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How to plan a homeschool year that survives sick days

A plan written as dates breaks the first time someone has a fever. A plan written as lessons on teaching days just moves.

Start with your state's number, if it sets one: in Peabody's state law pages, 14 states count days. Put your breaks on a calendar, then lay each course's lessons on teaching days, not dates. When a day is lost, mark it and let every later lesson move one teaching day; the last day shows how much room is left. Peabody's free lesson planner does that with one button.

Checked October 31, 2026.

By Peabody editors.

This is a plain-words summary, not legal advice. Laws change: check your state's current law and its education department before you act.

How many days do I actually need?

These states count days, as our records read their laws (some also count hours, or let you count hours instead): Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont.

Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Washington and Wisconsin count hours. 6 states' laws, as our records read them, set no number at all. Each state's page has the number in the law's own words.

Where does the room for sick days come from?

  • From the weeks, not the days. If your year needs 180 days, 36 weeks of five teaching days fill it exactly and leave nothing for a bad week; plan the calendar to end a few weeks before you must.
  • From the breaks you can move. A break planned for the spring can shrink if winter went badly.
  • From the lessons you can drop. Some courses have review lessons a family can skip when it is behind; the course's own guide says which.
  • From doubling. A short lesson on a good day can take the next one too.

What do I do on the day itself?

Mark the day "no school" in attendance, so the total stays honest. Some laws say how absences work: New York's record says "Absences are allowed on the same basis as the district's policy for its own students."

Then move the lessons. In the lesson planner, "We missed today" moves that day's lesson and every later one forward one teaching day, in every course; nothing is lost and nothing needs rewriting.

How do I build the plan?

  1. In the Calendar Maker, type the first day, your teaching weekdays, your breaks and your state's number of days: it counts forward over teaching days, skipping breaks, and shows the day you reach the number.
  2. In the lesson planner, add each course: its name, who it is for, the first day, the weekdays you teach it and its number of lessons (or paste the lesson titles one a line). Copy the breaks in from the Calendar Maker.
  3. Read each course's last day. It is worked out the same way as the Calendar Maker's count, so a course of 180 lessons ends on the day the calendar says the 180th school day falls.
  4. On a lost day press "We missed today"; on a good day "do two today" pulls a lesson back; "skip this lesson" drops one. The last day moves with each.
  5. Print the next seven days as a tick list, or planner pages for a month or the year.

What about a whole sick week?

Mark each day as it goes, and do nothing else until everyone is well. Then read the last days: if they are still inside your year, you are fine; if not, plan a few double days or shorten a break. The planner's overdue list shows what was due and not ticked, so nothing is quietly forgotten.

Start the plan

Open the lesson planner. It is free, needs no account, and keeps the plan in this browser; a tick can also mark the day in your Record Book's attendance and log the minutes.

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