The Ultimate Homeschool Planner (Orange Edition)

I Needed something to help me be more organized in our lessons but I don't like the stress of planning things out weeks and months in advance. THIS Ultimate Homeschool Planner is the Best!! I can do a week at a time, no pressure that we didn't "get it all in". All I need is a week planned at a time. No re-writing lesson plans. Life changes and interferes and this has solved the dilemma of Planning VS Not Planning. It has space to write out all the resources you will be using or have on hand. It has space to reflect on the week and keep record. It has a space for goals and evidence of Grace and Memorable Moments. It has a weekly space for your personal Bible Plan, Battle Plan, Prayers and Hospitality/ outreach. And even helps you know how to use it and what it might look like at the front of the planner. It has monthly calendars to fill in to keep you organized. I could go on and on! For those that need to be more organized but can't handle the stress of planning several weeks or months in advance only to feel like you've fallen behind or haven't accomplished enough and you just give up on the planner all together....THIS IS THE PLANNER FOR YOU!!! It is worth every penny! I'm so thankful I found it. I use it daily, to remember what we are supposed to do and what is coming up and sometimes what day it is. LOL Life can be a crazy beautiful mess but this may just help it be a little more organized. ;) Enjoy!!

This is a very large book, which has many, many pages for keeping records...It has places to put goals, appointments, grades, accomplishments, homework assignments, etc. The only thing that some people might not like is all the writing....nothing is written out in the weekly goals, you have to write out all the days, boxes, etc. I don't mind this, though, as I like to write. I have four children in school, and there are more then enough spaces for each child. I can keep all their grades from tests in the back. I can keep track of every week, all their schoolwork that they have accomplished, and much more. I love it!

I love all of the space on each of the pages, so much room to write out subjects and plans for each individual child on each day. Also, gives two pages before the start of a new week to make a biblical plan and focus for your homeschool - LOVE! Has encouraging quotes at the beginning of the week, as well. It really is a very thorough and unique homeschool planner. Only one complaint: I wish it had some type of divider so after closing, I could easily find the week that I'm on instead of flipping through all of the completed weeks. Not enough of a complaint to lower it even half a star, though. Love this planner!!

LOVE the Planner/HATE the Condition it came in. The planner gets 5 stars...the condition it was received in gets 1 star. This planner is a spiral notebook. I received it with most of the plastic spiral binding broken. Because of the urgent need to go ahead and start planning and prepping for school, I didn't have time to return it. I'll be spending the entire school year trying to keep the planner from coming apart. Not happy with the condition that the seller sent it to me in. As far as Debra Bell and the planner itself, I couldn't love it more, nor could I as efficiently homeschool and keep track of things as I do with this planner. Its excellent. A big plus is the memorable moments and God's grace sections where you can record these wonderful things to have for years to come as memories.

I'm a mom of soon to be 5, and I have 3 kids in different grade levels. I love this planner because it has multiple spots for multiple children. It keeps me very organized. Some people don't like that you have to write in every subject every week, but I love it. It enables you to change things around and write your own subjects instead of using the ones some planners already have in print (that you may not use) I can fit 4 subjects in a day if I abbreviate. I have no issues or problems with this planner. It fits my needs perfectly. The only thing I wish I'd do more of, is utilize the sections in between the days, i.e. "Battle plan" "this week's memorable moments" "prayers" It would be nice to back and look at all God had done during the year.

