How We Plan Our Home Education Lessons: A Practical UK Guide

Editor's Note: This post shares our personal approach to lesson planning for home education in the UK, including the resources we actually use. Last updated: 12.11.25.

Home education gives us the freedom to create a personalised learning experience for our children, but we found that a bit of structure is essential for making progress. For our family, the key to a successful and engaging learning week is a good lesson plan. This isn't about re-creating school at home; it's about having a clear map for our learning adventures. Here’s our practical guide to how we plan our lessons.

Step 1: Start With Our Child, Not The Curriculum

Before we open any books, we think about our children. We've found that answering a few key questions makes our planning much more effective:

• What’s their mood and energy level today? Some days are for active, hands-on learning; others are better for quiet reading.

• What are they currently fascinated by? Can we weave their latest obsession with dinosaurs or space into our maths or English?

• What is the one main thing we want them to understand by the end of this session? Keeping our goal clear keeps us focused.
  
  

Step 2: Keeping It Real With Time

You'll often see recommended lesson lengths, but we've learned to be flexible. Here's what has worked for our children as they've grown:

• Under 5s: We aimed for short, punchy sessions of 20-30 minutes to match their attention spans.

• Ages 6-7: We now plan for 1-hour sessions, sometimes stretching a little longer if the activity is particularly engaging or includes lots of natural pauses.
  
  

The key for us is watching their cues, not the clock. After that hour, if their focus is gone, it's definitely time for a break or a completely different activity.

Step 3: Our Simple Lesson Plan Framework

We don't use complicated templates. Our lesson plans usually have just a few key components scribbled in a notebook:

1. The Goal: A single sentence on what we're covering (e.g., “Understand that plants need water and sunlight to grow”).

2. The Hook: A 5-minute activity to grab their interest. This might be a cool picture, a quick question, or a simple object to examine.

3. The Main Activity (15-40 mins): The core of the lesson. This could be:

   • A short explanation from us.

   • A hands-on experiment or art project.

   • Reading a book together and discussing it.

   • Using an online resource like BBC Bitesize or Oak National Academy.

4. The "Show What You Know" (5-10 mins): A quick, low-pressure way to see what they understood. This isn't a test! It could be them explaining it back to us, drawing a picture, or just having a chat about what they learned.
   
   

Step 4: Our Go-To Activity Ideas

The best lessons are engaging. Here’s what works in our house:

• Hands-On Everything: We use LEGO for maths, cook to learn about fractions, and turn history into a drama performance.

• Project-Based Learning: We might spend a whole week on a "mini-topic" like volcanoes, incorporating reading, writing, science, and art into one big, fun project.

• Technology as a Tool: We use Twinkl for printable worksheets and love the short, visual lessons on BBC Bitesize and Oak National Academy.

• Learning Outside: A trip to the park is a science lesson (nature study), a geography lesson (observing the environment), and a PE lesson all in one.
  
  

Step 5: Embracing the Plan-as-You-Go Method

Some of our best learning moments have come from throwing the plan out the window! If a lesson isn't working, we switch gears. If a child's question leads us down a fascinating rabbit hole, we follow it. The plan is a guide, not a chain.

Step 6: Resources We Actually Use

We don't do it all from scratch. Here’s where we find help:

• UK Curriculum Guides: We use the National Curriculum as a loose guide to ensure we're covering key subjects. Scholastic publishes helpful books based on it.

• Ready-Made Plans: We often download free lesson ideas from Oak National Academy and Twinkl.
  
  

The Bigger Picture: It's More Than a Lesson Plan

For us, the ultimate goal isn't just to check off a lesson. It's to foster a genuine love of learning. We do this by:

• Making it Positive: We celebrate the effort, not just the correct answer.

• Asking "What Do You Think?": We encourage their curiosity and let them lead the exploration sometimes.

• Connecting to Real Life: We show them how maths helps with shopping and how history explains the world around them.
  
  

Conclusion

Our lesson plan is simply a tool that helps us provide structure and ensure we're moving forward. It stops us from feeling lost and gives our children the security of a routine. By keeping it simple, flexible, and focused on our children's needs, we've turned lesson planning from a chore into a helpful part of our amazing home education journey.

The Uwah Family