Mommy Plannerista

Planning. Passions. Parenthood.

Customized Homeschool Planner by One Stop Planner Shop (Giveaway!)

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Guess what? I have a new customized homeschool planner! Just look at how pretty and big it is!

For those of you who have been following me on my planner IG account, @mommyplannerista.plans, and on my YouTube channel, I started this school year using my Kikki.K personal size ring planner as my homeschool planner. I really had no major complaints about it. I customized it according to my liking and it worked well for me.

Why change planners then?

Well, the truth is that I joined a giveaway hosted by fellow homeschool mom, Annie of @awifenmother, on her Instagram account (follow her ‘coz she’s amazing!). The prize was a one-year subscription to the One Stop Planner Shop, specifically for a customized teacher planner. Lucky me, I won!

I didn’t mind trying out a new planner because I’m forever on the hunt for new tools or systems to use that will make my planner work better for me. Homeschooling can become quite overwhelming sometimes especially if you’re disorganized. Using planners help me lessen the overwhelm which means that my kids and I get to actually enjoy homeschooling.

So as soon as I was given access to the subscription, I immediately started crafting the perfect homeschool planner for me and I’ve been using it for about 2 weeks now.

What’s inside my customized homeschool planner?

If you want to learn how I customized my homeschool planner, please watch this flip through video that I uploaded on my YouTube channel. In the video, I explained the process involved as well as showed the specific templates I used for my planner.

If you wish to know more about how I use specific aspects of the planner, please leave me a comment on this blog post or on my channel. I’ll try to address your questions or requests on a future blog post or video.

Why do I love my customized homeschool planner from One Stop Planner Shop?

To be honest, I didn’t know I was going to really enjoy this planner because I have never used one this big before. The planner is printed on letter size paper and initially I felt it was going to be too big. I pleasantly realized that I actually like it.

Also, I have customized my planners before but I have never done one with inserts from just one shop. So, I wasn’t sure if I was going to find everything I needed entirely from One Stop Planner Shop.

Now that I’m actually using the homeschool planner I created, let me tell you what I liked about the process and the planner itself. Let me count the ways!

  1. I like that the portal is very organized and user-friendly. Everything is properly labeled. Plus, there are tutorials or how-to videos that will guide you throughout the entire process.
  2. There are numerous cover design choices. I also love that there are matching dividers, plus spines for binders too. Plus points for the tabs!
  3. Most of the elements on the planning pages can be easily customized according to your needs. You can change the type, size, and colors of the font. You can add or delete rows and columns on the tables. You can rearrange things. The only things you can’t edit are the decorative elements, which are based on the two styles that are available – Modern and Whimsical.
  4. Editing was easy for me. I edited the pages using Powerpoint but there’s another option using Google Slides as well.
  5. You can bind it any way you want. I just chose to use a binder because it was the easiest and fastest option for me.
  6. I chose to print my entire planner but you can also go all digital if you wish.
  7. The planner pages aren’t just for homeschooling. In fact, there are many templates available that can be used by teachers from regular schools too.
  8. You can save all your planner pages on your laptop or computer. This means that you can print or use them again multiple times.
  9. For my fellow sticker addicts, you’d be happy to know that there are digital stickers that you can use on the planner too.
  10. There are monthly freebies available for all subscribers for as long as you are subscribed.
  11. The subscription is good for one year. So, if you choose to change something in your planner at some point, you can just keep downloading other templates to try.
  12. There’s a Facebook group that you can join. The members there regularly share photos of their own customized planners plus tips on how they did things.

Suffice it to say that I am loving my homeschool planner. I highly recommend homeschool parents to at least check it out if it’s something that will work for you.

It may sound like it will take lots of time and effort to customize your own planner. To be honest, it is but the product is a planner that is created around what you need to make homeschooling a bit easier for you. It has truly helped lessen the overwhelm I sometimes feel in homeschooling. I can relax knowing that I have everything I need in my planner. So, I think it’s so worth it.

How can you get your own customized homeschool planner?

I can give you two ways.

First, you can subscribe to the One Stop Teacher Planner Club. The subscription fee is only $30 for the first year and then just $12 every year after. The annual membership fee includes:

  • Access to the membership website
  • Over 1,500 pages to help you customize the perfect planner
  • Exclusive “Monthly Bonuses”, for club members only
  • A library of How-To Videos to help you get your planner just the way you want it.
  • Access to their Planner Community for support and inspiration

Members get access to new and updated planners every single year! So, I assure you that it’s definitely worth it. Just click here to go to the site and sign up! (Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of the One Stop Planner Shop, which means I will receive a small percentage if you subscribe using this link.)

There’s a second option, though, and that is to join my giveaway!

Kristin, of the One Stop Planner Shop, was so generous to sponsor one (1) winner a teacher planner subscription! That’s good for one year. Yay!

I’ll be hosting the giveaway over on my main Instagram account, @mommyplannerista. Click this link now to learn how to join.

Good luck! Happy planning and happy homeschooling!

Charlotte Mason-inspired Homeschool Planner Flip Through

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A new homeschool year started for us a week ago. Planning for it is what kept me so busy these past several weeks. Homeschool planning is definitely not a walk in the park. However, I find that it can be made more manageable if you have a tool to use that helps you organize things. In my case, it’s a planner. (What else, right? I’m a planner addict. Duh!)

