It's the time of year that many homeschooling parents have planning on the brain. What are some of your favorite planning tools?Some of my favorites include:
1) Donna Young's website. It's filled with all sorts of planning tools, free for your personal use. There are also lots of free homeschool and household resources and articles and there is a lot of updated material, so, if you haven't visited in awhile, be sure to do so -- just make sure you've got plenty of paper and ink in your printer!
2) Microsoft Excel. I haven't used Excel as much this year, but I love using it to make pretty schedules that I usually toss out the window sometime within the first month. I know that doesn't sound like a very good endorsement, but the thing that really like about making schedules is that they get our daily routine worked out in my mind. While we may not stick to the schedules, they do generally help me to figure out a doable routine for my family.
3) Microsoft OneNote. I have fallen in love with OneNote. If you have it on your computer and haven't started using it yet, take some time to read through the tutorial. It has taken the place of all those random scraps of paper that I used to have lying about.
4) The Old Schoolhouse Planner. I was given a copy of this year's planner to review and, wow, has it got a wealth of forms for the planner/organizational freak! I probably wouldn't have bought this for myself, without having seen it, but now I'm so glad I've got it. I'll be playing with this one for awhile.
5) My Mom Binder. As much as I love all the tools I've listed above, I would not feel organized without my "mom binder." It's where I store all my printed planning forms, reproducibles, attendance forms (for reporting to our state) and more. My binder keeps it all neatly organized.
So, what about you? What are some of your favorite planning-for-school tools?
Kris is the sweet-tea-drinking, classically eclectic, slightly Charlotte Mason, homeschooling mom to her three Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.
photo by niseag03
2 comments:
THANK YOU so much for this post. I am in the midst of trying to work out our homeschooling schedule for this year, and the information you included (and the links) are perfect! We have been doing preschool, but start kindergarten this year with a 4 hour per day state requirement. So I definitely feel the need to get things in order. Thanks again!
Oh my gosh, these are awesome tools to help keep homeschooling records organised. I keep records, but these tools are great and I will be adding them to my arsenal of useful tools :o)
Melissa --> www.YourHomeschoolCommunity.com.
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