A 5 Day Peek Into My Homeschool Journal Planner

Last fall I started looking for a specific type of homeschool planner, and I wasn’t having much luck finding it. So, like other homeschoolers who can’t find exactly what they are looking for {why do you think we make all of those printables and curriculums!}, I made my own. What exactly was so impossible to find among the multitude of homeschool planners on the market and all over the internet? I wanted a homeschool planner that doubled as a journal. I wanted a place to record my thoughts and memories. I wanted a planner that contained a place for detailed plans for the year along with the freedom to only write what we actually completed that day. And, of course, I wanted the usual goals sheet, reading lists, and calendars found in every homeschool planner. I will be using every day this week to let everyone have a peek inside my homeschool journal planner. If you like what you see, subscribe to my blog, and you’ll get access to it as a free download. For those who already subscribe to The Planted Trees, you will find a link to the Homeschool Journal Planner in the next email you receive from the blog.

Today I want to focus on what makes my homeschool planner unique: the journal pages.

Talk to Me: How and Why You Should Have a Homeschool Conference

It all started out with some questions from me and comments from Grace when she was in second grade.

“I don’t like this. It’s too hard.”

“ I really like drawing and painting. Can we do more of that?”

“I don’t understand what this book says!”

I slowly realized that she had some valid input and insight about her education despite being so young.  The next year I made it a point to ask her some questions about our homeschool. Now it has evolved into a full-fledged interview type process at a local coffee shop at least twice a year. As Charlotte Mason said, “Children are born persons.” They have thoughts and ideas just as much as the next person. While those thoughts might be juvenile, they can also be extremely insightful if you really listen and dig a bit. Right now is the perfect time to have a homeschool teacher-student conference since it’s the middle of the school year for most of you.

It might seem a little silly to talk to your children about their homeschool. I mean you are with them all day anyway, but asking questions with purpose and truly listening are a great way to see school through their eyes. Subjects and curriculum that you think are getting the job done may be leaving your child confused and uninspired. Maybe they feel rushed by your current routine or would like to arrange their school subjects differently. I always placed math first in Grace’s subject line up since I knew it was her least favorite so I though it should be first so she could get it completed as quickly as possible. At our last teacher-student conference, she informed me that she would rather place it last and start with her favorite subjects. I never would have known if I had not asked! So how do you have a homeschool conference?

Logic of English Foundations: The Grand Prize Winner of Phonics

This post contains affiliate links. I appreciate your support of my blog. See full legal disclosure here.

I’m thrilled to be participating again this year in the Virtual Curriculum Fair. A special thanks to Susan at Homeschooling Hearts and Minds and Chareen at Every Bed of Roses for hosting this week’s fair where homeschool bloggers are sharing their reviews of various homeschool language arts tips, techniques, and curriculum.

One of the most frightening propositions as a homeschool parent is teaching a child to read. I know that it terrified me. Between Grace and Sophia I’ve tried at least a handful of different phonics programs. At the end of Sophia’s kindergarten year I found out about a new phonics curriculum that was coming onto the market written by Denise Eide, author of Uncovering the Logic of English: A Common-Sense Approach to Reading, Spelling, and Literacy . She had already published a remedial phonics and spelling program for second grade and up called Essentials. Now she was turning to beginning readers with her new phonics program, Foundations.

I jumped on the chance to use Level A, B, and C as a beta tester. Nothing I was using with Sophia to teach her to read really felt right. The program I used with Grace, while it got her reading, I was discovering some gaps in her phonics knowledge as she reached higher level books. I didn’t want to use that program with Sophia for fear that the same thing would happen with her. I signed up for the Foundations beta testing group figuring I had nothing to lose. What I didn’t count on was discovering the BEST phonics program I’d ever used. In fact, it’s so fabulous that this self-proclaimed curriculum addict isn’t even tempted to look at anything else!