Homeschool Planner from Apologia {TOS Crew Review}

If you’ve followed my blog you’ll know that we love when the Crew offers up reviews with Apologia Educational Ministries.  Apologia has a killer science line.  A lesser known fact is that they also offer up a homeschool planner too!  The Ultimate Homeschool Planner- Yellow Cover is what I received.  They come in two other colors as well.  It was a random pick which one came to me, but I really love the light colors.  They’re not flashy and loud, but they’re not blah either.

This homeschool planner is designed by Debra Bell.  The yellow planner that I received allows me to plan for up to 52 weeks.  I like this as we homeschool year round and I can put it all in there.  It also allows for six students.  Right now I only have six that I have to technically school and keep records for.  But that will change in a few years when the others come of age.  I’d love to see them expand by then and increase the number of students per book.  The orange and blue cover of the planner allow for planning for 48 weeks.  

This homeschool planner encourages planning in three stages.  You have a yearly planning session/pages to lay out your year.  You then have 12 monthly planning pages that lay out the months.  Lastly you have the weeks for planning the weeks.  The weeks are the important area.  This is where you’re going to put all your daily school activities.

I’m not huge with yearly planning.  I don’t lay out what we’re doing each week an entire year at a time.  I couldn’t do that.  I’d be erasing and changing stuff as I went so I tend to plan that I want to complete book xyz by the end of the year.  By mid year I want us to have this much of that book done.  I might even break that down one more time, but those are my guidelines and written in pencil.  I write important holidays and birthdays on the yearly planner so I know that we’ll be planning around those.  I also really like that the yearly layout is July-June.  Our state has our school year calculated by so many hours between July 1st and June 30th so this makes it so much easier than if it were January through December.  

Next come our monthly pages.  In the monthly pages I put our homeschool group meetings, our park days, our dance classes, our piano classes, etc.  I’ll include what my husband is doing and if he will be gone for anything.  I put the doctor appointments and again the major holidays and birthdays.  The monthly pages aren’t what I use for school except for if we’re doing a field trip or meeting with another homeschool family for a play day.   The months are not written on.  This means I get to put the month and dates in there.  So I can again make this planner start in whatever month I want.  I personally like my homeschool planners to start in July while I like my household planners to start in January.  

The weekly planning pages are actually four pages long.  Page one has the week of where you fill it out.  I put both the dates of that week(month, day, year, etc) and the week of our school year it is.  So the first week of July is week 1, etc.  Also on this page is your Bible Plan.  I love this feature!  I love that it has me planning out what Bible verses and passages we’ll study that week.  Other spots are available for battle plan, prayers, and hospitality/outreach.  I’m really looking forward to implementing more of the hospitality/outreach.  I think it’s very important for kids to learn about volunteering and giving of themselves to others and this gives us a spot to plan that!

The second page of the weekly section holds a spot for weekly memories/achievements and a spot for evidences of grace.  This whole page is dedicated to writing down things that happen throughout the week that we are thankful for, that we’re praising God about, and things that were funny.  Who did what and who accomplished something they never thought they could.  

The third and fourth pages of the weekly planner are the actual planning pages.  This is where you can separate it by student and subject.  There is room for six students and six days.  There are five lines in each of the boxes(for day/student) so I tend to do one subject per line.  I’m learning how to abbreviate really well and write tiny!  You see, I tend to over plan and overwrite and this is making me rethink that.  We really don’t need a whole book written on what we’re going to do before we even do it!  On the side of the planning page is a spot for teacher’s notes, supplies needed for projects, and appointments.

Something I love about the planner is the fact that there are verses and inspirational passages spread throughout.  You really can’t turn a page without finding a new verse to read.  

There is a section for grades in this planner as well.  I am not using this as in my state our Grades and hours have to be separate from our lesson plans.  I’m still working on finding another way to use these pages as I hate to just leave them blank!

Other fun pages that I’m using are in the back such as reading lists.  I love to instill a love of reading in my kids because I love to read.  I don’t really have to assign books to them as they love to read already, but I do put down the books that I want read for school there.  Then when they are done with that book I put a check mark next to it.  When they have completed their book report I put a second check mark there so we all know that they have completed that assignment!  There are also pages for field trips and outside activities.  

You have a few pages for a year-end review and notes as well at the end of the book.  I obviously have not really used those pages yet as it’s not the end of the year!

I also have to say that I’m loving the teaching tips section at the back.  I’ve read through it, but I’m also going back to it, and back to it to help remind myself of what I’m doing.  I’m not teaching my kids facts, I’m teaching them how to learn.  I’m teaching them how to be motivated and responsible.   I’m helping them become adults.  With my oldest only being 10 sometimes I lose sight of that fact.  

Some fun things that I’ve learned about this planner.  It has pockets!  I love pockets.  I tend to lose things or paper clip them in and then they fall out.  Pockets are my best friend.  Also the cover doesn’t rip or tear.  I tried.  Seriously.  I tried hard to rip the cover and it didn’t rip.  I work outside the home and take my planner with me to help plan out our week during my breaks.  It’s important that it’s not going to rip or tear when I’m throwing it in and out of my bag and the car.

Want to learn more about The Ultimate Homeschool Planner from Apologia?  Check out the Main Blog Post over on the Crew blog.  Several of our members received them to review and I’m sure we all have a different take on them.  You can also visit Apologia on facebook, twitter, pinterest, and google +.