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4 PRE-Homeschool Year Planning Pages (and tips to use them)

June 27, 2022 | 5 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, I’m share some of my favorite homeschool planning pages for my homeschool planner.

When creating my unique 7 Step Homeschool Planner, I never dreamed that it would be the best tool I’ve used through the years. I’m sharing tips about what I do BEFORE I begin my year and 4 pre-homeschool year planning pages you may have missed.

Tip ONE/ Planning doesn’t begin when your school year begins.
It begins 8 to 6 weeks BEFORE your school year. (Use the PRE-Homeschool Year Checklist.)

It seems like stating the obvious when I say that planning doesn’t begin when your school begins. Knowing that I’ve still found myself short on time for planning our schedule.

You need just as much time to decide which months you’ll school and which months or weeks you’ll take off as you do time to make curriculum choices.

When it’s your first day of school, you want to be ready and rested to teach without having to focus on planning.

One tidbit we can learn from public school is to do like a public school teacher does. She comes back to school a few weeks earlier than the kids.

This allows her quiet time to plan and to set up things in her teacher space. That’s a great tip for us as home educators. Plan while you’re not formally teaching.

Though I make notes all throughout the year on what I want to change, I put pen to paper about 8 to 6 weeks before school on my pre-homeschool year planning page. I find this gives me time to change my mind.

4 PRE-Homeschool Year Planning Pages (and tips to use them)

Curriculum Planner Pages

Here are a few of the things I’ve jotted down on my page.

  • when to throw away or sell old curriculum
  • when to have my mind made up about new curriculum purchases
  • when to check out co-op classes or field trips in my area
  • when to buy supplies to coincide with back to school sales
  • when to choose unit study themes as well as when to finalize my choices
  • if I need to update a study area
  • buy new art, paper supplies or atlases

Just a side note, I also use it and write in it before I bind my planner.

The document I grab to do this is the Pre-Homeschool Planning Checklist.

4 PRE-Homeschool Year Planning Pages (and tips to use them)

Something else I do is to put a clean unused page at the BACK of my current planner.

Then, as I think of what I need to do before the next school year, I jot them down and have it ready to go for the next year.

You’ll love having your thoughts, notes, and ideas of what you need to do weeks leading up to the start of your year. It’s the only way I’ve been able to keep organized too.

Tip TWO/ Plan your year when you’re free of teaching.
(Use the School Year Round Planning Schedule, which I update each year.)

Whether you decide to school year round or have a complete stop in the summer, you need to plan your next school year when you take your longer break.

Too, remember just because you may choose not to homeschool year round doesn’t mean you don’t plan that way. Homeschooling and planning should be two separate tasks that are not necessarily done at the same time.

Sometimes you need to separate the mommy and teacher hat and this is one time when you can. Plus, I enjoy planning and savor it more so when I don’t have to focus on the needs of the kids.

With a clear mind, I can plan our year and not while something may come up during our year.

When originally creating this schedule, I made it for a full 12 months. Begin planning on it where you need to.

I keep it 12 months too because life changes when you’re homeschooling. For example, one year you may actually school year round and other years you may choose not to.

This schedule is flexible for the time you begin planning.

The two documents I grab for this are the 5 years of holiday pages  and the School Year Round Planning Schedule for the current year.

4 PRE-Homeschool Year Planning Pages (and tips to use them)

The holiday reference page helps me to mark them on my schedule.

4 PRE-Homeschool Year Planning Pages (and tips to use them)

I keep the School Year Round Planning Schedule each year on Step 5a.

Actually, I print several copies of this form for many reasons. I use one for a draft and I may scratch up and scratch out a copy until I find a workable homeschool schedule. Then I print out another one and make it all neat, clean, and purd-y for my new planner.

As you can see above, I’ve already started working on this next year’s schedule to determine when I want to start. This year, we’re not taking much time off during summer because we will be moving into a new home at the end of August. I adjusted our schedule and take off time accordingly, but have still kept myself accountable.

Adjust your schedule to your life, but highlight the weeks you want to school. By doing this each year, your keep it real. What I mean by this is that you actually keep yourself accountable to see how much you’re actually learning.

We don’t need any state agency looking over our shoulder as homeschool teachers. Most of the time, we school way longer than a public school year anyway.

Here is another side note, but it matters the type of highlighter you use. I don’t like nasty black smudged prints on my brand new planner.

I have a pen and highlighter addiction which I’ll save for another post, but the one time tested highlighter for me is the Sandford Highlighter Kit – 4 Colors Dry Pencil Non-Bleed.

