When finished, click on the graphic to go to the next page for more options on this STEP.
This Step Is the Largest Part of Your Planner
Take your time choosing which layout fits you the best THIS YEAR. Your needs change each year so should your pages.
Look at my post How to Choose the BEST Homeschool Lesson Planning Pages THIS Year if you’re confused about what kind of homeschool lesson planning page you will need this year. I rounded them up and explained them on this one blog post so you can see the differences.
4 Options. Choose ONE!
General tips to understand how to use my lesson planning pages.
Sample Page of best how to use this page. Though I have it divided into 3 sections and it fits well with 3 students, this page can certainly be used with a larger family.
Simple divide one or more sections evenly. This is doable because normally with your youngest children, you do not need as much room to write.
If you have a PreK/K they can share one area divided into two. Give the bigger areas to your older students. I have not put names on the smaller narrow column that is first because you may want to write more than one child’s name in that column. You decide. Me? Since I have only 3, I use one section per student.
Curriculum Pages for Planner
The planner page is organized just enough to help you because I list the subjects out for you.
The skill subjects are MATH and LANGUAGE ARTS. The 4 sub categories of Language Arts are Grammar, Reading, Writing and Spelling. They are listed on my form under Language Arts
The content subjects that most of teach our children together on like Geography, Science, History, Foreign Language, Bible and Art share one box since those subjects rotate during the week. For example, we do history one day and science the next.
That box at the bottom of the form for content subjects has enough room to write or lesson plan what you want to do for the day. There is enough room because you do not do content subjects every day. Like mentioned above, they are normally rotated.
Option 1. “The Original” (The one I’ve used most often). It has subjects filled in as explained above and you write in lessons numbers as you do them.
This will make your planner the thinnest because it uses one page per day for all kids.
Remember print front/back or double sided. Do not waste any of your paper.
Option 2. Because some years you need GLAM and COLOR
You ask for it and I took my time making it, but the Glammed Up version of the free Option 1 above is here. It is in color.
Glam It Up Package – Ultimate Homeschool Planner
My lesson planning pages are my signature style and I wanted to share these things that I tweaked on it.
- It is all in color. Oh yes, yippee.
- I have spaced the writing lines more evenly.
- Too, I have added columns to the content area in case you want to break down and jot your notes for each subject in a more organized way.
- I left a space at the bottom for notes in case you wanted to expand on one subject or if you just wanted to jot down some comments.
- At the top right, I added 4 boxes that can be used for a quick list or for a to-do column. In addition, if you live in a place that requires more stringent record keeping, the columns allow for you to track by weeks.
- At the far right at the top, I kept the lesson number but made them bigger.
Also, every 5 lesson plans, I changed the color of the Lesson Plan Numbers so that you could easily see when you covered a typical school week of 5 days. - Under Lesson Plan, I put a space for the date if you want to pen it in.
A few things I did not change because they have worked timelessly over the years are:
- It is still ONE lesson per PAGE planner. I do not care for weekly planners that take up one or two pages when I need more room to write. Weekly planners have their place, but in homeschooling, I find we need more room.
- It is still undated. This means it will be a ONE time purchase.
- Too, you are never behind on an undated planner because you school the days that fit your family. Just fill in the dates as you go.
- It still has a space to use with 3 kids. Again, not because I only like three kids, but that seems to fit the space best. Remember, if you have younger children, you can easily divide off the sections to include them. The workload will vary with the ages of your children, so two children could easily share one space.
- The basic subjects that are the same year after year are filled in too.
Ultimate Homeschool Planner is a 190 page download and it is a starter PACKAGE.
It includes:
- 1 Unique Cover
- 1 Inside Title Page
- 4 Tab Top Dividers
- 2 Attendance Forms (one with semesters and one without semesters labeled)
- and 180 Lesson Planning Pages with the subjects filled in & 8 Photo Pages
All pages are in full color and undated.
Guess what? You can get it for just $4.99.
Look at my Main Shop Page for pictures of each form too and a more detailed description if you need it. (I know you want to see lots of pictures of it.)Option 3. Like the Original above EXCEPT it is Editable. It is only 2 pages. This means you need to fill it out and print how many pages you want. You type in your own subjects.
Option 4. It’s like the original above EXCEPT it’s editable AND it has two pages PER day. The main difference is that tracking is done by day and week AND your planner will be thicker.
This is good for states that require more record keeping or require tracking the week of school that you are in because you need to track school weeks.
Too, some years I needed a two page spread for each kid just because we had way more to do.
Because this will make your lesson planning pages area twice as thick, I would make one for half the year and then bind it. At the middle point in our school year, I would bind another one. Some years I made two half years at one time. You decide what your needs are this year.
