This school year is wrapping up, and the end of April means one thing, it's time to start planning the next homeschool year.  Last year I wrote that for the 3rd year in a row I was trying a new homeschool planner.  But once, this year I am again using what I used last year.  I really love the Erin Condren Teacher planner.  It's so pretty that I want to do the school work, and in a year like this year that is especially useful.  The homeschooling community refers to years like these as "Homeschooling through Hardship" or a "Sabbatical year." And while it's been a hard year, one of the benefits to homeschooling this year was the flexibility we had.  And surprisingly enough  we have accomplished alot this year, much of what I planned, just not exactly the way I had planned.  But more on that in my end of school year post later.








Of course the bulk of the planner is the lesson planning pages.  There are only 40 weeks worth, which is a little bit of a problem for me since we school year round.  Of course there are breaks, but I like to have 52 weeks because I like to document alot of things that I find educational, but aren't strictly academic.  I am removing, very carefully, the pages I will have left over this year to add into the end incase I need them.  Not sure if they will hold up since I didn't want to uncoil the planner, but just snipped and added.  But I can try it. I will again change the top seven headers to the days of the week, and relabel the days down the side with our subject areas.  I just haven't printed up my labels yet, since Gary's not had time to fix the printer.


Last year I ultimately decided to use the checklist pages primarily for the kids chore charts.  They have a list of chores, some weekly and some daily that I check off if they do them.  And they get paid a quarter a job at the end of the week.  It is a great way for me to keep up with everything.  It allows them to take responsibility.  And it's a way for us to integrate some money management skills in our schooling.  I'm planning to start out Rebecca with her own chores soon, and so I revamped the layout a bit.  I went ahead and blocked off Monday through Friday of every week of our school year July-June.  There will be some weeks that they are gone, and others that they don't do their jobs, but this way I already have everything roughed out.  Toward the end of this year, I have started doing some testing, and wanting to be able to chart their progress that way.  So following the chore chart, I used the end of the page to chart the remaining Alpha test that Ruth will complete into next school year, and then under it the math test through the lesson I'm projecting us to finish in the new Beta book.  On the following page I've already listed the spelling test.  At two a week, we should have at least that many.  I still have a number of pages after that incase there is anything else I feel the need to add or chart to follow.





And of course there are still all the monthly spreads.  I really like that each day has it's own box now, before Saturday and Sunday shared a box at the end of the week, which constantly had me off on my days because the first day of the week isn't Monday.  But there are no longer 6 weeks, so there are the occasional months where two days are in one box, which is a pain for me.  In the past I have used these to track days and hours.  That isn't required in Florida, but I may continue to track for my use.  There is only one note page at the end of each month instead of two, so I'll have to see if that leaves me plenty of room for my monthly notes.  I probably won't have alot of extra room for doodles and things I've added in there.  However, I've also taken all the extra checklist out of this year's planner, again by carefully snipping and moving them.  I may need to use them for extra notes or documentation.  I've kind thought about using them with each month to add pictures of what the kids are doing, kinda like a scrapbook, instead of just their's and my drawings.  Since I will use this along with a small notebook with samples of their work, this is part of their portfolio, and the pictures would just be another fun way to document our days.