Charlotte Mason Planner

After my consult with A Delectable Education I started working on a new planner for our homeschool. I enjoyed the convenience of my BUJO, but there just wasn't enough space to record what we needed. I decided to make a spiral bound planner that I could just store at the end of the year. My youngest is in 3rd grade, so I will have 9 planners to store. Not a big loss of space and everything will be right at my fingerstips if I ever need it. 

I used a variety of resources in creating our school planner. Emily's printables at Tablelife Blog, free and paid for planner pages from Diana at My Humble Kitchen,  a few freebies scattered around the net, and a few I created.

I edited the cover to include our school name and Emily's free printable from TLB. Using cardstock to stiffen the front and back covers, I laminated them in 5 mil pouches.  

I trimmed the front and back cover's binding side, the top and bottom close to the cardstock without breaking the laminating seal. I left the other side as it was because it provides extra coverage over my tabs. 


The first section includes our personal schedule of our terms, academic calendar, attendance records, field trip log for the year, and monthly calendars. In between the sections I added a piece of cardstock and later added tab dividers to make it easier to locate our terms. 

Each term is laid out the same. They start with the Term Sheets and Book List pages (for each child) from My Humble Kitchen. 

Following are 11 copies of the weekly lesson plan I created. We work on 12 week terms but our 12th week is for exams. 

Each weekly plan includes a cover sheet. This is a place where I can record what we need for the week and what we are working on. 

I wanted to print these in color but 33 copies printed at Staples was crazy expensive, so I just went with black and white. I like color so I will add color through highlighters and colored ink. 

We use A Delectable Education scheduling cards and I added the minutes to my planner to keep up with time. Those minutes are what you see all scratched out. I highly recommend their cards for laying out your schedule. It makes planning so much easier, especially, when you're planning for more than one child. 

The main thing about ADE is that they plan according to time vs. page counts. When you review Charlotte Mason's PNEU schedules you will see her lessons are short and the times for each grade/subject are pretty consistent. When I followed a page count type schedule I found myself "pushing" the children to get their readings in. Which pretty much sucks the joy out of lessons. This works much better for us. I can write down notes for needed changes, and still keep track of what we've completed. Closing out each term is a page for exam questions for each child.

In the back of the planner is a section for each child's scope and sequence. I basically used my consult from ADE as an outline. Then behind those is my actual consult, it includes our suggested book lists.  

Well, that's it in a nutshell! We are 3 weeks into our first term and right now the planner is perfect for our homeschool. Hope you find what works for you! Happy planning!

A Delectable Education Consult!

I had my consult yesterday evening! A Delectable Education offers consulting services to help families with their Charlotte Mason Education. I so enjoyed talking with Liz. She has 32 years of homeschool experience under her belt and has a good feel for what moms are going through.

I had my list of questions ready to go, I was so worried I would forget to ask something vital. Liz had it covered though. We opened with general conversation and her asking questions about the kids and where we were at in our journey. Then she got right into the nuts and bolts of things. She apparently had an outline to follow and we discussed all things Charlotte Mason.

I learned a lot in that hour and a half. I realized I make things harder than they need be, that I'm not alone in my journey, and that I need to really work on my own habits!

Liz then passes her notes on to Emily. Emily pulls books and brings all suggestions together into a document, which in turn, is emailed to me. I am so excited! I have no idea how long it will take to get that email, maybe a couple of weeks.

Oh, and another suggestion came in way of scheduling. Liz suggested that we don't school year round. Even Charlotte Mason took breaks. She suggested we school in three 12 week terms and take 4 weeks off between each term! It seems like alot, but it really works out well if you think about it. 36 weeks of school, 12 weeks of breaks and an extra 4 weeks to use during holidays. Brilliant!

www.adelectableeducation.com/consulting/