Schoolhouse Planner

Homeschool Review Crew

With eleven children it’s a known fact that if I don’t plan stuff doesn’t get done.  My oldest is now fourteen so she’s wonderful with helping but we still have to plan it all out. School is another area I have to plan or we won’t get it done.  The Schoolhouse Planner for the upcoming school year arrived at our house recently and I’m excited to plan out our next year.

We are reviewing one physical copy of Hey, Mama! Homeschool Planner for 2019/20 Year from The Old Schoolhouse®.  Gena Suarez is the author and does such a wonderful job writing words of encouragement.  I have used their planner before and it’s such a wonderful asset to our school year.  Of course, when it was offered as a review I knew I wanted to try it again!  The planner is gorgeous and allows you to plan for up to five children at once.  I have nine doing school this year so I wish I’d thought ahead and bought a second copy for myself to use!

The Schoolhouse Planner is very popular and as such 98% of the print run is already sold out!  Wow!  They do not plan on printing more at this point in time so make sure if you think you might want one that you either order now or make a note to come back in May of next year for your copy.

About the Planner

I love that this planner has a thicker cover that does not tear easily.  It is spiral bound which I love making it a great one for ease of turning pages.  I hate when I can’t fold a planner over and make it into a page size.  This is great for that.  Also fits in most bags easily so you can take it for planning on the go.

The planner covers July 2019 through June 2020 so you can plan your whole year in a single session or simply use the same planner for the whole year. There are 188 pages within the planner with lots of room for notes and life events as well.

At the beginning of the planner, you find a month at a glance type pages for you to use.  This means you get a two sheet calendar layout that you can write special things on.  We put birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, or special days like when we might take a field trip or have dentist appointments on there.  The two pages before each month have a nice letter/encouragement from Gena Suarez to help to keep you motivated.  On the opposite page is a page just for notes about the upcoming month.  

A spot that I’m going to be using more of this year is a helpful hint part at the beginning.  It talks about how to write a transcript and what to include.  I have two entering 9th grade this year and this will be very helpful as I’m a bit in over my head still.  Also provided are calendar sheets for 2019, 2020, and 2021.

Planning Section

In the middle of the planner is the primary section for planning.  These are set up by the week.  You have a spot where you the planner get to fill in what week of the school year it is.  Then across the top, there is room for five students and down the side room for seven subjects.  The area for filling in about each of the subjects is decent sized.  I don’t have tiny handwriting so I might need to smush my writing a bit more than others.  

Side note: 

I have used the seven columns down as subjects before or as days.  For instance, you can write one day for each column and then everything they need to do that day.  Or you can write the subject and everything they need to do for the subject for the whole week.  Either way works so that part is just personal preference.

After the planning section, there is planning per student or child.  This includes a page for notes and a page for your curriculum planning.  There you can list what grade they are and what materials they are using for each subject.  You also get a page for attendance and a page for books they have read that year.  I do have to say that the books section isn’t near long enough for how much some of my children read!

After the books read there are three pages.  One is for years goals and the next two are for semester goals.  These goals are for educational, spiritual, physical, personal talents, life skills, financial, and relational.  I think this is a great section and that we as the homeschool mom should probably have a set of these for ourselves.  The last page for each child is a lined page for notes.

My Thoughts:

I really like how this planner is set up.  It’s pretty and the devotionals/encouragement posts are wonderful.  It’s easy to use and well set up.  I don’t find myself having to flip back and forth a lot which is definitely a plus in my book.  It easily fits in my purse or diaper bag and the coils allow for ease of attaching a pen.  The only thing I would suggest at this point that might make taking it with me easier is if it had a bungee or something to keep the pages together.  Sometimes I just shove stuff into my bag and it can get between the pages of the planner and force them apart or bend them.  

This planner is great!  In the future, I’d like to see it have double the pages so I can do week one for one half my kids and then week one for the other half.  Or possibly I just need to plan better myself and get two copies of the schoolhouse planner at the beginning of the year.  

Learn More

You can see how other homeschool moms use their schoolhouse planner by reading all the linked up reviews over on the Main TOS Blog post HERE.  Also visit The Old Schoolhouse® on their social media sites which are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.