It’s a dry lead pencil and doesn’t smudge or smear as I highlight. I’ve tried many that claim to be smear or smudge proof by I’ve learned that they are not. The Sandford has been my for-sure-doesn’t-make-a-mess highlighter. It says it’s actually a Bible highlighter. That’s probably why it really works.

Homeschool Planning Means Letting Go!

Tip THREE/ Renew your vision AND release the guilt.

Lastly, it’s not only important to set realistic goals, but to learn from past mistakes.

A mistake we always seem to make is over planning. We tend to think we can do more than what we end up doing. We can be hard on ourselves for that.

Equally important is to learn from past mistakes and to put down what we want to do less of next year as a reminder to not repeat the same mistakes. We need to let go of guilt because we understand that we’re doing more than we realize.

This page I use is about looking at my overall goal for the year. It’s not about planning objectives like my objective planning page. Objectives are measured goals.

4 PRE-Homeschool Year Planning Pages (and tips to use them)

The page I use is my school year goals page. The top of the page is to reinforce what you want more of and the bottom part is what you want do less.

Look at these other homeschool planner products that I know you’ll love!

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  • Dynamic and Fun Human Body Lapbook for Multiple Ages

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Getting ready for a new school year can be equally exciting and exhausting. I try to keep it fun by planning when I’m excited about it. Do you?

4 PRE-Homeschool Year Planning Pages (and tips to use them)

I think you’ll love these other tips.

  • How to Choose the BEST Homeschool Lesson Planning Pages THIS Year,
  • 7 Step Free Homeschool Planner – Top 5 Questions Asked Are Answered and finally begin building your 7 Step Free Homeschool Planner. You’ll never go back to buying one huge download or pdf with one theme and one color choice.
4 PRE-Homeschool Year Planning Pages (and how to use them).You need just as much time to decide which months you’ll school and which months or weeks you’ll take off as you do time to make curriculum choices. When it’s your first day of school, you want to be ready and rested to teach without having to focus on planning. Click here to grab these four AWESOME and free homeschool planning forms!

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

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5 CommentsFiled Under: 2. My FREE Organizing Printables {Any topic}, Curriculum Planner, Homeschool Planner Tagged With: curriculum pages, curriculum planner, freeprintables, homeschool, homeschool curriculum planner, homeschoolorganization, homeschoolplanner, homeschoolplanning, lesson planner, lessonplanning, organization, planning

How a Homeschool Planning Calendar is Superior to a Regular Calendar

June 24, 2022 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Once you learn the differences between a homeschool planning calendar and regular calendar there is no going back. When creating my homeschool planner, my planning calendar is one of the first things I print.

It’s ready way before my year starts or I print my planner.

What exactly is a planning calendar? It is a calendar which communicates the dates you and your children will count as official school days; it’s a visual of which dates you plan to have off during the year.

In addition, your family can see your in-teacher dates, (yes I have them) vacation times, and end of the school year date. Noting winter breaks and summer breaks are equally important.

Additionally, if you live in a state where you have record keeping, you notate reporting periods. If you must report to a proctor, you add report card dates.

How a Homeschool Planning Calendar is Superior to a Regular Calendar

Planning Your Year Homeschool

As you can see, it’s VERY different than just a regular calendar. A regular calendar is not for planning, it’s just for reference.

By using a schedule you are getting these benefits:

  • freedom because you see a plan for how to fit in learning
  • setting the pace of the year to suit your family
  • planning for rest periods which suit your family
  • keeping family time a priority by planning vacations
  • making time for you the teacher by shading in your workdays
  • seeing a visual of the year keeps your goals realistic and within reach

From this list, you see that making school fit you and your family is what is important.

Although some feel that planning like this is confining, they miss the point.

It has quite the opposite effect. Freedom comes from controlling what you can and letting go when you can’t.

After all, it’s not the schedule or plan that is a mistake. It’s the part where some think a schedule can’t be changed or moved around.

There is no doubt about it — this quote may be overused and I whole heartedly agree. It’s timeless for a reason.

“If You Fail to Plan, You Are Planning to Fail” — Benjamin Franklin

It’s that simple. There are many reasons that I’ve homeschooled, worked, and been able to run a site/ blog.

The best one is no secret and that is I planned every year.

Everything has a place. Oh, don’t think by any stretch that I maintained everything in stone. I didn’t and still don’t. I have many days where I’m frazzled, but I have way more where I’m fulfilled.

However, I never allowed a planning schedule to make me feel like I was hemmed in.

Tracking Your Homeschool Year

Next, there is another feature on the homeschool schedule which I add and is important. The feature is a part to help you track your days and weeks you homeschool.

Even if you don’t need to record keep, tracking days and weeks is an extremely visual way to track your success.

