Hello my friends, and Happy Sunday! :)
Today I'd like to talk about how I "work" my weekly planning spread, shown above. As I mentioned in last week's post, I'm keeping my homemade planning sheets in a 3-ring binder because I just find that to be most convenient these days. I don't take the binder out of the house - I have a smaller purse-sized planner for that - but I like how this set up allows me to see so much of my weekly responsibilities in one glance.
(Note: Before I get too far, if you are interested in using my homemade planning sheets, here is a post all about my 2020 collection.)
Now, I try to start setting up my spread by the end of each week (ideally, Thursday) so that I may use the weekend to focus on prep. Very often though, I find myself just sitting down to figure it all out on a Saturday or Sunday before a new week begins!
Case in point, yesterday afternoon ...
(He's such a good helper.)
I like to use the kitchen table for spreading out homeschool materials (there are stacks of them in this sunny nook) and deciding what can be filed away and what will be needed in the days ahead.
I also pull out my notes for the coming week's seasonal theme:
One of my favorite weeks of the year - Winter Citrus Week! When we're nearly through deep winter and zesty citrus is a sweet reminder of warmer places and sunnier days ahead.🧡
I wrote up quite a few ideas for this theme in my bullet journal last winter, so as I planned, I referred back to those notes. (I'm not currently keeping my bullet journals as dated planners - though I absolutely LOVE making them, I just don't have the time it takes to plan in that way right now!)
I also poked through a bright orange folder which contained all kinds of print-outs re ~ crafts, recipes and books to check out from the library. I also pulled out the books I needed for this week from my own "seasonal stories" bookshelf:
(Desperately in need of tidying!)
I placed the books on a sunny windowsill and had Little Bear help me string up a garland of dried orange slices - something we made back in December during our "Advent Plants" week.
I LOVE finding ways to "catch" the sun at this time of the year!
And when I came back to the kitchen, ready to get down to business ...
Not budging!
Alrighty then let's get on with the subject of the post. Here are the last two weeks' spreads:
1st Week of February Week: 2/3-2/9
"Owl Moon Week"
2nd Week of February: 2/10-2/16
"Valentines" Week
And finally, here is the spread for the coming week:
3rd Week of February: 2/17-2/23
"Winter Citrus" Week
OK, now to break down how I set up and use the two pages ...
Page One:
(You might notice the borders here are a deeper green than in the previous spreads, and that would be because my favorite highlighter is running dry so I used a different pen! To conserve ink (while I order a new set) I used my new Zebra Midliner in "Blue Green." For the record, I prefer the softer shade, but I'll deal! #firstworldproblems)
(Fyi, I use the green for the current liturgical season: Winter Ordinary Time. Next week I can use purple!)
Ok, the left page is for serious nitty-gritty info. The left hand column is where I write out our schedule for each day of the week, and in the right column I jot down Little Bear's lesson plans.
Page Two:
Here's where I flesh out the "feel" and needs of the week: events of note, seasonal theme, weather and moon phases, housekeeping, meal planning, to-dos and the crafts and comforts that support the aforementioned seasonal theme. Post-it notes allow me to further organize outings, record expenses, plan posts and projects, etc.
If you follow me on Instagram I'll post "Story" updates on my spread all week! But about the REST of that binder, well ... that will be a topic for a future post. :-)
By the way, at February's end, I will pull the entire month's planning sheets out of the binder and file them (paperclipped) in my file crate. I find this the easiest way to gain quick access to those spreads should I need to look back at them!
Well my friends, I hope you've all had a nice weekend and thanks as always for stopping by! Enjoy the week ahead - for many of us, it's February vacation - and I will see you here again very soon!
