21 | 3 Tips to Save Time Planning Your Catholic Homeschool Lessons with the Charlotte Mason Method

If you are spending your whole Sunday night planning your Charlotte Mason Catholic homeschool, juggling your own lesson plan, a curriculum's scope and sequence, and your Catholic adaptations all at once, this episode is going to change everything.

Three practical tips. One mindset shift. And a whole Sunday night back.

What You'll Learn:

• Why managing three planning systems is stealing your Sunday and the one question that replaces all of them in your Charlotte Mason Catholic homeschool
• The difference between planning like a school and planning like a domestic church and why it changes everything
• How to let the liturgical calendar do most of your homeschool planning for you every single week
• Why batching your planning once a month saves more time than any planner or curriculum you will ever buy

Small steps. Faithful days. That is how this beautiful thing gets built.

I pray this encourages your heart today.

Go be the peace God created you to be.

— The Catholic Grandma

Scripture References:

• Proverbs 16:3 — Commit your plans to the Lord and your goals will be achieved

Resources Mentioned:

Charlotte Mason for Catholic Moms (free guide) 

Charlotte Mason Homeschooling for Catholic Moms (free community) 

Subscribe to Peaceful Catholic Homeschooling: 

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Related Episodes:

Episode 14 — This Is How to Create a Peaceful Homeschool Day Without Changing Everything

Episode 15 — Dreaming of a Peaceful Catholic Homeschool? How the Liturgical Calendar Simplifies Your Day

Transcript

Planning Is Eating Your Week

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You are spending way too much time planning your homeschool, and so many nights are disappearing into color-coded planners and curriculum guides and Catholic adaptations. And somehow by the middle of the week, nothing is flowing the way you plan. Today I'm going to give you three tips that are going to cut your planning time dramatically, and a mindset shift that changes everything before the tips even start. Let's get into it. Welcome back to Peaceful Catholic Homeschooling. Today we're going to dig deeper into layer three, which is peaceful rhythms, and we are getting very practical about one of the biggest time drains in your homeschool week, planning. But before we dive in, if this episode helps you today, I want to make sure you do not miss what is coming next. So subscribe to Peaceful Catholic Homeschooling right now if you have not already. It only takes about 30 seconds and it means every new episode drops straight to you. Also, come find us in our Facebook community, Charlotte Mason Homeschooling for Catholic Moms. The link is in the show notes. It is a peaceful place and we are saving you a seat. Then you're in the right place. Welcome to Peaceful Catholic Homeschool Media. I'm a Catholic brain lender, playing a money. Grab whatever's left in the morning and go hide in the bathroom if you have to. And let's do the clear holy work together. Alright, let's get into today's episode.

A Mom Trapped In Three Systems

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Today I want to tell you about a mom I have worked with. She loved her children deeply and she wanted to do this homeschooling well. And that loved showed up in her planning. She spent so many days and nights sitting down and mapping out every subject for every day of the week. Math here, reading here, history here, science here, religion here, nature study here, every block filled in, every subject accounted for. And it was beautifully actually color-coded and completely thought through. And then about midweek, something would happen every time. The plan would barely be recognizable. Nothing flowed from one thing to the next. History had nothing to do with they were reading, science had nothing to do with the liturgical season, and religion felt bolted on at the end of the day like an afterthought. So she did what a lot of moms do when the plan is not working. She found a Charlotte Mason curriculum, a beautiful secular one, already laid out, scope and sequence included, and she thought, this is it. This will do the planning for me. But here's what actually happened. The curriculum was not Catholic enough, so she started adapting it, switching out books that had a Protestant slant, adding saint stories to fit the liturgical season, and finding Catholic substitutes for the suggested resources, DIYing the whole thing on top of an already complicated system. Now she was managing her own plan and the curriculum's plan and her Catholic adaptations. Three systems that did not talk to each other, and she was spending more time planning than ever before, not less. And when I sat down with her, I said, friend, the problem is not your planning effort because you are working very hard. The problem is you are planning like a school, and you are not running a school. You are building a domestic church. And those two things require completely different approaches. She did not need to plan more. She needed to plan differently. In the moment she understood the difference, her days and nights completely

