Organizing My schoolnest Homeschool Planner
Well, guys a few weeks ago I found out I am going to need to have my gallbladder removed…which is not something I am really looking forward to, ha! When we got the news…it was nice to finally have answers to some looming health concerns. I was at the point I was worried I may have something more serious going on, but thankfully gallbladder removal is pretty simple in the world of health issues. But, knowing I was going to need surgery made me realize how quickly our summer was going to go. So, somewhat unintentionally I stepped away from all things homeschool and social media to enjoy our last few weeks of summer.
Unfortunately, we had to cancel some of our vacation plans but we have been crossing all the fun things off our summer bucket list! And, I’ve been in the background getting our house in order and working on some of the projects I like to do when I am not thinking as much about homeschool…like deep clean every room in our house ha!
Last weekend I sat down to start planning our first week back to homeschool though. We’ll be starting August 14th which is just about a month away. When I cracked open my new planner…I got so excited again! I remembered why this is my happy place! Thanks for being here and sharing it with us!
Planning A Year of Homeschool
If you’ve been around here long enough you’ll know I always use the funnel example when I explain how we map out a year’s worth of homeschool plans. I start big by collecting all the curriculum we want to use for the next year. Then I break units and lessons and materials down by month so I have a rough idea what I want to cover each month. I use this spreadsheet to help give me a rough draft view of the year. Once a month, I like to sit down and plan the upcoming 4 weeks. I like to have an idea of what’s coming up - I make book and supply lists, but I don’t fill in any days until about a week before because things change and evolve so much. If you missed it I have my curriculum picks ready to go for next year…
And, now I am at the stage of beginning to plan our our first few weeks of the school year. These are my favorite weeks to organize because it gives me a good vision for how our school year will go. The first day of school we do a “Back to Homeschool” breakfast and give the kids a special gift and some new supplies. If you need some inspiration, check out my Back to Homeschool 2022 blog post from last year. So now that I am starting to jot down ideas and make some plans, it was time to pull out the paper planner!
My New Planner
After nearly 10 years of using the same planner, this year I switched to the schoolnest Homeschool Planner and I can already tell it’s going to be a keeper. Honestly, I should’ve made the switch last year when I added my 3rd child into my homeschool planning, but I was too attached to my old layout. The main reason I went with this planner was because as I am planning for more kids, I really needed the weekly 7x6 box grid lesson planning layout. A lot of people like to use this layout to break down subjects, but I like to assign a box to each child and break down what I am working on with each of them. In comparison to other planners on the market, I really liked how many boxes this planner has. I will say though I am not a fan of 8.5 x 11 inch planners. It was one of the biggest things holding me back from taking the leap for this planner, but after using my 7x9 planner last year with another child in the mix, I was always fighting for more room to record so it made sense to get something a little bigger this year.
This particular planner is quickly gaining popularity in the homeschool community so I thought I’d share what you can expect in the planner and how I customized it.
What’s Included:
Blank grid pages for notes or planning: There are just a few pages of these. I do wish there were more because I am quickly filling them up.
Year At A Glance Calendar And Field Trips Overview: I also added holidays and parties in here (like our Back to School Breakfast).
Attendance Tracker: We don’t need this, but it’ll be helpful for those who do need to keep track of the days you do school for reporting.
Classes Organizer: I also added Sports on here and am keeping track of how much things cost and dates potential classes are held.
5 Curriculum Overview Pages: I used 3 of these pages - one for each of my kids - to organize our curriculum picks including unit themes I want to do in history and pre-k. I will use the other pages to help keep track of curriculum I am keeping an eye on for the future.
Multiple Book Lists: I can’t decide how I want to use these yet so I left them blank for now. I organize my book lists on my Amazon wish lists. I might use this as a record of the books we read and in what month.
Curriculum Progress Trackers: I’m planning to use a few of these for the curriculum we have numbered lessons in - like my 1st Graders Math & Language Arts.
12-13 Undated Monthly Calendar Pages: The description for these calendars say there are 12 - but mine has 13 - not sure if this was a printing error and they all have 13 or a website typo. There are also Month In Review pages that I will probably use as “Month in PREview” pages and plan my unit studies on these pages.