Hear my heart when I say you can be constantly barraged either by self-doubt or from others if you’re doing enough. That was my initial mindset when I started creating these forms more than 10 years ago.

How to Plan Your Homeschool Year

Little did I know the feature of tracking days and weeks would keep me positive. You don’t worry if you’re doing enough because you see your progress daily and weekly.

So, look exactly at how I planned and use the form every year. I’m using one of my schedules from a previous year.

First, look at how my form is set up. By the way, after I update it each year, I keep the updated version at Step 5a. Choose Unique Forms JUST for You.

How a Homeschool Planning Calendar is Superior to a Regular Calendar

Further, here are the flexible ways you can use it:

  • Because there are 12 months, you can begin and end with the months you want. If you don’t school year-round, no problem. Again, just pick up at the month you’re starting and plan to when you want stop. The point is the form is very flexible.
  • After the month where you kept track (look at picture below) of the days you homeschooled, note them on the line provided. Add the days as you go along so you have the total at the end.
  • Use the key at the bottom of the form to use different color highlighters or symbols for dates you want to track.
  • In addition, highlight holidays you celebrate. Everyone does not celebrate the same holidays, so I don’t include U.S. holidays. The form is there for you to note the important days to your family.

Now, look below at how my hardworking and highly useful no fluff schedule works.

How a Homeschool Planning Calendar is Superior to a Regular Calendar

Notice these 5 important points in how to use it.

  1. Use one color to shade or outline the days you plan to school.
  2. Then use another to plan the days you won’t school.
  3. Also circle or add in teacher days for you. I didn’t include any here because I wanted to focus on showing you how to track school days.
  4. Count the days cumulatively. This way you know EXACTLY where you are at in your school year. For example, 180 days is a typical school year. Some schools follow 130 or 160. Knowing how many days you school in a 12-month period is empowering.
  5. Likewise, seeing my flex days or days not planned shows me how much time I have to move around.

Also, if you’ll notice on my form, I took off almost the whole month of April. Here in Texas, it’s plain insane to try to do too much during the hot summer months.

Instead, we enjoy the cooler days of spring and finish up my year in the summer; I still have time in June to flex with.

Don’t homeschool another year without this awesome form.

Go grab the Planning Schedule for the CURRENT School Year. Option 3

How a Homeschool Planning Calendar is Superior to a Regular Calendar

What do you think? Can you use this form?

Look at these other planning topics:

  • Also check out my Planner page on my Amazon Shop for gorgeous accessory options.
  • 3 Beautiful and Free Homeschool Planner Covers
  • How to Choose the Perfect Homeschool Planner for Multiple Students
  • 31 Popular and Free Homeschool Planner Printables
  • Homeschool Weekly Planner vs Homeschool Daily Planner: Which Is Really Better?
  • A Unique Flexible and Beautiful Preschool Homeschool Planner
  • How to Create A Homeschool Lesson Plan in 7 Easy Steps

Leave a CommentFiled Under: Curriculum Planner, Homeschool Planner Tagged With: calendar, curriculum planner, curriculum planner. homeschool., freecalendars, freeprintables, homeschool, homeschool curriculum planner, homeschool planner, homeschool planning, homeschoolmultiplechildren planning forms, homeschoolplanner, homeschoolplanning, lesson planner, lessonplanning, planner, planning

31 Popular and Free Homeschool Planner Printables

June 20, 2022 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

If you’re looking for free homeschool planner printables or a complete homeschool planner, you’re sure to find one here.

A DIY planner consists of many sections like a front cover, back cover, lesson planning pages, attendance forms, evaluation forms, grading forms, calendars, and schedules.

However, what makes your planner unique are the various printables you use.

Forms which are not only beautiful but easy to use helps to keep your day organized.

 31 Popular and Free Homeschool Planner Printables

So, look at the sections below for a hardworking planner.

  • front and back covers
  • inside pages
  • numerous lesson planning pages
  • attendances pages
  • evaluation pages
  • grading scales
  • high school forms
  • teacher and student schedules
  • field trip forms and

MANY more forms to make it perfect.

Why Coil Bind Makes the BEST Binder

Also, because I believe your planner is best when homemade, you need to know why coil bind works best.

One of the best reasons to use coil is that your planner lays flat. When writing you want the planner to be as flat as possible.

I see some pictures with notebooks and while I love notebooks, they don’t even make it in my top choices.

Why? There are three huge reasons I don’t like or use notebooks.

  1. First, the O rings get in the way of writing.
  2. Second, the planner cannot bend back. That is important if you print only a semester planner and want to use part of the paper for a pad to write on.
  3. Third is that a notebook binder encourages you to keep organizing.

