Holly IN Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 ******Same post in General board by me. I know several do not do the general board so I posted here too since I have two high schoolers and one middle schooler****** Last year I made a grid for each of the kids on the computer using Word doc. It would out great for the kids however not for me as I lost track of what I was supposed to do. For ex: tutoring sessions on genetics with one son on one week that is in later August. The last two weeks I have been planning but only got ONE kid done for one month. sigh!! I bought the Debra Bell new planners. One for me "The Ultimate Homeschool Planner" I got one for the beginning freshman son "The Utlimate Planner for Teens". We fell in love with it looking at online however I am spending way too much time putting the dates in there and filling the subjects on each day. I got so frustrated last night and hubby told me to go back to the one I was using last year (my homemade grids). I said I can but it is very hard for me to keep track of everybody when they have their own pages. No calendars for me to look at or no yearly calendar for me to look at either. That was one thing I liked about Debra Bell planner. The big pet peeve is I am spending too much time writing the dates, subjects, kids in there. Her planners are very basic but no dates written in there at all not in calendars, yearly calendar or the weekly sections. I understand the objective behind it but wow that is a lot of writing just for that part. I haven't even started the planning part one week into it. I got one month done for my freshman except Logic, PE and film. I still have two other kids to plan for. My hope was to have all three kids planned through December. He said that maybe I need to find a program that will do the calendars, yearly, subjects (custom made) and print out nicely then I can bind them up into one book. I have tried HST+ but it was very redundant typing for me (maybe I am not using it right?? but this was during TOG days). Anybody have any decent online downloadable software planners that do not make you do double work? (Well planned day software is way too much money for me!! and not comfortable to purchase as they are in beginning stages and still working out the bugs) I probably can try HST+ again however it will be my 3rd time trying it and I am not really wanting to do that. Sorry for rambling: What has worked for you? esp in keeping yourself on track with the kids? Do you make your own planners? What is your favorite software planner? What is your favorite pen/paper planner? If you have any suggestions, do tell!! Holly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 I make my own planners and print the weekly material 1-2 weeks at a time. I create a detailed course of study for each subject, which I also print and put into the planner. I use a lot of donnayoung forms and this year I added these dated weekly forms from this site. I use a one page monthly calendar from donna young to mark off dates, appointments and such. It's taken about 3 years to figure out what I want in a planner. I bind everything myself with the pro-click binder. I also inserted some dividers with pockets for this year, to hold the weekly schedule. Ds is writing phobic, so I still print off the weekly schedule and I get one copy, he gets the other. I do put the date on that and also the week of school. So at any one week I have 3 sheets of paper to look at: - the weekly lesson plan (which is 1 page and not a huge amount of room for notes) - the weekly sheet I linked above - will leave room for my notes and is dated so I keep track of the week better - the monthly calendar - which I only need to glance at for deadlines and such Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holly IN Posted August 2, 2012 Author Share Posted August 2, 2012 did you buy the Donna Young CD thing? or just use the free sections? Holly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 did you buy the Donna Young CD thing?or just use the free sections? Holly Just the free sections. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fiddle Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 I'm newer to hs'ing and been going round and round about planners. Someone told me about the Old Schoolhouse and I was able to join for $1 and download their planners and you can cancel your membership any month after! I haven't sifted through all the material, but honestly I like what I see so far. You might want to check it out - for $1 it might be worth it :) Paula P.S. Now that i also see all the other cool stuff on the Old Schoolhouse site, I may pay to be a member for several more months.....there's lots of neat stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shanvan Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 (edited) Currently, I'm working on planning Biology & TOG for the year. I was intending to just keep copies of the Dc plans for myself, but I can see what your saying about getting lost as far as what you as the teacher need to do. I had started a grid for myself to help with that, but it is so time consuming, I don't know that I will actually finish it. I should probably look into HST or something similar. For many subjects (like geometry) I am just photocopying the TOC and writing in dates. I'm not putting dates for each lesson b/c I'm looking for mastery, so some lessons may take more than a day. Instead I'm writing rough dates of when I'd like to have the chapters or unit accomplished. For each subject I'm making a grading chart with all assignments listed. So Dc will have a packet that contains: 1. Daily schedule - which subjects to do on which days 2. TOC or my own list of reading assignments etc for each subject 3. Assignment/grading sheet with all assignments that will be graded listed along with due dates (which I fully anticipate having to adjust at various times through the year) I think I am going to have them kept in a central location so I can look at them too, but I may make copies for myself as well. Then I'll just keep a notebook for myself noting weekly any special preparation I need to do. Maybe I should consider planners. IDK We've used paper planners in the past and they don't work well for us. This thread is making me think through how I'm going to keep track of all of this and what I'm realizing is that the actual routine of how the work is checked, where things are kept, how you determine what Dc need to accomplish in a given week and make adjustments ---these things are even more important than having a nice chart or plan mapped out on paper (or on the computer). ETA: I'm new to high school planning and a lot of my efforts at planning inthe past have not worked well. I'm hoping to make improvements this year, so I'm reading through this thread for idea too. Edited August 2, 2012 by shanvan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tammyla Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 You might try upgrading your HST and see what you think of it. It would be free and you might find it easier to use now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.