Hey Mama! Homeschool Planner Review

Have you started planning for the summer and autumn terms yet?  We’re getting ourselves started with the Hey, Mama! Homeschool Planner for 2019/20 Year through The Old Schoolhouse® in today’s review.  I received my Hey Mama! Planner by Gena Suarez in the post 36 hours before leaving for vacation and it was just enough time to get a jump on things.

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This is the third Hey Mama! Schoolhouse Planner we’ve used and I’m happy to share with you how I’m using this year’s version so far.

Right out of the envelope, I loved the freshness of the cover.  It reminded me of my springs in Japan – pretty and light and full of promise.   Planners are always so much better when you love the cover.  This is my favourite one to date.

There are so many things included in this planner, I thought the best way to share was with a shot of the Table of Contents:

As you can see, there is much that could be talked about, so for today I’ll touch on the aspects of the planner that we’re already putting to use.

The 2-page monthly calendars (starting with July 2019) have become my blogging planner!  No more single pieces of paper floating about and getting lost.  When I plan, I tend to do all aspects of life together, so I’ll have both homeschooling and blogging all in one place, and because we blog about homeschooling, this makes sense.

There’s room in the margin for additional notes, and on the previous page there’s a Hey Mama Letter and a page for Notes.  This is where I’m keeping track of upcoming activities for the kids, the homeschool focus of the month, jotting down things to schedule for social media, reminders for changing up my Pinterest boards, update my blog stats, and note what my monthly projects will be.

The 2-page weekly planners will be my main homeschooling planning area.  These weekly pages aren’t dated so they can be used at any time. I like this physical planner as the kids can come look at it and check things off as they do them.

I may change this so that they can write what they’ve done after it’s completed….but I’m still thinking about that.  I wonder if they see what they’ve already accomplished rather than everything there still is left to do might be a more positive way to go.  That’s the beauty of having a skeleton planner – it can be molded into whatever works for you.

Another way to use these pages is to write the days of the week down the side and the students across the top.  This would mean we could make the pages last twice as long, and is a good option for those who homeschool year-round, as we do.

The Books Read This Year section will challenge the kids and I to keep reading.  I’m thinking I’ll have to copy them a page each per month to keep up with them.  I’m going to use a page for myself in a quest to take ‘time out’ and relax.  I’ve also changed up a page and re-named it ‘New Recipes Tried This Year’.  Each year I aim to try at least 12 new recipes, and this will be a convenient place for me to track them.  I’m happy to say that I’m ahead of schedule so far for this year 🙂

The curriculum Planning Sheets will give me a place to jot down things I see that I want to keep in mind for the future and not forget, or I may use them to keep track of the programs we already have, along with the expiry dates.

I don’t recall previously having information about how to create an academic transcript, and this is useful information, whether you are at that stage, or just to keep in mind for future planning.

When I sit down and do more planning,  I’ll no longer have to go looking for one calendar or another; I have it all in one.  As you can see, I’m not using this planner entirely as it was meant to be used, I’m ‘upgrading’ it? (as the kids would say) and making it work for me.  The flexibility of being able to do that is just what I need.

Don’t delay – close to 98% of the Hey Mama! Planner print run has already been sold!  And once they’re gone, there aren’t plans to print more until next year.

Click here to read 82 more reviews about the Hey Mama! Planner by the Schoolhouse  Review Crew; find out how it’s being used by other homeschooling families.

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