While many families do lesson plans every day for each subject, you may find it more beneficial to your particular teaching and learning styles to split the subjects up over the week. For example, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays might be Language Arts, History and Science Labs. Tuesdays and Thursdays might be Science, Math, and Projects and Reading. If you schedule your subjects in this manner, a simple 5-day blank planner would probably work fine for you.
If you schedule each subject every day, you will need to have lesson plans scheduled daily. This can become overwhelming very quickly if you try to do it each day. Planning out your lesson plans for the entire week is much easier. Even if you find that lesson needs to be skipped until your child is ready to move forward, it is much easier to make adjustments during the week and then plan out your next week's lesson plans with the adjustment in mind. This is also true if you find that you're moving along faster than you had originally scheduled. Simply keep moving forward and work extra lessons in at the end of your week.
Timing is the most difficult thing to learn to handle when scheduling lesson plans. It can be difficult to know whether a child will finish a lesson plan in an absolute time frame. Don't let this frustrate you. Remember, the beauty of homeschooling is the freedom it gives you to make individual adjustments for your child's educational needs! Schedule a reasonable time for each lesson plan. If you find at the end of a day that you're two or even three lesson plans short, do not panic. Just make adjustments when you scheduling lessons the next week. You can always have "make up days" at the end of a grading period for any areas you feel were not adequately covered.
Lesson plans, like text books, are meant to work for you as an aid. If you find yourself paying more attention to how much material has been covered over a given period of time, you risk stressing yourself and your child which is not a good environment for learning. It is quite possible that your child is gaining more in-depth knowledge of a topic or subject by taking a little extra time than if she had been rushed through for the sake of a time table.
Homeschooling is about the wealth of knowledge you can encourage and provide for your child. Lesson plans are a tool to assist you in that pursuit. With a little planning and the ability to restructure as needed, you'll find the right balance in preparing and scheduling your lesson plans.