This Year's Lesson Planner ... and HELLO!

My goodness, my friends! I cannot believe it has been so very long since I've been here sharing and just chatting with you. What a long, strange several months it's been, and I sincerely hope you (and your loved ones) are all doing well ... staying safe, keeping healthy, feeling positive and finding peace and joy when and where you can. 🧡

So I have a fun little lesson planner post for you all today, but first I want to just give you a little update on how we are all doing here. And I'm glad to say we are all doing fine. All of us are home ... working at home, remote learning at home and (of course) homeschooling at home! I cannot believe however, I have been away from this blog as long as I have. This is definitely a record for me. I hope to be back to blogging a little more consistently in the season ahead, because there is always so much to talk about! 

Unfortunately I've had to slow way down when it comes to enjoying my favorite activities - reading, writing, journaling, close-up work of any kind etc. - due to some rather extreme eye strain and tension headaches I developed this summer. It's a long and boring story but I'm glad to say I am finally on the mend and slowly finding my way back to "normal" (or as normal as we can be in these trying times!).

Anyhoo - let's talk about that planner! You might have seen my post on Instagram back in May after I purchased this pretty thing at Target. (Or through Target (.com) because back in May we were still barely leaving the house):

So as you might remember, I am a HUGE fan of Blue Sky Planners - and I always find their academic year lesson planners especially impressive. And I really like the extremely reasonable price of these planners which is generally around $13. This one came with a multi-colored polka dot cover as you can see - definitely cute, but not really my style. Happily though, it turned out the cover was actually removable! So inside the front clear pocket I slipped a piece of my favorite “vintage style” scrapbooking paper which I plan to change up every month. 

 

(This particular planner does not seem to be available anymore, but there are similar versions still available at www.target.com.)

 

Now, since I’m a homeschool mom, I tweaked a few pages to better suit my needs. So here’s a little flip-through with deets on each pic:

 

 

Inside the front cover (showing the pretty back of the October design), is the planner title page. I wasn't a huge fan of the polka dots, but I really love those rainbow stripes!

 

Next two pages:

 

 

I used the dated calendars to highlight time "in school" and our "off" days. Quick tip - my highlighters wouldn't dry properly on the laminated page so I covered the area with some clear packing tape. This kept things set!

 

The righthand page was for recording school information and contacts, which isn't really something I need as a homeschooler, so ... I covered it up with some dot-grid paper (fastened to the page with some cute alphabet washi tape) and set up a tracker for recording days spent homeschooling. 

 

Here's a closer look:

 

 

Ok, next spread:

 

 

A bunch of monthly holidays and special dates are outlined on these pages, to which I added family birthdays, feast days and full moons. :-)

 

And then we have, one of my favorite spreads!

 

 

The page on the left was for "class birthdays" but I decided it would be a great space for listing out my weekly seasonal themes!

 

 

(I'll have a post about these themes coming up soon - I hope!)

 

And the right hand page of the spread is for mapping out your weekly activity schedule, and so that's just what I did ... :-)

 

 

After this page comes the monthly calendars of May, June and July at which point the weekly spreads kick in. Here is how my October calendar looks:

 

 

Obviously I had fun with those seasonal stickers! 🎃

 

And here is a look at the colorful weekly lesson planning spread:

 

 

I am a big fan of this colorful spread!

 

 

And then the rest of the planner is filled with monthly calendars and weekly planning spreads through June 2021, followed by a final laminated page showing annual holidays (through 2023) and a map of the United States and capital cities. 

 

And there you have it, my "tweaked" lesson planner for the academic year 2020-2021!

 

In my next post I will share my Early Autumn Bullet Journal in which I flesh out all those seasonal themes - aka the heart of our nature-based learning at home!

 

Thanks so much for joining me here today, my friends and as always, I thank you for your patience! Please drop me a note if you have time and let me know how you are doing and of course, if you have any questions!

 

Stay safe and well everyone ... I will hope to be back here again very soon!