wide array of knowledge and new information. I don’t have them on YouTube itself, I use SafeShare, which you can read more about, here.

Planning on Google Sheets

This time of year (late July) is when I start mapping out our upcoming school year. It may be a little crazy to plan the entire year at once, and I have to realize that there will be setbacks. However, I still prefer to plan things out and see my “ideal” ahead of time. Having a plan, a timetable, and a goal helps me move forward with positivity, even if not every single thing will be accomplished by school year’s end.

I typically use Google Sheets to plan out our Science, and History, for the entire year. I’ll split up each into the number of chapters we’ll need to read each week. In another column, I’ll plan supplemental work (like the brain worksheets from TPT mentioned above) as well as cool YouTube videos that deep dive into specifics from that chapter.

There are always more resources than we can possibly use–and what a blessing that is! Through the internet, we have the world at our fingertips–and I like to try and sort through the noise, select the best samplings of various topics, and present them to my kids in many forms.

How about you–what types of resources do you use, to supplement your kids’ homeschool lessons? I’d love to hear.

With love,

Cait

Note: My Treehouse Schoolhouse links are affiliate links. I will never recommend anything I have not personally used and loved with my own kids. Use this link to shop, or use code: EDELWEISSHOMESCHOOLRESOURCES at checkout, to receive 10% off your order.