Organizing is about accepting a system and making it work. It’s not about constant change through the year and never using your planner. Adding or deleting pages adds to the stress. Using what you’ve created and making it work albeit not perfect is how organized people roll.

In addition, coil uses very little space on the margin for the coil to go through. Did I mention how many different colors coils come in?

Some colors are beautiful, but most office supplies business will have basic white or transparent which are always my top choices.

31 Popular and Free Homeschool Planner Printables

Whether you buy a coil binding machine or take your planner to an office supply place, you won’t ever regret using coil.

Curriculum Pages for Your Planner

Add these Printables to Your DIY Homeschool Planner ♥♥

You'll love these popular forms to make your planner uniquely yours.

A Homeschool Beginner’s Guide to Figuring Grades and Saving Time

Not all assignments need grades, but in middle and high school you may need to track grades. Grab this Middle School Descriptive Writing Grade Record.

More Front Colorful Covers

You'll love these beautiful covers. Just print .

4 PRE-Homeschool Year Planning Pages (and tips to use them)

Planning doesn’t begin when your school year begins. It begins 8 to 6 weeks BEFORE your school year. Grab this pre-planning page, scheduling your year plan, holiday list and school year goals.

Week At a Glance Form

Gorgeous Week at a Glance for an overview of your week because sometimes you don't need to plan day by day.

Homeschool Memorization & Tracking Form

Memorization Tracking & Planning page for passages or poetry.

Goals Form

I have 2 color choices for you today - orange or blue for goals for your school year.

Community Service Planning Record

Homeschool community service record for your teen. Tracking your teen's time to add to the high school transcript is easier with this beautiful and useful form.

Homeschool High School How To Prepare THE Transcript

Editable High School Transcript. Once you know the basics, it's easy. Be sure to grab my other tips for high school.

Photo Credit: hessunacademy.com

Weekly Time Blocking Schedule for Kids and Adults

Use this weekly time blocking schedule to keep track of your week down to the hour!

Photo Credit: www.hopeinthechaos.com

Student Planning Pages

Student planning pages to help kids learn how to plan their homeschool days, weeks, and months.

7 Step Planner Inside Page - Color Choice Miss Ya

This color choice is named Missed Ya because it has been a while since I shared some of my favorite color combinations which are orange and pink. You'll love this BEAUTIFUL inside page.

Photo Credit: rockyourhomeschool.net

Get Organized with These Portfolio Checklists

Need to put together a homeschool portfolio? Use these checklists to help you make sure you have everything you need (and skip the rest!) 

Useful Editable Movie Report For Homeschool

EDITABLE movie report in two color choices.

Homeschool Curriculum Cover - Purple Haze Color

Beautiful purple color cover.

Homeschooled Teen Job Performance Evaluation Form

Give your teen a job performance evaluation to compliment his high school transcript.

Back Cover Pages

Grab these 4 beautiful back cover pages with quotes.

Year At a Glance Form For Moms Buried in the Organizing Details

I have a gorgeous year at a glance form for you.

Summer Loving Curriculum Planner Cover

You'll love the color scheme in this cover named Summer Loving.

Free Library Resources List

Use this library list to keep your library finds in one place in your planner.

Back Cover Curriculum Planner

One Mother Teaches More than a Hundred Teachers back cover page.

Bright Green Cover

You'll love this bright green cheery homeschool planner cover.

Beyond Museums and Zoos Homeschool Field Trip Form

You'll love this field trip reference page to keep when planning field trips.

Another Navy Blue Cover

Grab this GORGEOUS navy blue front cover for you planner.

Updated Homeschool Attendance Forms

Gorgeous and beautiful attendance forms.

School Year Goals Form

More of This and Less of that simple goal page.

Free Student Planners _ Covers now EDITABLE

Choose from many Student Planner Covers to create a Free Student Planner.

Homeschool Co-op Tracking Form

Track the progress of your homeschool co-op with this tracking form.

Inside Title Page

Another inside title page with a pretty color scheme.

Photo Credit: rockyourhomeschool.net

How to Cultivate & Enjoy a Relaxed Homeschool Routine

Easily put together a relaxed homeschool routine with this free printable planning page. Includes 1 page to write on and 1 page that you can directly edit!

Photo Credit: www.intentionalinlife.com

IIL VIP Freebie Hub

Looking for creative ideas and tips to cultivate the love of learning in your home? This 12 page planning pack is filled with ideas, tips and planning pages that will help you incorporate more hands-on learning experiences in your home.

Photo Credit: homeschooling4him.com

Free Printable Homeschool Attendance Sheet

With this attendance sheet, you can keep track of the whole homeschool year on one page. Use it for record keeping and reporting, or for your own piece of mind.

