Customizable Homeschool Teacher Planners: A Plan in Place Review

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My name is Kris and I am addicted to office supplies. And planners. Despite my addiction, I’m kind of picky. I only like one brand of pencil (Ticonderoga), two brands of pens (Pilot G-2 #10 and Frixion erasables), and I’m pretty darn picky about my planners.

It took me forever to find a personal/blogging planner that I like and I really didn’t even need a teacher planner. Printing off my kids’ assignment sheets was all I really needed, thank you very much.

Until Megan got a student planner from A Plan in Place. Jealousy ensued, y’all.

Customized Homeschool Teacher Planners - A Plan in Place Review

Customizable homeschool teacher planner

Each Plan in Place planner is customizable. There are stock options, too, if you don’t want to customize yours…but why would you not want to customize?? My mind can’t comprehend.

You can label the Weekly Plan boxes any way you want. You can have boxes for your to-do list, errands, or meal plans. You can have one box per student. You can have boxes for your hobbies. You can also do what I did and have one box per subject just like your kids have in their planners.

If you choose the two-page per week option, you can also include a customized daily checklist section and weekly focus boxes. {Hat tip to Ann from Annie and Everything for the laundry in washer/laundry in dryer idea.}

For my weekly focus boxes, I chose a notes box, a supplies needed box to jot down what we’ll need for science or history projects in the upcoming weeks (because maybe a project or experiment or two has been postponed due to not having supplies) and a prayer list box, which I am really enjoying (because when you tell someone you’ll be praying for them, it’s nice to remember to do it).

homeschool teacher planners

There is also a “Goals This Week” box which comes standard. I have discovered that I really like this box. It’s become my homeschool-specific to-do list. There is also a standard meal plan section on the two-page per week option. That has already saved me stress at meal time on more than one occasion – you know, the stress that comes from realizing that the meat is still in the freezer or you never did start the crock pot. Yeah, that.

You can also choose to include monthly calendars and with which month your calendars start. I started my monthly calendars in July since that’s when our school year starts.

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Pockets are another optional add on. If you recall from my review of Megan’s student planner, I kind of get excited about pockets. I’ve already put mine to excellent use housing Josh’s 40 hour driving log and complete quizzes that need to be either graded or returned to their owner for corrections.

Why have a teacher planner?

Like I said, I really didn’t think I needed a planner. I hadn’t used one in years – since our very early days of homeschooling. Then I read a book that inspired me to give planning my entire homeschool year a shot. And, if you’re going to plan an entire year, you’ve got to have a planner, right?

Now don’t get too impressed – or too intimidated – about the planning for a year thing. Because of the self-directed curriculum that my teens are using and the fact that they work independently, most of my planning involved jotting down what week number they should be on in their workbooks.

planners for homeschoolers

However, I let math get farther off track than I’d have liked last year, so I did sit down and write out what lesson numbers should be completed each week for the entire year. It helped me to see where the kids should be and where they have a bit of leeway – and at what point all their leeway is used up if it comes to that.

I’m also looking forward to using it to keep track of the books we’ll be reading as a family this year and planning out our daily reading schedule so we can stay on track there. Plus, we’ll be doing some different electives this year that won’t necessarily be done every day, so I’m happy to have a place to plan that out.

Don’t think that you only need a planner if you plan out a year in advance, though. By next month, I may have decided that doing that was a crazy idea. I’m still going to enjoy having a master list of what we’re doing each week and a place to jot down ideas and to-do’s specific to homeschooling. Goodness knows that my personal and blogging planner is full enough without throwing homeschool stuff in the mix.

Oh, and the Doodle Page that’s at the front of every Plan in Place planner? It makes an excellent alternative to scratch paper for working math problems.

A Plan in Place planner features

It should be noted that I’m becoming quite proficient at pre-algebra and Algebra I…but that has nothing to do with planners.

Features of A Plan in Place teacher planners

In addition to the planner features you can customize, A Plan in Place teacher planners come with some fantastic standard features such as:

A meal planning section. This section features space for you to jot down your family’s favorite meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and desserts. This makes brainstorming the upcoming week’s menu much easier.

(I’ll point it out before the haters and grammar Nazis do. Yes, fettuccine is one of those words that I never can spell correctly without spell check. So is mozzarella. Now you know my spelling weaknesses. Don’t judge me.)

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Book tracking. Knowing how we homeschoolers are about our books, the folks at A Plan in Place gave us a couple of sections for books. There is one spot for listing books you want to read and another for keeping track of books you have borrowed and loaned.

Mission statement brainstorming. There is lots of space for brainstorming your homeschool mission statement and writing down the finished product.

Various tracking pages. There are pages for keeping track of your curriculum resources (because none of us ever buys something, puts it away for later and forgets about it, do we?), homeschool expenses, healthcare info, monthly expenses, and important dates to remember.

Double-sided tabs. I mentioned it in my review of the student planners, but its worth mentioning again – I love the double-sided tabs! It’s a small, but important detail because it’s easy to find what you’re looking for no matter where you are in the planner.

Master schedule. If you’re one of those detailed schedule folks, there is a space for that.

In short, I am really enjoying my teacher planner even after years of not having one and thinking that I really didn’t need one. A huge reason for that is because I was able to customize the planner and get exactly what I wanted.

And the pockets. Pockets are awesome.

For more planner inspiration, take a peek into the planners of the iHomeschool Network Bloggers.

Homeschool Planners
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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

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4 Comments

  1. I usually fly by the seat of my pants, but have decided this year I need to become more organized. I like the concept of this planner and believe it can really help me. Thanks!

  2. I love that it is customizable! And Has pockets for random pieces of paper, or important pieces of paper! I have three daughters, middle school, elementary, and preschool. The only thing I didn’t think to budget for was a planner to help keep track of it all! Lesson learned! Love your review of it! Makes it easy to see what options are there and helpful!

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