I have been struggling to find a planner that I enjoy for my homeschool. Online seems the way to go, but it just wasn't working for me. I wanted something more with paper and pen than online. So, I'm very thankful that I got this planner. I have heard some negatives because of the amount of writing that is involved--there are no dates, and this seemed to be a drawback to people. However, for me, this was the reason I bought this planner! I'll explain why in my explanation of this planner. I like the cover, though I will say, the spiral binding was a bit damaged when I got it. I never complained because it was only a crack, and it doesn't stop me from using it at all. The cover itself is a pretty durable plastic and it really protects the planner. Next is the pocket inside. (I don't really use them, but it would be handy if I needed it! LOL) The next couple of pages are a calendar showing you quite a few years. (I have from 2015-2023!) I don't see this as necessary--it's only a one-year planner...and I definitely am not planning that far ahead! But the reason I think they do this is so that these planners are good for quite a few years--I could have used this planner last year if I knew about it, and they don't have to reprint until it gets closer to 2023. So, it is practical for them, not so much for me. :D Next, is the place where you record your information. You place the school year, the name of your school (we always have fun naming our school year by year), and other personal information (email address, kids names/grades, address, etc). The next few pages are filled with lots of information--explaining how to use the planner, a breakdown of ways to use the planner--including yearly, monthly, and weekly. This was a little overwhelming for me. I find I am NOT able to plan this far ahead, and I almost did not get this planner when I saw reviews that mentioned how much planning is involved in this! I don't use the yearly planning guide or even the monthly planning guide! After the instructions, you will find a place to write students' names and their character and academic goals. I really liked this part because it helped me really focus in on what I wanted to teach each child. I like looking at the goals from time to time and really seeing how my teaching is measuring up--both in the classroom and out of it. Next is another section that I did not use--a family priority list and a student resource list. I kinda got this planner last minute, so already had my resources lined out. I would use this section in the future to see how the work is going for my students and making sure I'm not overworking them/underworking them. After this, is a blank set of months, which again, I don't use. I like having my calendar on my computer which integrates all of our schedules together. It just seems redundant to have to put it all on this paper copy as well. For someone who doesn't like digital calendars, this would be a good reminder for them. Now to what I REALLY like about the planner, and why I would probably get this planner again. This is definitely and obviously a planner from a Christian perspective. The weekly planner begins with two pages. The first page has a nice quote--sometimes a prayer, sometimes something inspirational--followed by a Bible Plan, Battle Plan (where you can write a verse to help you fight through the week--do they understand homeschoolers, or what??!!), next a Prayers section, and then one for Hospitality and Outreach. On the other page, is one for "This Week's Memorable Moments" and "Evidences of Grace". Again, the Christian themes run deep which is a huge positive for me. I love filling these sections out, and it helps me to look back and see how things are progressing in the year. After these two pages is the weekly planner itself. There are six columns and six rows spread across two pages. On the right hand side is space to write Notes, Supplies, and Appointments. Again, I usually don't use this section, though I'm seeing where I should sometimes! I use this planner differently than they suggest. I have Monday through Saturday running down the left-hand side (labelling the rows). On the tops, I have our subjects: Bible, Reading, Science/Social Studies/Music, Writing, English, and Math. This has been a life-saver for me, and something I would recommend to anyone who needs a more flexible system. POST-IT NOTES ARE YOUR FRIEND!!! I find the square post-it notes to be perfect to fit inside each square. So, I write what we are PLANNING on doing for a day on the post-it note. Then, after the school day is complete, I take off the post-it note and write what we actually did. Sometimes, most times, things go as planned. But, when that off day happens--kids get sick, mom gets sick, mom needs a mini-vacation--I'm not feeling stressed or like I have to do a lot of erasing/white-outing. I just move the post-it notes around and presto...I'm back on track! This is what makes this planner great for me--this planner and post-it notes really make it worthwhile! However, the squares aren't huge. Many times I need to use abbreviations just to fit everything I'm doing with two kids. Her abbreviations box is in the instructions page, however, and I find inconvenient to have, so I don't use it. I know my abbreviations and don't find it confusing. (My third is a pre-pre-Preschooler at 2 years of age, so I'm not writing her plans out.) If you have a lot of kids, it might be difficult to write everything in these squares, but it works for me at this point. The weekly planner is the majority of this planner--over 200 pages--and the reason I love it. So, I would highly recommend this planner just for that reason. I love my system, and I finally found something that works! This was really difficult for me to do. This is my third year homeschooling and the first year I actually think I have something that I can use! Finally is the records page which, again, I don't use. It's just not necessary, and we are not required to keep grades where I live. So, I don't use that part. I think I wouldn't use it and would rather make my own system when the time comes and my kids are of an age where they need to do more than just complete their work in order to proceed. (Like high school or middle school.) That being said, there is a lot to this planner that I just find superfluous. I understand that they are trying to make this planner work for the majority of homeschoolers. If you are "one of those" kinds of people that like to highly plan a year in advance, this planner will work well for you. If you are looking for a planner that is not religious based, you might find this planner more frustrating to use. On each planner page is an inspirational quote, mostly of a religious nature. So, you might find this over-the-top. Again, I really like the weekly planner aspect of this planner, which is why I would use it in the future, but it isn't perfect--there are a few things I wish they'd change. However, you might be looking for those "extras", and then will find this planner is for you! One thing I wish is that you could have the instructional pages as an option. After you have used this planner, you know how it works for you, and those extra pages are just not necessary. I really like it. I would use it again, for sure!