31 Popular and Free Homeschool Planner Printables

Look at these other posts you’ll love:

  • Colorful Reading Journal to Motivate Kids
  • Field Trip Journal Pages
  • Also check out my Planner page on my Amazon Shop for gorgeous accessory options.

Leave a CommentFiled Under: Curriculum Planner, Homeschool Planner Tagged With: curriculum planner, curriculum planner. homeschool., freeprintables, homeschool, homeschool curriculum planner, homeschool planner, homeschool planner front cover, homeschool planning, homeschoolplanner, homeschoolplanning, lesson planner, lessonplanning, planner, student planner

Ancient Civilizations Unit – Printable Minibook on Sumer

May 31, 2022 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

One of the main reasons I wanted to cover an ancient civilizations unit is because sometimes a history study can get draggy. More important, I wanted to include other ancient civilizations to add to our Ancient Civilizations II unit study.

Focusing on the details of history, can get a bit sluggish because you lose the momentum of the overview.

There are lot of kids and teachers alike that are I-have-to-see-the-big-picture-before-I-get it people.

Me? I love history, but I can get buried in all the details.

I appreciate the big picture too.

It is important to pull up and away and look at the big picture so you understand the major players of ancient history.

Ancient Civilizations Unit

For us, I think after we examine the big picture and come up for air, it gives us another bunny trail to go down. You know what I mean? Often times, I end up with more units or topics than school months to learn about them.

Ancient Civilizations

Too, if you start homeschooling with older children sometimes they just get a glimpse of them in public school.

So, if you’re wanting to cover ancient civilizations, then a unit focusing on great empires or ancient civilizations is key to understanding them.

It is key to keeping history fun and relevant. Although Mesopotamia is an early civilization, it can be confusing to understand about Sumer.

So I made it a separate minibook.

Understanding that Sumer developed in Mesopotamia is the first place to start.

From there it is easier to associate the Sumerian ruler, Sargon, with the time period.

This time I made a minibook focusing more on the Sumerians invented which was a system of writing and irrigation.

Because they were farmers, irrigation was an important livelihood. 

Understanding how irrigation helped them to live farther away from the rivers is an important concept in explaining how they thrived as a civilization.

Sure, it probably is not as glamorous to study about farming and irrigation as maybe studying about mummies, but it is solid; farming and irrigation is at the roots of ancient civilizations.

Ancient Civilization Unit

As usual, I try to give some accompanying facts and as always you don’t have to use them.

Ancient Sumer Printable Minibook

I provide information as I can because we do lapbooks as enrichment and my time is limited.

Also, these minibooks can be glued on pages for notebooking. You decide.

Sometimes we do a lapbook, sometimes the older boys glue the minibook on pages for a notebook.

One curriculum that we are using right now too because I am interested in getting a bird’s eye view on history is Western Civilization Study by Brimwood Press.

The reason I am excited about this one is because in a few short lessons you span several thousands of years of history. I

n fourteen lessons you span 5,000 years. A great teaching tool for getting a sweeping overview of history. We are already loving it. You have to check it out below.

I can’t wait to tell you more as we are so engaged going through it. I hope you enjoy the Sumer book. It makes it easy when you can cover civilizations, hitting the highlights and move on.

Ancient Civilizations Unit

Download the next minibook on Sumer below

Sumer-Ancient-Civilizations-Unit-by-Tina-Robertson.pdf (26 downloads)

Do you find it hard to teach the highlights of history?

Ancient Civilization Unit

Hugs and love ya,

Leave a CommentFiled Under: 1. My FREE Learning Printables {Any Topic}, History Based, My Unit Studies {Free Printables & Hands-on Ideas} Tagged With: ancient, ancient civilizations, Ancient Sumer, freeprintables, history, history resources, historyspine, homeschoolhistory, lapbook, lapbooks

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

April 9, 2022 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Along with The Tale of Peter Rabbit printables, I’m also sharing fun hands-on activities during my spring unit study with Mr. MunchKing. He is such a sweet kid to mentor, and he had so much with this spring unit study. It is one of his favorites already.

Tale of Peter Rabbit Unit Study

Before I started blogging or had a website, I used parts of Five in a Row unit study curriculum with my three homeschooled grads. FIAR uses The Tale of Peter Rabbit as one of their literature studies.

Doing the same unit study years later allowed me to dig deeper, to make it fit another generation, and to use my own unique ideas.

I planned this unit study with my ideas and ideas from other educators. Why invent the wheel when so many good unit study printables and subtopics abound on the internet? A pinch of my own way of teaching and add in other wonderful ideas and it’s a fantastic fun study.