But most years, I just needed quick reference and the Original always worked when I wanted to bind one planner.
If you want more flexibility in your lesson planning forms, then check out these other purchase options for editable lesson planning pages.
How to Grab All The Free Lesson Planning Pages Here on Step 4
Finally, how to grab the free lesson planning pages. It’s a subscriber freebie.
That means when you sign up to follow me, you get access my subscribers library and this freebie.
However, not all of my freebies are in the library (wink).
I like to keep up to date with what is valuable to you so I can give you more, some freebies you must sign up again on the form below even if you are already a follower.
It’s the only way I have of freely delivering them to you. Just follow the steps below.
► 1) Sign up on my list.
► 2) Go to your inbox and confirm your email from the automatic reply I sent you.
►3) Last, look for my reply AFTER you confirm your email.
If you need to Go Back:
Click Here for Step 1 Choose a Pretty Front & Back Cover.
Click Here for Step 2 Choose Calendars & Appointment Keepers
Click Here for Step 3 Choose Goals & Objectives
Ann says
Dear Tina,
You obviously have a wonderful system you have developed but I am really struggling trying to put your planner together. Is there one single page that shows examples on how you use these? Each link takes me to a page with more links, I am super confused.
Thank you so much!
Ann
Tina Robertson says
Hi Ann,
Oh goodness, I hate that you’re having tgrouble. And yes to answer your question about a single page.
HOWEVER, I have much so I’ve separated and organized the content into bundles or packets.
So go here to this page which explains what is available on each 7 Steps since there are hundreds of forms.
In addition, since I have organized them by content, you can use your email to grab each free “packet”. That way you have ALL the free pages.
The other pages are to explain what each form is about and of course I have many pages doing that. But that is my main page where you can put in your email to grab each packet.So for EVERY graphic or link saying CLICK HERE you will get the free forms for that particular STEP.
Remember YOUR EMAIL is YOUR password since you’re a follower. You add your email again like you’re resubscribing nut you’re NOT. You get the freebies INSTANTLY. NO waiting.
This way, using your email as the password ensures loyal followers like you are getting them all.
Does that help? If not, I can re-explain♥♥
Amber Martin says
I wish that “The Original” planner pages weren’t numbered. They are already able to be dated and so the number of the lesson plan isn’t really something I use. I like these because I can print a week off at a time and fill them out and use them and then file them, but the numbering makes me feel like I have to scroll through and print off the “right” pages when I could just print 5 copies of one page each week. I could go with the editable version but I DO really like how you have the subjects organized (I like the language arts breakdown). I also really like that these aren’t labeled Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. All of my favorite premade planners do which would be fine but then they make Sat/Sun one block or smaller. We don’t school M-F. Some weeks we do S-W and on weeks we are behind and need more time we do S-F if we have to. I like being unlimited as to which days of the week I school. Thanks for this awesome resource. It saved me in a time of planning emergency!
Tina Robertson says
Hi Amber,
First, GLAD to have you here. Thanks for your feedback. I read everything and respond soon as I can.
As far as the Lesson Number, it’s an absolute must when you live in a state where an accurate 36 weeks is required.
And even if you don’t live in a state (I live where I don’t have to) where you have to track accurately, it’s still extremely useful and organized to do it this way because:
1. As your kids get older and get to high school you want to be sure that you’re completing a “school year” and 36 weeks for tracking purpose is the gold standard. So tracking lesson number/weeks becomes a fulltime job. The form relieves that and ensures that you’ve covered a full school regardless of season and time you begin/end.
2. Too, regardless of where you are date wise, it’s easy to see when a grade is completed and time for a “grade move up’ even during what others consider a school year, your kids may be ready to move up..
As far as numbering, you don’t fill in the page, until you’re ready for it. My planner is made to be printed AHEAD OF TIME and filled out as you school.
So regardless of Lesson 1 is on Sunday, but Lesson 2 is not Wednesday, your fill it in close to then.
My planner is not really made for printing just 5 days.. I encourage you to print even just a quarter or half semester if you want to and be done with this part so you focus on teaching. Sometimes it’s better to journal or do a diary AFTER the fact and loosely plan.
But to just have pages all jumbled with different dates and have to read EVERY date to put it in order could be laborious. It’s so much easier to number the lessons and immediately your year/planner is in order.
I’ve done this planner for 15+ years so there are many options I’ve tried, but tried to fine tune it to help you be efficient and organized.
Again, though this is YOUR planner and I’m so glad you can use it the way you need best.
I hope this explanation helps you to understand how numbering lesson plans eases stress in the long run.
Glad to have you here♥ and hugs,