Planner Update

I know that lots of my readers really enjoyed the information on my homeschool planner both from the original post and in the one published at Heart of the Matter. I thought it would be fun to give you an update on it- whether or not I had caved to the "pressure" of using something more formal. In a word, nope! I have not succumbed and, in fact, have continued to thoroughly enjoy the process. I'm pretty sure I won't be going back. I really love that my effort goes into what we'll actually be doing in school vs planning for it. I am always trying to keep focused on the doing when it comes to our homeschool which is why so much loose leaf paper is used here rather than printables. Stay tuned for more on that!

I was beginning to run out of pages for the planner so I used the remarkable feature of the ProClick bindings and opened the spiral to add more pages. It was quick and easy and the binding snapped back together in a...well...snap! Such an advantage over a ready made spiral notebook and the cost is nominal over the life time of use of the little machine. I also use this method to bind our school work from the three ring binders into one notebook to be stored away from that year. Very easy and it stores flat and away.

The top of the page gets the day and date followed by the details of what each child will do for the day.

I check off what we do and circle what we don't so I can add it to the next day if needed. I also jot down notes and reminders for upcoming activities. I even will even use a double page spread to plan out the next unit study.

Nice and big...just the right size for the remainder of the year.

This planner is very versatile and has some elements of a journal in it. I'm hoping to combine it with Edu-Track so that I can more formally keep track of high school and make the transcript as I go. Once I have that stream lined I will share more about it. E13 is finishing up a credit of world history and algebra I along with an English I class, so I'm going to be working on that this summer.

I did start assignment books for the kids not too long ago and those are harder to keep up with than my own. I just keep in mind it's to outline their tasks for each day- not necessarily to be a record of what they've done so if we miss a day, it's no big deal.

How about you? If you adopted the plain spiral method this year, has it been working for you? Do you have any pros or cons to share?

Happy Planning!