One more thing about Five in a Row is that many unit study providers have come along since I started 25 years ago, but Five in a Row remains one of my very favorite for elementary and middle school. The way they use hands-on for all subjects is head and shoulders above many other so called unit study providers.

Keep in mind that this delightful book can be used all the way up to high school as well. Topics can be slanted to teach children like figurative language, drawing inferences, and an introduction to analysis.

Don’t think it’s just a young child’s tale; a picture book is one of the best tools for teaching beginning analysis in the middle grades.

Now, let’s dive into this fun spring unit study about The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

First, look below at my unit study planning page from my Ultimate DIY Unit Study Planner of how I adapted the tale to fit what I want Mr. MunchKing to learn at the PreK/K level.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

My unit study planning page is just a guide, but is not everything you cover. Again, as a guide it gives you a framework of important points while following your child’s lead.

Unit Study Concept/Ideas for Peter Rabbit Tale

In addition, I start with unit study idea concepts which are usually like one or two words for me to glance at to use as a springboard for another teaching idea.

Look at some of the unit study idea concepts or word glances for The Tale of Peter Rabbit which fits the age of Mr. MunchKing.

  • England, country garden, farm animals
  • rabbits, berries, sparrows
  • types of robins, fir tree, obedience, and
  • various cultures.

Next, look at various activities and ideas for each homeschool subjects. Beginning with language arts, the best part is reading the book over and over again.

Watch and listen to this beautiful read aloud of Peter Rabbit on YouTube using an English accent.

I have included a few more videos to help the book come alive:

  • The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny film 1/2
  • The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny film 2/2
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

Peter Rabbit Unit Study Language Arts

Learning how to tell back a story builds fluency in reading and comprehension. It begins with excellent literature.

Further, I created this fun printable story telling cube which can be used in different ways. Reading should be hands-on to allow your child to listen while using his other senses.

This is how you get access to my freebies quickly.
► 1) Sign up on my list.
► 2) Go to your inbox and confirm your email from the automatic reply I sent you.
►3) Look for the automatic reply giving you the password to the private subscriber’s area. You should have it soon.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

This storytelling cube is a subscriber freebie in my Exclusive Subscribers Library. Get my emails in your inbox for dynamic goodies.

I used this printable in several different ways:

  • ask questions about events in the story and have your learner find it on the cube
  • read a part in the book, ask who was talking in the story and have your child find it on the cube
  • tell your child to choose a character or event on the cube and retell what is the picture illustrating
  • have your child “roll” it and play guess what the picture is illustrating
  • let your child listen and follow along showing the correct illustration
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

Free The Tale of Peter Rabbit Book

And you’ll love having access to The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter for free here at Gutenberg.

Free Literary Terms Notebooking Pages

Because I know how hard it is to find things for older learners, I’ve created 3 free literary terms notebooking pages based on the book.

Please hear my heart when I say that I don’t encourage any literary evaluation until a child is in middle school. Young child will struggle with understanding literary terms. Wait until they are older.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

The first notebooking page is Fiction versus Nonfiction. Have your child write under the correct column which key words match the correct column.

For the second notebooking page, Elements of Fiction, have your child research the definition of each of the elements of fiction.

Literary terms is the third page. I have included a brief definition of a few terms on that page.

Help your older leaner to understand the definitions and then find examples of each one in the story. For example, to explain foreshadowing point out this part below to your child.

NOW, my dears,” said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, “you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.”

On the last part of the third notebooking page there is a part to add specific genres like mysteries, science fiction, historical fiction, realistic fiction and epic poems to name a few. I hope these brief explanations about each page will help you guide your child.

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Exploring Space and Astronomy Free Unit Study for Multiple Ages
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Fine Motor Activities for The Tale of Peter Rabbit

To further enhance language arts skills for Mr. MunchKing, we added dot printables and other fine motor skills craft fun.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

The list below of fun printables is from Making Learning Fun which we loved to enhance language arts:

  • 3 sisters Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail printable
  • Peter Rabbit emergent reader
  • ABC Dot to Dot
  • Emergent Reader
  • Pre Writing Tracer Cards
  • Baggie Rabbit Rhyme and Craft
  • Count by 2’s Dot to Dot
  • Feed the Rabbit Game
  • Rabbit Hopping Measurement Cards
  • Coat Button Activity
  • Measurement Worksheet
  • Peter’s Coat Pattern

Also, look at some of these fine motor skill activities we added.

How to Sew a Felt Carrot

First, Mr. MunchKing sewed an adorable little felt carrot. You don’t need much to do this and your little learner can make many of the vegetables in Mr. McGregor’s garden.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

Begin by gathering felt, a plastic sewing needle, yarn, scissors, and some stuffing.

