Practical Planning for Your Homeschool

At the top of the year whether it's the beginning of a calendar year or school year, planners and calendars are on display to help us get planned and organized.  New calendars are awesome especially if the have beautiful artwork or gorgeous photographs.

This post originally appeared on A Little This ... A Little That on February 12, 2015. It's been updated. :)

Planners aren't so bad either. As of late, I have seen many pretty planners.  Some are actually functional with a nice amount of writing place.  I've tried some planners.  I have bought planners.  I have created my own.  I have used apps.  None of these have worked for an extended amount of time in our home school.

My struggle is keeping up with the dates, and making sure not to plan too far in advanced because life happens. As time continues to pass, I realize that I can't contain all of my ideas in mentally.  Teaching two school age girls takes more planning, and we incorporate a variety of things in our learning environment, so Idecided to search for a more practical way to plan our lessons and activities.  Well, my search didn't go far...

Planning Your Homeschool with a Notebook

I grabbed a notebook, adjustable tabs, and mailing labels.

I realized that having a daily plan wasn't what our family needed, but having a set weekly goals was more realistic.  Each week I write our goals for the week.  I often have an idea of the method I will use to achieve the goal, but there are times when I don't have an exact way or method to achieve the goal.  The goal is met just in our everyday living or something triggers an idea, and we just go with it.

How to set up your own notebook planner:

1.  Purchase a notebook.  I use a one subject notebook because it isn't as bulky as other multi-subject notebooks.  For a school year, you would most likely use two notebooks if planning for 180 days.

2. Create a cover for your notebook or label it using a Sharpie. I designed my cover using Canva.

3.  Purchase some mailing labels.  I use mailing labels to help me space out my subjects.  I also think the stickers give my notebook a little more color which I adore.  I print enough stickers for six weeks at a time. I peel off a label and write the goals for that topic next to and/or underneath the label.

4. I use Post-It tabs in my planning notebook. I use two tabs to help keep me on track.  One tab is for the current week, and the other tab is for the upcoming week. 

 Using a standard notebook is functional and cost effective for me since I don't commit easily to a homeschool planner. 

I appreciate the flexibility of my Planner Notebook.  I can adjust my stickers in any way that I desire, and I can change the titles as needed.

This is one of my favorite and most dependable methods for planning our learning activities for the week. I can say that it really does help me to stay focused and diligent on the tasks set before us.  It feels good to meet our weekly goals.

Do you have practical tips for making your home school functional? Please share!