I got this planner last week and am loving it! I used Well Planned day last year. It is an amazing planner, but a lot of it went to waist for me. When I saw this planner I fell in love. You write in your own months and dates. I started my school year early this year and so that was great. My favorite thing about this planner is that you write in the grids. There are suggestions for how to use the grids, but you choose. This is perfect for our family. The planner also includes a section that shows your whole year where you can fill in days you know school will be interrupted, or anything else. This is a great feature that I had a lot of fun filling in. All around I would give both planners 5 stars, but I lean towards this one since I can customize it to fit my family.

I ordered this a moth ago and have finally got in the rhythm of using this. I have been homeschooling for 16 years and am down to my last 2 kids. So it took me a little to figure out how I wanted to use this planner, but I came up with a different way that works for me and my 2 kids. I enjoyed taking the time to fill it all out, I know this overwhelmed a lot of people, but I have always preferred writing. I have used computer planners which drive me nuts because you have to have it on all day while the kids work or print out papers-- what a pain. This planner is spiral bound, I can take it anywhere and work on it. I will definitely be using this every year to finish out our last 6 years of homeschooling. My only complaint is that it has 6 boxes and I would like to put Sunday activities for my kids in there. I like to look back and see their spiritual learning as well.

Not worth the money. I used it for two weeks and didn't use it again -- no time for journaling frills while Homeschooling. It's pretty and well done, but I just couldn't commit to it and found it visually cluttered and distracting. It would be nice if it wasn't dated, so you could use it at any point.

I bought this HE planner after looking at lots of youtube videos of planners, trying to make my own, use free downloadable HE planners but absolutely love this! I love how it makes suggestions on how it can be used and encourages you to prayerfully plan, get your children involved and to write down weekly memorable moments. I have used it today for the second day and in the space if a morning I have been able to record 3 already, actively helping me to look for my children's good points which will be lovely to read back on difficult days or to talk to your children about, another great way to show them how much I love them! The planner comes undated, so you can start using it at any point in time and the weekly planning grids are empty so you can decide how to best use it. There are only six spaces at the top and down the side which initially I did not think would work for us as we use a Charlotte Mason style education which has lots of subjects. So what I did was I put my children's name at the top including a section 'together' and write Monday to Saturday at the side. This enables me to easily fit in all their work for each day as a lot of subjects we study together but have age appropriate work for each child. After just two days it has made all the difference and I have not got distracted as I did with just using the workbox system. There are two things which I don't like. Firstly the fact that the monthly planners are separated from the weekly planners. I think it makes more sense to have the monthly planner in front of each month's weekly planners. And secondly I think this planner could benefit from tabs. The bottom edges have different colours, purple for the monthly planners and green for the weekly planners etc but to fiddly I think. I have over come my wish for tabs by buying post-it replaceable tabs as you can see on my picture. I still like the planner so much that I cannot score it down on it. If I do ever find a place that can rebind I would rearrange the monthly and weekly planner pages. The planner is Christian in case that is something you wonder about. It has scripture verses and educational/ family / HE quotes dotted througout the planner, little nuggets of inspiration and encouragement. Another handy feature is the front and back pockets. If you like to keep on track but are not very organised by nature this planner is worth all the money!

I really needed something like that! It's just what I was looking for! It helps me a lot! Love it!