You can use cotton or whatever you have on hand for the stuffing. As some of our school supplies, we add to our craft supply and added a pack of felt. You’ll need two colors, orange and green.

There are a few easy steps:

  • First, our square had to be cut into a wide triangle.
  • Fold over the triangle to form the shape of a carrot.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
  • Thread the needle with a long piece of orange yarn and have your child sew on the long side.
  • Don’t cut off your yarn yet. Leave enough room to stuff.
  • Next stuff the carrot and use a pencil to push it down to the bottom of the point.
  • Then, lay the carrot aside without sewing across the top yet either.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
  • Take the green felt and stuff it inside the carrot with the stuffing.
  • Sew the sides and tie. Thread the needle again and sew across the top of the carrot
  • Lastly cut the green felt to make leaves.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

How to Use The Vegetables in Mr. McGregor’s Garden for Playing to Learn

Too, we cut free hand from the rest of the felt the other vegetables in Mr. McGregor’s garden.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

After cutting out the vegetables, Mr. MunchKing glued the small vegetables together.

Next glue them on popsicle sticks and now your can use the vegetable sticks in many ways.

  • your little learner picks up the correct vegetable when he hears that part in the story
  • try to count how many vegetables are in the garden
  • name the vegetables after they’re mentioned in the story
  • poke holes on a shoebox lid and put the sticks through and color the lid like dirt to make a pretend garden

Geography for The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Of course, some of the best subjects to include in this unit study are science, nature study, art and even geography.

Because the author Beatrix Potter was born and raised in England, many of the illustrations in her books are of the English countryside. If you want to know more about Beatrix Potter, the Victoria and Albert Museum has a huge collection of her drawings, letters, and work.

Comparing the English countryside to where your child lives gives your child a foundation of beginning geography. For beginning geography, some of the fun hands-on activities we included was making an edible peanut butter dough map of England and focusing on mapping Mr. McGregor’s garden.

How to make Make an Edible Peanut Butter Dough England Map

Start by making an edible map with peanut butter dough and form the country of England. You could also use cookie dough from the store, bake it and then add icing.

I’ve waffled between these two recipes during the years doing variations of each. So, mix and match until you have the taste your child loves.

  • 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 2 tablespoons honey
  • 1 cup of dried instant milk
  • 1/2 cup of smooth peanut butter
  • 1/3 cup of honey

 Mix until you have a smooth consistency. We have peanut butter lovers here, so a little bit of licking and a little bit of learning is the way to learn about maps at this age.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
Step 1. Grab your ingredients.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
STEP 2. Start mixing.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
STEP 3. Of course, mixing is the best part.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
STEP 4. Make an outline of England.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
STEP 5. OF course Lick and Learn along the way.

Next, grab a printed outline of the country of England after you locate it on a globe or map and talk about the pictures in the book.

Tape a clear piece of parchment paper on top of the printable map, so your little learner can follow the lines with his fingers. As your child grows, he can pencil in the border of the countries and landmarks.

Locate the cottage garden in the book, explain about the English countryside and explain what is a country setting versus a city setting. Then let your little learner form the map with the peanut butter dough.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

In addition, another easy hands-on geography idea is to map Mr. McGregor’s garden. I loved this idea over at Children’s Book and Reading.

Mapping Mr. McGregor’s Garden for Fun Geography

Drawing pictures of what your child is learning cements the story line and you know that your child is understanding. It has been my experience that many older readers who struggle with reading didn’t have enough time to visualize parts of the story.

When a young learner can draw, he visualizes key details. In addition, maps are great visual aids.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

Having your child map his backyard is another fun way to begin mapping. Geography comes alive because your child is connecting the story to his life and surroundings. It’s fun to see what your child focuses on too.

Then we downloaded the sweet printable over at Children’s Book and Reading which contains empty vegetable patches. As you begin to read the story, have your child follow along on his map.

You can do geography of the garden other ways too. Using a white board, have your child use his fingerprints and thumbprints to draw pictures of where the vegetables are as he hears the story. We grabbed the washable paint colors orange, red, green, and brown.

This activity was a two-pher as I call it. Teach your child about geography while painting and using his fine motor skills. What fun we had.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

On the printable, your child can map the vegetables, draw pictures of animals where they belong.

And use the printable to explain Peter Rabbit’s route.

Finally, there are many nature and science activities to plan from book.

Nature and Science from The Tale of Peter Rabbit

We had a hard time narrowing down what nature and science activities we wanted to do. The first science activity which was to compare soils best for growing plants came from Inspiration Laboratories.

