I love making plans; planning has always been one of my favorite pastimes and I can get lost in planning fantasies (now putting those plans into action is another thing entirely). They say that writing things down helps get you on the road to accomplishment, which is a great thing, since I adore planners, and I delight in writing out my wonderful plans.
You can imagine my--well--delight when I got the Hey, Mama! Homeschool Planner for 2019/20 Year in the mail. I stalked my post office for two weeks, waiting for this gorgeous planner! Written by Gena Suarez of The Old Schoolhouse®, the Hey, Mama! Homeschool Planner not only lets you plan out the entire school year, but also contains so many words of encouragement from Gena.
I think it's these devotionals that differentiate the HMHP from all other planners. There are about 20 or so throughout the planner, one for each month, and about one for every four weeks. I skimmed through the devotionals and one really caught my eye--and my heart: Squabbling Kids. It's a great reminder for me, to make prayer my first response to yet another smart-alecky, snarky verbal tussle between my two vocabularies-bigger-then-they-are daughters. It's a great reminder that I am to train my girls--and training is not completed overnight.
Another thing I love about the HMHP is the lovely paper. One of the first things I did when I got home from the post office was to test my fountain pens on it. I'm happy to say that there was barely any ghosting on the back page (except for my Noodler Ahab, but that pen always has been temperamental). I also like the very sturdy wire binding.
The bulk of the pages are for the weekly lessons plans. There's generous space for seven subjects and five kids. Since I only have two kids, I figure I can use the other three columns for another week (thereby doubling the life of my planner!), or I can use the other columns for my own activities, and household activities. I haven't quite decided yet, but I am inclined to the latter, so I can keep most of the planning in one planner.
There's a two-page spread for each month, from July 2019 to June 2020. Each month is preceded by a lined page for notes, as are every four weeks of weekly planner pages. Personally, I prefer unlined pages, because that gives me more freedom--to doodle, to write smaller, or to write bigger. But hey, the paper takes fountain pen ink fairly well, so I can live with the lines.
There is a form that isn't applicable for me this year: the Academic Transcript, which I believe is for high school level children in the United States (it's also just for one child, BTW). While Raine will be in Grade 7, we have different high school requirements in the Philippines. I also haven't quite figured out what I will do with the Checklist and Skills Learned form; it's only for one child, and I'm not sure what I will put.
At the back of the planner are the big-picture planning pages for the year, again good enough for five children. We're still finishing up the current school year, so I haven't gotten to this planning stage yet (but I have already bought my curriculum for next school year!). For each child, there are these forms:
- Blank lined page. I think I would use this to write a letter to my daughters, perhaps on what I would want the year for them to be.
- Curriculum planning. Good enough for seven subjects. Includes details like the vendor name, the price, and the contact info.
- Attendance.
- Books read this year. Since my girls read all the time, and since we use a literature-based curriculum, I may only use this for books that are above and beyond the call of duty, like books I make them read for some reason.
- Yearly goals, first semester goals, and second semester goals. These I want to plan out with the girls themselves. At 9 and 12, I think they're old enough to have some input on what they want to accomplish for the year, and for each semester.
- Another blank lined page. Would be great for a year-end letter to the girls, summarizing the year's accomplishments.
Since there's space for five children, I can just use the extra sets for another year, if I do use the extra weekly planner space to extend our weeks. Or, again, I can use the space to plan out my own year.
I really look forward to filling in the pages of my Hey, Mama! Homeschool Planner for 2019/20 Year and I look forward to getting the girls involved in the planning of their next school year.
Other families received the Hey, Mama! Homeschool Planner; click below to read their thoughts about the planner.
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