Need help organizing a planner..please!

[mcilvoy6]

This was my first year to homeschool and it was not as organized as I would have liked...most days were fly by the seat of my pants! I have printed off quite a few of Donna Young's forms...but I'm trying to get other's opinions on what your "planner looks like" and what works best for you, and what you have in it. I will have 2 dc next year...one is 14..and the other is 13. I plan to have them each use a planner a well...My 14 year old will be taking quite a few classes at the co-op...so I guess she can just transfer info from her syllabus onto her planner, along with what we have going on at home the other days, right?...It's mine, that I have no idea how or what to put in it to make it work. I know I am a paper girl for sure...and thinking a binder with maybe labeled tabs? Do I make sections for each child? or tabs with extra forms? So say I print off a weekly schedule for each of them....then they just cross it off as they go? or put what the sheet says in the planner? I know this sounds ridiclious...I just really don't know what I'm doing and how to get a system in place! and need help from you that do! I'm really looking for a homeschool only planner type system...not household. Thank you so much!

 

Michelle

[keptwoman]

I don't actually print off my planners, I keep them on my computer as excel or word files. I do print a copy for DS to refer to.

 

My planner sheet has the year divided into weeks down the left, with subjects across the top.

Then under each subject is what chapter/subject needs to be covered for the week.

Some stuff like LA has a seperate M-F list of what is done each day, all as seperate sheets of the same excel file.

 

J (16) transfers his list into his own diary as a day-by-day list, then ticks it off. I keep this as a record of what is done.

For C I print out his list as a spreadsheet of what needs to be done each day by subject. This is also kept.

[Deb in NZ]

I made ds#2 a assignment book for the year this year. On the lefthand page is a table divided into 7 days (M-Su). The righthand page is a table with his 4 subject blocks down the side & the days (M-F) across the top. Ds#2 refers to this as he does his work. For some subjects (i.e. penmanship, tech drawing, facts practice, etc.) I simply put the name. For others (i.e. math, science, spelling, etc.) I list the actual assignment ---MUS 23 AD or GS read 45-52+OYO 2-4. Ds#2 knows that he has the option to work ahead, but can't save work for later in the week. On weeks we know that we need friday off for regattas, etc. I have him to the 4 blocks of work + 1 extra of his choice.

 

We have always used weekly assignment sheets & ds#2 has been able to use one from the age of 3yo, but this year is the first time I printed out a whole year at once. I can see some major benefits for us & wish I had done this when I had all 3 dc HS/ing fulltime. Great points are:

 

1. Ds#2 can get right down to work w/o waiting for me to begin his studies
   
2. I'm not rushing on a monday morning to print out his assignment sheet for the week. No assignment sheet = not much work accomplished.
   
3. I have already taken into account public holidays when I divided up the year's work
   
4. I am confident that we have enough work assigned to meet our goals & enough time to complete that work. i.e. I can't decide mid-year to add in a new curriculum. If it isn't already in the plan, it must wait until next year.
   
5. Ds#2 can see that by working hard term 1 he'll be finished most of his work by the middle of term 4 when dd & ds#1 are on summer holidays
   
6. I have something concrete & professional-looking to show PS if we decide to send ds#2 to highschool next year.
   
7. Ds#2 can't get upset at me for assigning too much work that day. The assignment book gives the assignment.
   

 

 

Next year I plan to organize his assignment book by weekly assignments, passing on the responsibility of dividing up the week's work into daily assignments to ds#2. We'll print out a schedule each term to work around his scout / sporting commitments, but the year's work will be printed & bound. Just as this year, whatever isn't finished by the end of term MUST be completed before enjoying the holidays. And the next term WILL begin on time, so if you slack off you may not get any holidays. I also want ds#2 to begin to mark some, but not all, of his daily work. Ds#1 does this for his NZ correspondence school courses & I can see the benefits already of the immediate feedback.

[MSNative]

We don't use schedules. I love them, but we never stick with them. My job schedule is too unpredictable and life just happens. Instead, we use checklists.

 

On one page, I list all subjects. Next to each subject, I put hash marks if it needs to be X number of times per week (e.g. Spelling ___ ___ ____). I leave room before the name of the subject to record the chapter. If certain activities need to be completed, then those get listed separately (e.g. Math: Watch dvd ____, Worksheets ___ ____ ____, Review ____, Test ____).

At the bottom of the pages, I make a bunch of lines to give me a space to write a couple of paragraphs about what we accomplished.

 

This works well for us and allows me to see at a glance if we accomplished our goals for the week. If we didn't, we finish on the weekends.