52 Weeks of 4 page Lesson Planning Layouts: There is a 2 page weekly overview and a 2 page lesson plan 7x6 grid.
Lesson Planning Layouts
I LOVE the weekly overview pages! I didn’t have these in my last planner and I can already tell these are going to be so helpful. I am using it for book lists I need to get at the library and supply list.
For the 7x6 grid - I only filled it out for the first 3 weeks of school in August as a trial run to see how I like the organization but I did the days of the week on the top horizontal pages. There are only 6 boxes so I divided the last box into two for Saturday and Sunday. For the 7 vertical boxes I have them labeled: Devo & Gospel, Twins, James, Ben, Family (for family style units), To Do, and Appointments. In To Dos I have my daily cleaning chores and I’ll also use it for other projects or house management things or reminders to make phone calls or schedule appointments. In the Appointments box I’ll use that for things we have scheduled that day like “Karate 4:00.” I think this would also be a good place for meal planning, but I just use this notepad so I can keep it on my fridge and see what we have coming up and easily add groceries.
Last year I played around with the “planning from behind” method which is basically where you record what you did after you’ve done it. I do do this a little because we have a bit of reporting we have to do every few weeks. It was helpful for me to go back and make sure I have something to write about for each of my kids. Overall, I would say I have a healthy mix of planning ahead and recording from behind though.
Rearranging Pages & Spiral Binding
Now many people have cut the binding and spiral bound these planners. I did not want to do this because I liked how skinny the planner was and I thought it laid flat well enough. However, I did really want to rearrange the order of the pages so I ultimately decided to cut it and get it re-bound. I took it to Staples and it cost me about $5 and was done in less than an hour. Now, I actually really love it because I can flip the pages back and view just one page at a time too.
If you want to do something similar - when they cut it and before they put the spiral in - this is the time you’ll want to rearrange any of the pages so go prepared and ready with what you want to change. The 12 undated calendars are in the back of the weekly layout pages so I took one calendar and placed it every 4 weeks. BUT, I should’ve looked at a calendar ahead of time and found the weeks that needed full or almost full 5 week spreads. It’ll work out pretty closely, but there may be a few areas that are a little hodge podge with dates so if you do this - plan it out better than I did ha! I also figure there will most likely be some weeks I don't plan at all so I can gain a few weeks here or there.
I also would recommend adding a plastic cover sheet and vinyl back sheet to help keep the cover pages a little nicer.
Accessories
Monthly Tabs: I am so excited I found these because they coordinate so well with the colors of the planner! They stick on well and are easy to replace if you need to peel off and reposition.
Zebra Mildliner Highlighters: I assigned each month a highlighter color and I used/will use that color to customize the monthly and weekly spreads. I also assigned each of my child a highlighter color so I can quickly glance at their needs on overview pages. I used to use one colored pen for each child but I was switching pens alllll the time, ha! Now I just use one black pen and I can highlight if I have time…
Pens: Ideally, erasable pens would be the way to go with hand written planners. I guess it may be the way I write because I have tried multiple brands of erasable pens and they never work well for me. Maybe it’s because I don’t have the “correct pencil grip” down, ha, but when I use those pens they are always missing ink lines. So, reluctantly, I use other pens and have to scribble out things all the time. It doesn’t look very nice, but I refuse to use a pencil. For colored pens, I love these Erin Condren pens, but this year I decided to just keep it simple and use my black Sharpie pen. It does not leak through the pages, but you can see it a little bit if you’re looking for it. Not enough to read what’s on the other side though.
I researched a ton of planners and the two comparable planners I found on the market were Plum Paper Planner and the Charolette Mason inspired Anna Vance planners. I liked both of these because they have the aluminum spiral and thicker paper which I really prefer. But, I couldn’t justify the cost difference simply because of those two things. It’s hard to beat the price point of the schoolnest Planner.
If you end up getting this planner, let me know how you like it and anything you do to organize yours! I’ll be sharing a detailed flip through of this on my IG stories so if you miss it - be sure to check out my highlights over @homecenteredlearning
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