If you’ve been following me on this blog and on my Instagram accounts, you’d know that for the past couple of years, I’ve been using a pocket size travelers notebook as a homeschool planner. This year, I decided to go for a personal ring planner instead because I’ve been using a ring planner (pocket size) for my everyday planning too.

I was lucky enough to have found this Kikki.K personal ring planner on super sale at National Book Store online for only PHP 100.00 (approximately $2). Super cheap! Originally, this planner would have cost me around PHP 4,000.00. So anyway, I figured it would be perfect for homeschool planning so I decided to use it for that purpose.

I also decided to make my homeschool planner Charlotte Mason – inspired. We’ve been incorporating Charlotte Mason methods to our homeschool last year. This year, I wanted to immerse ourselves more on the methods.

So I included some CM-type sections in the planner that I didn’t have in my previous homeschool planners, such as:

  • Charlotte Mason quotes to inspire me
  • Process lists (ex. how to do narration, how to do dictation, picture and composer study, etc)
  • Preschool priorities
  • List of living books for family read-alouds
  • List of living books for independent reading
  • List of additional books to read per subject
  • List of afternoon occupations

It is by no means a complete Charlotte Mason homeschool planner. That’s why I’m saying it’s only a Charlotte Mason-inspired one. I actually researched for ready-made ones online but decided not to purchase any of them. There are quite a selection to choose from but they’re also expensive especially if you add in the cost of freight. All of the CM planners I’ve seen are from abroad so the freight cost is expensive.

I’ve also found a few printable ones online but I just felt like I could save money by customizing my own using free planner inserts that can be downloaded online. There are a lot of generic and free printable inserts that you can definitely turn into anything you need. I just took note of the common sections from the CM planners and incorporated those I would need into my planner.

Aside from the CM sections though, I still included general sections such as some calendars, notes and lists, lesson plan lists, field trip planner, and grading sheets.

I really like how the planner is working for me so far. If you wish to see a flip through of it, please watch the video I published on my YouTube channel, which you can see below.

I hope you enjoy the flip through and that you will find it helpful for your own homeschool planning. Please let me know what you think of my planner and don’t hesitate to give some suggestions on how you think I can improve it. If you have questions about my set up, please let me know too.

Happy homeschool planning!

DIY Homeschool Planner Set Up

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Last week on my YouTube channel, I posted a flip through video of the homeschool planner I used last year. As promised, I’m back now with a new video showing a flip through of my DIY Homeschool Planner for this school year.

Because the travelers notebook system I used last year worked really well for me, I’m using a similar system this year. However, I’m using a different cover, my pocket wide Foxy Fix Sugar Mochi travelers notebook. I also did some tweaks to improve on some things inside the planner.

It is my hope that this video will help newbie homeschool moms in setting up their own homeschool planners. I remember three years ago when were just starting out with our homeschool journey, I searched for a ready-made homeschool planner that is available locally but I didn’t find any. That’s how I came to decide to make my own instead.

Feel free to get some inspiration from my set up. Take note though that I set this up specifically for our needs so some of the ideas here might not work for you. But the beauty about making a DIY homeschool planner is the ability to include anything and everything that you will need. So, have fun with it!

Hope you enjoy the video (see below)! If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. Also, I’d appreciate it if you can give the video a LIKE. Subscribe to my channel too, if you wish. I would definitely appreciate it.

Happy homeschool planning!

Homeschool Planner: End of Year Flip Through

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I meant to film a homeschool planner end of year flip through video at the end of the school year last March. However, I was only able to do so today.

I wanted to share how I used my DIY planner using my travelers notebook, a pocket size Foxy Fix Wanderlust in Licorice. I had filmed a flip through video on it during the beginning of the school year and promised I would film another one at the end of the year as sort of a recap on how I used it and whether it worked for me or not.

I’m finally able to share it with you guys today, which is about time because a new school year is about to start in a couple of weeks.

Here’s the video!

I hope you guys enjoy watching the video. My hope is that it will help other homeschooling moms be more organized and productive in their homeschooling. I, for one, can’t live without a homeschool planner because there’s just a lot to keep track of.

Please let me know if you guys have any questions. I would also appreciate it if you can share with me your own homeschool planner set up. I’m sure I’d learn something valuable from it too.

Stay tuned for my next video wherein I will show you my updated homeschool planner set up for the upcoming school year.

Happy planning!

Planner Flip Through: Homeschool Planner in a FoxyFix Travelers Notebook

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I have finally uploaded another YouTube video, this time showing you a planner flip through of my Homeschool Planner.

In the video, I share how I came up with the idea of setting up a homeschool planner using a travelers notebook, specifically a pocket size Foxy Fix Wanderlust in Licorice. You’ll see the different inserts I decided to use in order to plan the lessons that I teach my son each week, as well as other inserts that I use to record important information.

As I’ve said in the video, I do not know of any homeschooling parents who organize their homeschool lesson plans using a travelers notebook. I’ve searched on YouTube and most of the ones I found were homeschool planners that are bigger and look more like regular notebooks. Given that this is only our third year in homeschooling (second year in a formal homeschooling structure), I am not yet sure if my planner set-up will work well for me for the rest of year. I certainly hope so. But if not, I’ll tweak it until I get it right.

If you’re also a homeschool mom (or dad!) like me and you have your own homeschool planner, please do share your set-up with me. I’d love to see it so that I can get more ideas on how to improve mine.

For now, here’s the video. I hope you enjoy watching it!

If you like the video, please do give it a thumbs up and click SUBSCRIBE if you wish to be updated with my future videos. Thanks!

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