Review of The Ultimate Homeschool Planner

Hello, my name is Melissa and I am a planner junkie! I love planners! I don't know what it is but I find myself drawn to them and have used so many different ones over the years and honestly liked them all for one reason or another. I do know when I am feeling overwhelmed and frustrated, taking the time to put a plan on paper helps me to release that overwhelmed feeling even if those plans don't always go as planned.


So, when the chance came to review The Ultimate Homeschool Planner - Orange Cover from Apologia Educational Ministries I did not hesitate. I have drooled over this planner for a while and now it comes in three fun colors -  Blue, Orange, and Yellow!


You can purchase The Ultimate Homeschool Planner alone for $29.00 but it is designed to be a part of The Ultimate Homeschool Planning System which includes The Ultimate Weekly Planner for Teens (for 7th-12th grades) and The Ultimate Daily Planner for Students (for 4th-8th grades). The whole concept is to gradually teach your student to take responsibility for their own schedules and planning.
We do not own the student or teen planners so I just dug into this one for moms by itself. It can stand alone as a mom planner too.
My first glance at this planner, I saw that the covers doubled as folders on the inside and it is bound together with a sturdy spiral coil. The covers were a little flimsy for my taste but it has held up well so far. I really like the vibrant color choices available for the cover. I have stuck basketball and CAP schedules in the folders and they have stayed in as I have transported my planner from place to place.

Inside you will find a full array of planning goodness including:

• 4 years worth of yearly calendars at a glance
• 12 full pages on suggestions and guides for how to use the planner (which I LOVE)
• one year planning grid
• student goal setting pages
• pre-planning guides
• monthly planning pages
• weekly planning pages
• records, grades, and activity pages
• teaching tips
• high school planning pages
• year in review pages

Included also was a suggested planning schedule to help you plan for peace and it is pretty much exactly what I already do!  It gives times and suggestions for yearly planning, monthly planning, weekly planning, Monday morning tutorials (where you sit down and show your child the weekly plan), and Friday reviews.  Ms. Bell, author of the planner, gives great detail and suggestions on each one of those planning areas.
My favorite part of the planner and the one I utilized the most were the 4 weekly planning pages.  Each weekly plan begins with 2 pages of review from the previous week and planning for the upcoming week. Those 2 pages include an encouraging quote, a place to record areas that didn't work well the previous week and scripture verses to help you through, places to record the most memorable moments, and a place to record evidences of God's grace. 

After those 2 pages you begin your weekly 2 page spread and you can customize it to fit your needs. I gave each of my children a section, schedules and reviews a section, and my weekly cleaning goals a section. There is also lots of room to record notes, supplies, and appointments. 

Overall, I think this is a wonderful planner for any homeschool mom. A few things that I would love to see added or changed to this planner are tabs for the different sections to make finding my place easier. Each section is color coded and that helped but I think tabs would be a better option. I would also love to see a sturdier cover as an option. Check out these sample pages and the table of contents to find out more.

You can find out more on the many homeschool products Apologia offers by visting them on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+.