Planners

I mentioned in my previous blog that I printed a planner. I spent one whole day on the process, which involved finding forms that worked for me, printing, copying, and filling out the pages, and putting the planner together. Granted, this would not have have taken nearly so long if I didn’t have many other obligations, but we’re working with whatever free time we can find, here.

To me, it’s a masterpiece. To anyone else, it’s a pinkish-purple binder full of paper. And, really, who uses binders? But I keep looking at it and thumbing through it with pride.

You can buy lesson planners. Book stores have them, or you can buy them online. There are lots of options on Amazon. That might work for you if you are a flexible person who doesn’t mind having to bend a bit to conform to the styling set out in a pre-printed book. Also, if you can make the time to review a few different versions and find the right one for you. I make that sound bad, but that’s only because I’m not that person.

If you’re not at all flexible, you can make your own. If you know how to use Excel (or something similar) or tables in Word, or any of a number of Adobe programs (I bet InDesign would be fun for this), you could organize and style your own planners from scratch. That, though, requires some time.

For those of us in between, there are great resources online. I want to be able to pick what kind of pages I include in my planner, how many, and how I organize them in my binder. I have most of a design degree, so I do know how to do this on my own, but I don’t really have time. So I’ll sacrifice a little personalization for the sake of being able to put it together in one day and no longer having to think about it.

I got my planner pages at http://donnayoung.org/forms/. This site has a short list of different sets available. Then, if you click on a set you like, then click “homeschool”, you can see the different pages available for that set. For instance, in the set I chose (Colonial, because I’m a sucker for script), you can choose from 9 different layouts for your planner, depending on what works for you.

My planner includes an attendance calendar, two sets of lesson plan pages (one for each kid, since one will have speech therapy and the other will not), and two reading lists. This year, it’s fairly simple. We’re not grading because I don’t have to report grades to the district yet. However, when that changes, there are grading tables available, too. And if I need more copies of, for instance, the reading list, I can just copy a blank page and not have to fill it out again. This works for me.

I’m pretty sure I’m not being biased at all when I say the planner I created is concise and easy to use. I have a dream in which I imagine family members being able to substitute teach and fill out the planner for me while the kids are on vacation with them. For some, though, that might be unrealistic.

As mentioned in the previous post, I’m currently compiling a list of resources I use for our lessons, as well as free/cheap field trip (or just for fun) destinations for families in Denver. If you have any suggestions for either list, let me know. I can always use more information.