Planning your homeschool year can be daunting, but the right planner can make all the difference between a well-organized year and total chaos.
My name is Dawn Earles and I am the creator of Homeschool Life Press. The business was created out of my own need for the perfect planner for my homeschool. I've always been a bit of a planner addict and had no problems finding planners to fit my needs in life and business until I needed one for homeschool. Academic and Teacher planners just didn't come close to providing everything needed in a unique homeschool setting. And so, I sat down at my computer to design my own, and the Mega Homeschool Planner and Essential Organizer was born. I'll walk you through some of the highlights of the original planner and how it can help you plan your homeschool year with ease.
The Organizer
“Planning a homeschool year is so much more than just a monthly calendar and weekly lesson planner.”
The built-in organizer is what makes this planner really stand out because planning a homeschool year is so much more than just a monthly calendar and weekly lesson planner. This planner was divided into organized sections that help bring all aspects of planning together into a cohesive, detailed plan that will keep you on track all year, and make your job as a homeschool parent much easier.
The Essentials
The first section of the planner is The Essentials. Here you will find easy reference pages to store important information you'll need all year:
Curriculum and Resources: This can be a curriculum wish list or a place to track your resources. If you are like me and have more resources than you can keep up with, this can be a place to list everything you plan to use this year, paid or free. This section is divided by subject so you can see what areas may need more supplementation.
Accounts: This was designed with online resources in mind. There are so many options out there and it’s easy to forget useful resources you stumbled on and didn’t write down. These pages can help you track your accounts, and keep up with renewals.
Passwords: A place to store your logins and passwords for all your online homeschool resources.
Reading List: Keep a list of all the books to read this year, mark off as you go.
Field Trips: Keep your scheduled field trips here for reference or planning.
Homeschool Connections: Keep the contact info of important homeschoolers and new friends you meet throughout the year.
The Plan
This next section called The Plan is where you can plan out your school year goals with ease.
Year Ahead: Fully customizable pages that let you start with any month you want. It breaks your year into quarters for planning. You can use this to plan curriculum topics, or you can plan your breaks and vacation days. There are a number of ways you can use these pages and how you go about it is up to you. I like to use it to plan my full school year calendar all in just a few minutes. To learn more about how I use this method to plan my year, check out this post.
Term Goals: These pages break your year into 6 six-week terms for easy lesson and unit planning. If you use Unit Studies in your homeschool, this gives you a place to spread out and organize your topic ideas. If you follow a precise curriculum, you can break it into term goals and know when your kids are falling behind.
The Schedule
The next section in this planner is The Schedule. This is your calendar section.
Monthly Dashboard: Each month begins with a dashboard that tracks your monthly goals, important notes, and to-do’s. You can keep your dashboard as plain or as fancy as you want. There's lots of space to use stickers, to doodle, or even try out some hand-lettering. Feel free to be as creative as you want here. You'll be tracking your month's goals, important notes, and to-do's. There is also a blank box at the bottom that you can use for anything important for that month or to just decorate for fun. On the right page is a habit tracker that can be customized to track anything, from moods to outside time, chores, physical education, field trips, or even grades or attendance. I like using mine to track the different activity rotations for my preschooler. The possibilities are endless and you can customize this tracker for anything that you need for your homeschool, or even for just for you.
Monthly Schedule: Blank undated monthly calendar on a large two-page spread. Even the Months are left blank so your planner can begin when your school year begins, whether it's August, September, January, or any month you happen to start school. You'll be able to fit most planner stickers in your day boxes as well, so if you love decorating your monthly spread, you'll have tons of space to do so.
Weekly Lesson Plan: Blank undated weekly lesson planner that can track up to 5 days and 7 subjects. You can customize your days of the week and subjects of study. The lesson planner blocks are lined to help you neatly fit more info in less space. With 8 lines per block, you could fit 2 lines of lesson planning per subject for up to 4 kids, 1 line for up to 8 kids, use all 8 lines for one child, or split them any way that works best for your family. Using color pens helps to keep everything organized if you assign a color for each child. We use the Frixion Erasable Gel Pens and Highlighters to keep our planners color-coded and neatly organized.
There are 5 blank weekdays for you to fill in your date and day of the week. For those who don’t school Monday - Friday and instead use any other combination of days, this area was intentionally left blank so you could customize it around your unique schedule. There is plenty of room under the date for any important notes for that day. This is where I like to write down any field trips or appointments so it's the first thing I see when I glance at our schedule.
Tracking
The next section in this planner is Tracking. This is where you will keep important records. Depending on which state you’re from, some of these records are required by law. For the rest of us, it’s great info to keep just in case you need it in the future.
Attendance: Easy way to keep a tally on each child’s attendance. For those who don’t keep track of attendance, this area can still be used as a habit tracker of your choice. There is enough space to track any habit you want every day for a year.
Student Checklist: Keep track of any important grades for your records, or use as a different checklist for those not tracking grades.
Budget: Easily keep track of your homeschool costs.
Review and Reflect
The final section in this planner is Review and Reflect. Here you can keep notes and thoughts about this school year.
Year In Review: Your year’s end journal with prompts to aid in writing.
Notes: A few lined pages for any extra thoughts you want to keep.
Find Your Unique Style
And of course, since all homeschoolers are different and have our own style, I've designed plenty of cover options to chose from. This planner will be with you for a whole school year, then it may sit on your shelf as a record keeper after that, so you really want to love how it looks.
Where to find it?
That's the easy part! These planners are available on Amazon for under $10 and they qualify for free shipping for prime members. So if you order today, you can have your planner in your hand in 2 days. Go to my planner page to see all of the cover choices and new editions available.
New Printables Available!
By popular demand this planner has now been reformatted for printing at home if you prefer using a binder planner or just want to print it yourself. The bonus is that you can print off as many pages as you need, so you can stretch out your term goals to one subject per page if you wanted, or print as many copies of the weekly lesson planning pages so that you only use one per kid. Due to reformatting please note that the weekly lesson planning pages and monthly calendar print on one page with this option instead of being split between 2 pages like the book bound version is.
Also check out this blog post that takes you on a page-by-page tour going into further detail on how to use this planner.
Questions or comments? Post your feedback below!
This planner is truly amazing and so helpful! I love this planner so much! Thank you! - @aprilnarducci aprilnarducci.com