Looking for a Plan?

Who wouldn’t like for their life to be easier? I’ve always wanted to have a schedule, a plan, goals, and be able to stick to them. A couple of weeks ago I saw an e-mail advertising the 2009 Schoolhouse Planner from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. I read over the description and then dreamed about being able to buy it so that I could create a plan. Needless to say, when I was asked to review it I was overjoyed.

What is the Schoolhouse Planner? Wow, it is so much more than just a calendar. It is a 375 page bundle of calendars, forms, educational material, and more. The planner is broken into sections. The first section is the actual planner, broken up by month. The month is split into two pages. The first page consists of Sunday through Tuesday, and Wednesday through Saturday on the second page. You can type information for each day, and then print out the calendar. Following the calendar, each month has its own little unit study. I am especially fond of February’s study on the miracles of Jesus. I can’t wait to dig into that one further. There are also studies on American government, the planets, letter writing, and more. They also have included lists of additional resources (with links) available from the Schoolhouse Store to go along with that month’s study. Each month also includes two recipes.

After all twelve months (July 2009 to June 2010), there is a section of additional educational information. There are charts on measurement conversions, states and capitals, US Presidents, timelines and more.

The next two sections are my absolute favorites. Forms, forms, and more forms. The first part is all kinds of homeschool forms. There are annual, monthly, and weekly plans, report cards, transcript forms, forms to use for co-ops and more. All of them allow you to enter information and print them out, or print them out and write in the information. The second part is household forms. There are forms for menu planning, chore charts, budgeting, garden planning, and more.

Overall, I would call the planner very useful. I love the forms. I love the bonus material, a.k.a. the lessons. There is even a Bible reading schedule. I really need that. If only it came with accountability as well. What I don’t like is the way the monthly calendars are split in half. I guess if I were to print it up and hang it somewhere, I wouldn’t notice. Also, on some of the planning forms I wasn’t able to type in as much info as I wanted. But again, I could always print them out and write in what I want.