Homeschool planners come in many forms, shapes, and sizes. Every homeschooler is different, so it only follows that every homeschool planner can take different forms to fit everybody’s needs.

My homeschool planner this year: a colorful binder I fill with pages gradually.

I have tried a few over the years and have found them wanting in different ways. Finally, this year, I decided to make my own. I wanted it to show both children on one page, for their individual subjects, but also with room for the subjects we do together.

Here are four steps to find your perfect planner for the next school year:

1. Google “best homeschool planners” and “free homeschool planners” and take the results in. Keep open some windows you find interesting and close the ones you immediately know will not work for you. Then go back and analyze and eliminate some more.
2. Decide if you want to spend money, or print a free PDF, or make you own.
3. Ask yourself if you want to fill it out on paper, in your own handwriting, or if you want to type on the computer.
4. Combine all elements you liked, which will help you with your situation. Make your own or order one already made. You can always tweak things as you go along, of course.

I will be honest with you, I prefer to type, because it is faster and neater than my handwriting. However, we don’t always get what we want. I made my own Word document with a planning sheet which I printed out 10 at a time, so that I may plan for two weeks in advance.

For now, I have decided to write by hand, partly because I want to force myself to write neater and partly because I think it would be easier in the long run. But we’ll see how it goes.

I purchased a pretty binder because, after all, I will see this every day and I wanted something that sparked joy. Can you tell I recently read about the KonMari method of organizing?

After doing my own Google searches, I was shocked to find out that DonnaYoung.org is no longer a free site. It is now a membership site. Too bad. I used to find a lot of neat things there to print out. I guess one must be ready to shell $25 now for the same privilege. But can you blame her? She has given out a lot of things for free for many, many years.

Please follow and like us: