know.

CookbookTeaching and coursesNo. 20

A homeschool yearunit studies planned, taught and recorded

Recipe No. 20 · Teaching and courses

For: A parent homeschooling two children, aged 8 and 11

You get: A school year as a shelf, with lessons for both ages and a record

Time: A weekend, then twenty minutes a day

See it in know.sh

Last year’s School days, with a calendar of the hours taught each day at the head of its overview and a section per month below.

Homeschool 2025–26No. 14

School days

10 sections, 2,140 words, about 9 minutes, filed 18 August, revised 1 June.

The record behind last year’s notice and portfolio: 180 school days and 730 hours of lessons, from Monday 18 August to Friday 29 May. Each month is a section with a table of dates, hours, subjects and the unit, taken from the What we did lines in the lessons.

Friday is library day, so Fridays run shorter.

Sections

  1. 1August 2025Evidence10 days, 41 hours. Unit 1 — Seeds and how plants grow, from Monday 18 August.
  2. 2September 2025Evidence21 days, 87 hours. No lessons on Labor Day.
  3. 3October 2025Evidence23 days, 94 hours. Unit 2 — Castles and the Middle Ages from 6 October; six hours at the museum on the 16th.
  4. 4February 2026Evidence, 1 note18 days, 67.5 hours. No lessons on 10 and 11 February, both ill; marked on the calendar so the gap is explained.

and 6 more sections

The parent’s assistant researching a unit’s background and filing it on the year’s shelf, with its sources, for the parent to check.

Claude, connected to know.sh

You

Using know.sh, research what a parent needs to know to teach a four-week unit on rivers and the water cycle to children aged 8 and 11. This is background for me, not the children: core ideas, common misconceptions, activities with safety notes, and sources such as USGS, NOAA and NASA education pages. File it on my Homeschool 2026–27 shelf, one section per point, with sources, and say where sources disagree.

Claude

I searched the web and read eleven pages, mostly from USGS Water Science School, NOAA education resources and NASA’s climate pages for kids and teachers.

document_create Created Rivers and the water cycle: background for the parent on Homeschool 2026–27

section_add Added “The water cycle is not one loop” with sources from USGS and NOAA

section_add Added “Misconception: clouds are steam” with sources from NOAA and a university outreach page

section_add Added “Evaporation dish and a plastic-bag cloud” with a NASA activity page and its safety notes

Claude

I filed eleven sections in all. Two sources give different figures for how long water stays in a river on average; I noted both rather than choosing. Please check the activities’ safety notes against their pages before you use them.

Two school years side by side in Contents. Each unit is a document, and last year’s shelf stays as it was taught.

Contents, by shelf

Homeschool 2026–275

  • Rivers and the water cycle: background for the parentNo. 41 · 11 sections
  • School daysNo. 34 · 2 sections
  • Unit 1 — Our town, then and nowNo. 33 · 12 sections
  • Unit 2 — Fractions in the kitchenNo. 35 · 10 sections
  • Unit 3 — Rivers and the water cycleNo. 38 · 14 sections

Homeschool 2025–265

  • School daysNo. 14 · 10 sections
  • Unit 1 — Seeds and how plants growNo. 12 · 11 sections
  • Unit 2 — Castles and the Middle AgesNo. 16 · 16 sections
  • Unit 3 — Measuring timeNo. 19 · 9 sections
  • Unit 4 — Birds at the feederNo. 23 · 12 sections

How it works

Each unit study, from Rivers and the water cycle to Ancient Egypt, is a document, and each lesson a section pitched at both ages: the eight-year-old sorts pictures of water, the eleven-year-old labels the whole cycle. A line after each lesson records what happened, and a calendar shows every hour taught.

  1. Research the unit first

    Ask your assistant to research what a parent needs to know to teach the unit, with sources, and file it as background on the year’s shelf. Check it before you teach.

  2. Lay out the lessons for both ages

    Give it the unit’s line from your year plan and ask for a section per lesson, with a part for the younger child and one for the older.

  3. Record what happened, the same day

    After each lesson, add a What we did line: the date, how long it took, what worked. Revisions keep the plan and the record, each dated.

  4. Draw the year on a calendar

    At the end of the year, ask for a calendar element at the head of School days: the hours taught each day, with unit starts and breaks marked.

Try this prompt

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

Using know.sh, read the monthly sections of “School days” on my Homeschool 2025–26 shelf and add a calendar element at the top of its overview: the hours of lessons each day from 18 August 2025 to 29 May 2026, blank for days with none, with each unit’s first day and each break marked. Then tell me the total days and hours, and list every weekday with no entry.

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

Using know.sh, research what a parent needs to know to teach a five-week unit on ancient Egypt to children aged 8 and 11. This is background for me: the core history, common myths such as who built the pyramids, activities suited to each age, and museum and university sources. File it as a new document on my Homeschool 2026–27 shelf, one section per point with its sources.

Made with

ShelfDocumentYour AI assistantElementsContentsRevisions

See also