Hey Mama! Schoolhouse Planner Review
I love planning out our school year although I'm not always good at sticking to that plan. Hey, we all know that life happens right? Really I'm more of a routine person.
I try to build up a set of habits so that no matter what time of day we get moving at our routine just flows preferably without stress and chaos, not that it doesn't happen sometimes!
Disclosure: I received a free copy of this product for review, all opinions are 100% my own.
I use a mixture of online planners and paper planners because really both have their strengths and weaknesses. I was starting to look for a new paper planner for the coming year when I had the opportunity to review the Hey Mama! Print Schoolhouse Planner 2016-2017 from The Old Schoolhouse.
After seeing the cover alone I knew I needed this! I just love the old-time photos of hay fork, spinning wheel and cast iron pans, and more. Well if you know me you know I have all of these things! We use hay forks and cast iron pans daily and the spinning wheel? Well, let's say I'm still working on learning that.
What's In The Hey Mama! Schoolhouse Planner
The Hey Mama! Schoolhouse Planner is a soft-cover book with a spiral-bound spine. It is intended to be a great place to organize your plans for the entire school year.
Inside the planner, you will find:
At a glance yearly calendars for 2016, 2017 and 2018
Monthly Calendars starting in July 2016 to June 2017
36 undated weekly planning pages
Forms for recording goals for the month, semester, and year
Attendance charts for up to 5 children
Reading logs for up to 4 children
Curriculum planning forms
Contact list
36 General writing prompts
Story Starters
The Thirteen Colonies by date
Timeline of Inventions
Listing of U.S. Presidents and their wives
Branches of government (USA)
The United States and capitals
Information on creating transcripts for your high school students
Academic Transcript form
Checklist and skills learned form
A form to record other courses
That's a lot, isn't it? Given how much is in this planner, it's not heavy or bulky and it's really easy to move around the house or outside with it.
I homeschool our children year-round but since this planner doesn't start until July I haven't started filling it in yet. Over the course of this month, I will start making some notes and loosely filling out our schedule.
The way I use paper planners is often to sketch out ideas and largely to record work as we've finished it. This works well for me because we are largely delight directed and eclectic in our homeschooling style. So many times I've written out detailed plans of what we are going to study only to find the kids become deeply interested in another part of that topic and we veer off on a rabbit trail. This is a great place to jot down notes of what we did on the spur of the moment.
As a Canadian, I do find there is some content in the Hey Mama! a planner that I'm not likely to use often. Things like the lists of presidents and their wives or state capitals. I do wish there was another version available that focused on Canadian content or a general-purpose one that left it out altogether or replaced it with world events.
That said it's just a few pages at the back of the planner that I don't need to use and doesn't get in the way of using it.
hey mama letter
I love that each month starts off with a hey Mama letter of encouragement! There are also smaller notes sprinkled throughout the planner. Our days don't always go as planned and sometimes you just feel down. Isn't it nice to turn the page and find an encouraging note to lift your heart?
You can find the Hey Mama! Schoolhouse Planner in the store at The Old Schoolhouse or you can get the digital version FREE with a membership to The Schoolhouse Teachers curriculum site.
The Schoolhouse Teachers is an amazing site that I've been a member of for years now you can read my review from when it first launched. Boy, I have to say it was awesome then and it's even better now!