The Mindset Shift That Changes Planning

SPEAKER_00 4:07

changed. Before I give you the three tips, I need to shift something first. Because if you take these tips and apply them to the same broken system, nothing changes. And here is the shift I want you to make right now. School planning is about covering content. Charlotte Mason Planning is about curating encounters. And those are two completely different things. School planning asks, what do I need to teach this week? Charlotte Mason Planning asks, what does she need to encounter this week? A feast day, a living book, a nature walk, a piece of sacred music, a saint story. Those are not lesson plans. Those are encounters with truth and beauty and goodness. And encounters do not take hours of planning. They take one good question. What is the church celebrating this week? That one question is your entire planning starting point. Every living book connects to it. Every morning time element connects to it. Every subject finds its place inside it. Not three systems pulling in three directions, one spine holding everything together. You are not a school teacher writing lesson plans. You are a mother curating encounters with truth, beauty, and goodness. And that takes way less time, not a whole day of planning. Proverbs 16 says, Commit your plans to the Lord and your goals will be achieved. Commit your plans to the Lord, not to a color-coded binder. Simple, faithful, and less planning. These three tips will make that possible.

Tip 1 Let The Liturgical Calendar Lead

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Tip 1. Let the liturgical calendar do the planning for you. This is the single biggest time-saving shift in Charlotte Mason planning. Instead of sitting down one night asking, what will we study this week? Open your liturgical calendar first and ask, what feast day is coming? What liturgical season are we in? These questions will give you the theme for the week. Your living book connects to it, your morning time connects to it, and your nature study connects to it as well. The church has already done the planning for you. Your job is simply to follow her lead. This is not lazy planning. This is brilliant planning, and it eliminates the three-system problem completely. No more adapting a secular curriculum. No more adding Catholic content on top of someone else's plan. Because the liturgical calendar is the plan. So today, look up one feast day coming up in the next seven days and write it down. That will be your planning starting point because everything else connects to it.

Tip 2 Plan The Spine

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Tip two is plan the spine, not the schedule. Most moms plan too much detail. Every subject, every day, every time slot, and when. And when Tuesday happens and the plan breaks, everything feels ruined. Charlotte Mason planning works differently. You plan the spine, not the schedule. The spine is your three anchors, morning gathering, focus lessons, and closing rhythm. Inside those three anchors, you place your living book, your feast day connection, and your nature time. You do not plan minute by minute. You plan what goes where in the day, not when it happens. And that flexibility is what keeps the plan alive when life interrupts. Because life always interrupts. So this week, write down just three things. What living book we are reading, what feast day we are connecting it to, and what is your one hands-on element. That is your weekly plan. Everything else will fill in

Tip 3 Batch Plan Monthly

SPEAKER_00 7:29

naturally. Tip three is batch your planning once a month. This is the tip that saves the most time overall. Because instead of planning every Sunday night, you can plan once a month. By sitting down at the beginning of the month with your liturgical calendar, you can look at the feast days and liturgical moments coming up in the next four weeks. Then you can choose four living books, one per week, and connect to those feast days. So write them down and your month is planned. And the daily details flow naturally from the book and the feast day. And once you have this plan locked in place, you can let the book lead your planning. So right now, pull up next month's liturgical calendar, find four feast days and write them down. That will be your monthly planning session started. Done in 10 minutes.

Trust More Plan In 30 Minutes

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Charlotte Mason planning is not about doing less, it is about trusting more, trusting the liturgical calendar to give you the theme. Trusting living books to deliver the content. Trusting your rhythm to hold the day. And when you trust those three things, planning only takes about 30 minutes, not three hours. And for the mom thinking, hey, I love this, but I still need someone to hand me something already built. Something I can just open and use tomorrow morning, and I hear you. I am working on something for exactly that. Big things are coming and you're going to want to be there when they arrive. So make sure you are subscribed so you don't miss it. And the takeaways

Key Takeaways And What To Do Next

SPEAKER_00 8:52

from today are you are not a school teacher. You are a mother curating encounters. And the three tips from today are let the liturgical calendar lead, plan the spine, not the schedule, and of course, batch your planning once a month. The one question that replaces every complicated system you have ever tried is what is the church celebrating this week? Planning your Charlotte Mason Catholic Homeschool should not cost you your Sundays or any day of the week. It should cost you about 30 minutes in one question. What is the church celebrating this week? So commit your plans to the Lord, start there, everything else follows. Now tell me, which of these three tips are you trying first this week? Because I genuinely want to know. And come find us in our Facebook community, Charlotte Mason Homeschooling for Catholic Moms. The link is in the show notes and we're saving you a seat. If you know a mom who is spending her whole Sunday planning and still feeling behind, share this episode with her right now. This one is for her. And also subscribe so you don't miss episode 22. And remember, small steps, faithful days, that is how this beautiful thing gets built. See you in the next episode.