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The Ultimate Homeschool Planner from Apologia

The Ultimate Homeschool Planner from Apologia

When it comes to homeschooling, I think to help make it a success and something I need to be more diligent about is organizing your homeschooling. This is an area that I have struggled in a lot. I was thrilled when I found out I had the chance to review The Ultimate Homeschool Planner  and The Ultimate Weekly Planner for Teens, that Debra Bell created.

The Ultimate Homeschool Planner.

The Ultimate Homeschool Planner.

Just how “ultimate” is this planner?  It is a huge book, with 263 pages.  What do you ask that takes up so many pages in this huge planner?  Let me give you a littl run down of everything that Debra Bell covers in this amazing planner.

  • A User’s Guide (which is extremely helpful!)
  • A One Year Planning Grid
  • Student Goal Setter
  • Pre-Planning Guides
  • Monthly Planner
  • Weekly Planner
  • Records
  • Teaching Tips
  • High School Planning Guide and a High School Planning Guide Example
  • Year in Review
  • and a Notes section

As you can tell, Mrs. Bell did not forget anything in this planner.  She has been homeschooling for many many years and used her experience to put together this planner to help others. One of the things I enjoy as I am filling out the different sections is the little sayings and scriptures that she puts on the pages.  The really brighten my day and give e the encouragement and hope to continue on what I am doing.  Not only for my family, but to glorify God as well.

Inside the Ultimate Homeschool Planner.

Inside the Ultimate Homeschool Planner.

Another thing I really love about this planner, is I can not only use it for my homeschooling plans, but I find the spaces big enough to allow me to put other information there as well.  I can make notes of appointments for all of us in our family, I can make notes about any reviews or posts that I have due.  There is even room for me to write down ideas that I have pop into my head.

I had chosen The Ultimate Weekly Planner for Teens for my oldest daughter.  She is in 9th grade this year and while she has been doing all of her work on her own, I knew it was past time for her to be keeping track of everything for herself.  I think helping and teaching kids to be more organized will help them in the future.  Mrs. Bell did an excellent job creating this weekly planner for teens.  Like with the Ultimate Homeschool Planner, she really did think of everything, even fun things that are important for teens. What all does Mrs. Bell include in this amazing 168 page planner?

  • All About Me section (their favorites)
  • 1st and 2nd semester schedules
  • Monthly planner
  • Weekly planner
  • Grade pages
  • Reading List pages
  • Activities Log
  • Credit and High School Records page

Mrs. Bell also includes wonderful sayings, quotes and scriptures throughout the pages of the planner.  She als has several pages dedicated to a list of books that she recommends to the teens to read.  There is a Guide to Punctuation, Italics and Capitalization,  Cite Right, Fractions, Decimals, Percent Equivalency Chart, Periodic Table, Measurement Equivalency Chart, Algebra and Physics Review, a Map of the World and the USA, as well as a Timeline.  She also gives a lot of high school and college admissions help, with several pages to just write down any notes that you may need to keep track of.

My daughter and I are really enjoying our planners.  I think it will help both of us become more organized as the year continues on.  We both need to be more diligent about keeping track of all sorts of information as we make plans for the rest of our homeschooling years.  Both of these planners have given us the tools we need to do this.

blogging planner review

blogging planner review

Now that I am blogging more and even doing more reviews for homeschooling curriculum, books and other products, I found that I needed a better way of keeping track of the reviews and when they were due. Since I am also now a member of Mosaic Reviews, our first review was of a blogging planner. It couldn’t have come at a better time! I have looked at a lot of different blogging planners over the last several months.  Ones that you can purchase and also ones that are free.  However, there was one blogging planner that I just kept coming back to.  The blogging planner that Mama Jenn designed. I was so excited that it was on the list of planners to choose from.

picture of Mama Jenn’s blogging planner is from http://www.mamajennblogs.com/2012/12/my-2013-blogging-planner-free-printable.html

There were several reasons that I chose Mama Jenn’s 50+ plus page blogging planner.   First off, it is a 12 month planner.  I wanted a blogging planner that I could plan for the whole year long.  Each month, she has several different pages grouped together.  The first page is a monthly calendar page.  It has plenty of space to write the title of the post on each date and then has little boxes at the bottom of each day to check off when you have shared it on Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter and Pinterest.

The next page that is in the month section is the monthly blog planning.  You can write down your major posts that you do every month.  There is also a column to keep track of your to-do lists and goals.  She also includes several pages that I can  keep track of giveaways and reviews.  Mama Jenn even included pages for you to keep note and write recommendations down.

Mama Jenn went above and beyond in creating this blogging planner.  She has extra bonus pages that include a full year calendar, a page to help you keep track of your blog stats, a page to write down extra ideas for posts and several blank pages for  you to use any way you need to.

I was extremely impressed with everything that she included in this blogging planner.  I mean, she thought about everything that a blogger does when they sit down to write a post.  Best of all?  This blogging planner is free!

So far, the blogging planner is working really well for me.  It has helped me stay on track and has made it a lot easier for me to plan ahead so that I do not over plan.  Now that I have my blogging organized, time to find a planner to help me organize my homeschooling and house!

How do you stay organized?  Do you use a paper blogging planner or do you use one online?