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There is something about browsing dozens of planner options, considering what you liked and didn’t like about last year’s planner, and when you finally choose one — you laminate it if you made the right choice.
I’ve repeated that same cycle when choosing a planner for the last five years of homeschooling years, but this year is different! I anticipated it coming in the mail and was so happy when it finally arrived I sticky noted it up!
We were recently at our friend’s house and over course the conversation flew through dozens of conversation rabbit trails, but with impending school year ahead, of course we touched on the subject. I was chatting with her about having just placed my homeschool planner order, but wasn’t sure if I made the right choice. She had high remarks about her planner from last year and asked if I wanted to flip through it.
I have had five different homeschool planners in five years searching for the one. This is my eleventh year homeschooling, and while I could get away with a generic planner when I started my homeschooling journey, I now have five (out of seven) children/students and need one a little more homeschool-curated.
Each of the planning pages has enough pages for 5 students.
Curriculum Plan Pages
The curriculum plan pages are a two page spread to help you plan out each of the students subjects.
The left page can be highlighted or fill in the bubble next to the specific strain within each subject. The right page gives you the subjects with lines for you to write in the books you plan to use or notes on that subject.
Yearly Overview
These 5 pages have a column for each quarter and then a weekly box. This was something I had to create last year to schedule out weekly expectations to make sure my older children got through their assigned subjects during their semesters. While I will probably copy additional pages of this– I am happy to see it included in this planner!
Loop Schedule
This is the page that may have sold me! A page I haven’t seen in any of the planners I had chosen before– I’ve always had to use one of my note pages to create this on my own.
They even have the core/non-core subjects from the curriculum pages at the top for you.
This loop schedule page has 8 subject you can lopp with a section to write the resources/books you need for the loop subjects.
For example– I have on my list to loop Plutarch, character trait building, our multiple read alouds, and podcasts we enjoy.
To Memorize
There is only 2 pages (instead of 5) of the To Memorize. It has all 12 months and five lines for each month.
I actually really like this option. There have been school years where I planned on learning a verse or poem over a semester, but we may learn it very quickly, but there isn’t another line to assign to a new one. These monthly memorization pages will make it easy to adapt to our needs.
Field Trips
There is a box for 10 field trips with the written details you can fill in: where to, date, cost, address, and website, along with a box with notes.
Tip: I keep a sticky note on this page to write any field trip ideas that come up.
Read Aloud
There is one page titled Family Read Alouds and five subsequent pages for Independent Reading List that you can assign to your student. There is a column to note if you Own, Buy, or Library? Which I think is a nice touch– because I always make a note of this myself when I plan!
Monthly Overview and Reflections
At the beginning of each month you have an overview page that includes space for 3 goals, verse/quote ofr the month, character focus for the month, brain dump, to do list, and a purchase list.
At the back of the month you have two pages for notes and a guided reflection page — including a scale and lines to elaborate, space to write out three successes of the month, three things that you can improve for the following month, something thankful for, something memorable, and three habit trackers with bubble fill ins.
If you are trying to find a perfect homeschool planner, I completely understand how diamond in the rough that it can feel like. I hope this can help you decide if The Well Organized Homeschool Planner might suit your needs. Homeschool is not a one-size box we all fit into.
I also have a YouTube video of my planner and a flip-through and chatty video if you’d like to “see” The Well Organized Homeschool Planner in action.
Happy Homeschooling!