Free tool · for homeschooling families
Free Homeschool Curriculum Pacing Calculator
A curriculum arrives with a lesson count and no calendar, and the question many homeschooling families face each August is whether that count actually fits between the first day and the last one once the breaks are taken out. This free calculator is one spreadsheet tab for one course: type the number of lessons, the weekdays the course meets, your first and last school day and your breaks, and it counts the school days you really have, the lessons per week you need, the date the last lesson lands, and whether the course fits. It opens on a fictional worked example (a sixth-grade math course of 175 lessons meeting Monday through Friday, with 8 breaks: 182 school days available, 4.8 lessons a week, finishing 7 school days before the last day) so you can see it working before you enter your own. It states no state's homeschool rules: the last school day is the one you choose.
Take it with you — free, no signup
Direct download. No email, no account — just the files.
What it does
- Counts the school days a course really has: every weekday it meets between your first and last school day, minus each break and holiday you list.
- Shows how many school days each break costs this course, so a week off on a Tuesday/Thursday course counts as 2 days, not 5.
- Works out the lessons to teach from the lesson count and the lesson you are starting at, and the lessons per week that pace needs.
- Gives the planned finish date (the meeting day the last lesson lands on) and a plain verdict: it fits with so many spare school days, or it is so many lessons short.
- Opens pre-filled with a fictional example course and 8 breaks, with room for 10. Opens in Excel and LibreOffice; for Google Sheets, upload it to Google Drive and open it with Sheets. No macros, no signup.
Related reading
Own it, don't rent it
Pacing more than one course, or more than one child?
This calculator paces one course for one child. The full Homeschool Year Planner paces every course for up to 5 children (40 courses) across one school calendar of 52 weeks, on fixed weekdays or taking turns in a loop, and dates every lesson. Tick lessons done and it rolls them into school days and hours against your own targets, flags each child and course on pace, behind or ahead, re-paces what is left from today after a sick week, and lays out the done days and hours for your records. One 11-tab workbook for Excel and Google Sheets, with a 17-page guide and 6 undated printable weekly page designs.
A one-time purchase you keep on your own computer or in your own Google Drive: no app, no subscription, no per-child fee.
Not advice: this is a planning aid, not legal advice. It states no state's homeschool requirements; choose your own school days and check them with your state's or program's official sources. The example child and course are fictional. Free to use and share as-is; please don't resell it.