Compare Types of Soil To Grow Plants In

Comparing the types of soil needed for plants to grow in is a fun segue to learn about gardening.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

It’s also an easy activity because you need just a few materials most of which you have on hand at home.

Too, your child can begin with this hands-on science and observe the growing process each day to record in a journal if they are writers. If they are budding writers, a picture of the day-to-day growth works too. It encourages pre-writing skills.

Grow Seedlings Like Mr. McGregor’s Vegetables

Another fun idea for a spring garden is to grow seedlings. With a young learner, you don’t need to plant a whole garden unless you want to. Mr. MunchKing really loved this activity as he watched his babies grow each day.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

If you do this with a young learner, try to get seeds which sprout fast, so you child has fun instantly. I don’t have a green thumb by any stretch, but I’ve always managed to introduce gardening to each child.

And in my experience fast growing seeds work best. We just used what we had on hand which was an empty egg carton, seed packets, and potting soil. Seeds like beans, radishes and peas can grow quickly.

This was a huge unit study for us; we did it for several weeks, stepped back, and then came back to it.

If you’re planning this unit study, do the garden projects first so children can observe while you do the language arts portion and other fun ideas.

Add these fun videos about vegetables to your day.

  • Vegetable Song For Kids
  • Vegetables We Love You | Vegetable Song

Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables

While we were working day to day on the fun activities, we found this beautiful lapbook at Homeschool Share.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

The beauty of lapbooks is that your child can create them anyway they like to. We used some of the free printables from Homeschool Share and added Mr. MunchKing’s work he loved about Mr. McGregor’s garden.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

Although lapbooks can take more planning and be more work, in the many my kids have created, they are also memory keepers.

Besides memory keepers, lapbooks are hands-on tools which aids recall.

While true that I don’t hail to be a crafty mom, I do know the value of mess and play learning.

Lapbooks fit into this category for me. Have you ever seen a child filled with excitement as he explains a worksheet? But turn that worksheet into a mini fun book folded into a creative way, and now you have an engaged learner.

Look at my video How to Lapbook EZ on my YouTube Channel.

So The Tale of Peter Rabbit lapbook is a fun way for a child to remember the information in a fun and natural way.

Peter Rabbit End of Unit Tea Celebration

Finally, always try to end your unit study with a memorable activity. I found this adorable tea set which has is a 15-Piece Woodland-Themed Tin Tea Set, Includes Teapot, 4 Plates, 4 Cups, 4 Saucers, Serving Tray and Carrying Case for our spring tea. And what better way to remember this unit study than to have a tea party. Plus we can use it for many more themed parties!

We served raspberry muffins and rabbit shaped cookies. Also, you could serve scones, but the muffins and cookies were great hits.

Mr. MunchKing dressed up in his Sunday finest and we pretended Peter Rabbit invited us over for tea. What a fun time he had!

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

Finally, here are a few more fun things I found to help make your The Tale of Peter Rabbit Unit Study memorable.

More The Tale of Peter Rabbit Free Printables and Activities

  • Download these precious and free I Spy printables to use while your child watches the movie and listens to you as you read aloud.
  • Fun pop up garden paper plater craft.
  • Lettuce wraps for kids.
  • Grab these printable ABC carrot patch.
  • And there are even more ideas here at The World of Peter Rabbit site. You won’t be short for ideas.

Free Literature Printables for The Tale of Peter Rabbit for Older Learners

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables for a Fun Spring Unit Study

As you can see we had an awesome time with this fun unit study using beautiful literature. Do you think you’ll try it?

You’ll also love these other hands-on posts about gardening, spring, and beautiful literature.

  • Kinder Gardening to Celebrate Nature and Science
  • Easy Seed and Gardening Unit Study for Kids (Middle – Upper Elementary)
  • 26 Free Nature Unit Studies for Multiple Ages
  • How to Make an Easy Nature Paint Brush With Kids
  • 20 Nature-Inspired Kids’ Novels to Nurture Interest In the Outdoors
  • How to Easily Make a Simple and Fun Kids DIY Flower Press
  • How to Easily Make Fun Seed Tape With Kids
  • Fun Kids Activity How to Make Wildflower Seed Bombs
  • How to Make a Fun Kids Root Viewer
  • Hands-On Mixed Media Flower Art Fun Nature Study

Leave a CommentFiled Under: 1. My FREE Learning Printables {Any Topic}, Free Homeschool Resources, Hands-On Activities, My Unit Studies {Free Printables & Hands-on Ideas}, Nature Based Activities, Science Based Tagged With: biology, freeprintables, hands-on, hands-on activities, handson, handsonhomeschooling, homeschoolanguagearts, homeschoolscience, kindergarten, language arts, languagearts, literature, nature, nature study, plants, science, spring

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