I’ve always preferred digital planners when it comes to homeschool, gardening, or just regular life…until recently. Over the last few years, I’ve been switching to paper for some things, but I still did my homeschool planning in Excel. Copy, paste, drag, and drop are my best friends. The thought of writing everything out, only to erase it later, sounded like too much work. However, as I looked forward to planning for our 6th homeschool year, I was far from inspired by my Excel spreadsheets. It was time to try something new.
I was looking around and came across Pam Barnhill’s Plan Your Year course. I’m really good at open and go programs, but I tend to drop the ball on other things that aren’t as easy to implement. I needed to find a way to become more organized so that we can add in other things AND actually get them done. That last part is the key.
** Since I first wrote this post, Pam has updated the course to combine her Put Your Homeschool Year on Autopilot video course AND her Plan Your Year book. Now, you get the videos, physical book, downloadable forms and access to an online community. In this post, I’m talking about the video portion on this course.
Really Changing Things Up
I decided to jump in and try the Plan Your Year course. Aside from pen and paper being outside my comfort zone for homeschool planning, so are videos. I rarely have the patience and time to sit through videos. Many people who put out great video content, take an hour to say what could be said in 15 minutes. Sometimes I like that laid back pace, but not when my goal is to learn something and implement it quickly. I figured that if I’m going to jump outside my comfort zone with planning by switching to a whole new system, then I might as well suck it up and sit through some videos to learn how to do it.
I gotta say, Pam gets to the point. There’s no wasted time in these videos. Yay! There are 10 modules. Each of them includes a video, workbook, and planner pages. Each workbook includes action steps, brainstorming pages, and a transcript of the video. You can even download the slides in the videos.
I usually prefer books because it’s easier for me to flip back and reread something rather than finding an earlier spot in a video to watch something again. The videos in the course are short, so it makes going back to watch a portion again much easier. They’re around 10-15 minutes long, which is perfect for those of us that need to consume the info and put it into action quickly.
The Autopilot Homeschool Planning Process
The first module starts at the very beginning, which is actually looking forward many years. When our kids are grown, how do we want them to look back at their homeschooling experience? I had thought about this, but had never taken the time to sit down and write it all out. Pam provides prompts to help us visualize this future and then guides us to use that information to create a written vision for our homeschool.
Using that vision, I then set a few goals for each child by first looking at what has worked, their strengths, and areas that need improvement. After writing a few goals for each of my kids, I handed them a blank goal setting planner page and asked them to brainstorm their goals for the year. Some of it was expected, but there were a few surprises! We talked about what we might be able to do and then they numbered their lists with their priorities. This input from them helped me to shape the coming year with things that are important to them.
Throughout this planning course, Pam guides us through planning our year with open and go programs, less structured programs that benefit from procedure lists, and how to create lesson plans from our own unique collection of materials. She clearly defines the different scheduling options such as a traditional school schedule, block, and loop scheduling. Hint…you don’t have to choose just one. Everything can be customized for your family, and Pam walks you through exactly how to do it. This is the hand holding I needed while completely revamping my homeschool planning process.
We start with creating a homeschool vision. Have you ever written one?
My Favorite Homeschool Planning Take Away
I was always so confused about loop scheduling, but I think it’s the perfect solution to our ever changing schedule. Between field trips, spontaneous sun and nature days, illnesses, vacations, and everything else that life throws at us, it’s been impossible for us to keep a traditional school schedule. Almost every week is different.
I’ve tried learning about looping subjects, but it never sank in enough to actually map out a loop. This time I sat down and filled out the planner page. It took several days, a lot of erasing, and some feedback from my girls, but we came up with 2 different loops and a plan for when we’ll do them. It’s such as easy concept, but it took me a long time to actually create a loop. I’m excited to put it to the test this year!
Now that my kids are in on the plan, they can help hold me accountable. Both loops include subjects and projects that are the “extras”. These are the things that often get dropped in our homeschool due to other things going on. But this is where magic happens! Based on my girls’ requests, we’ve included poetry memorization and tea time, coding, crafts, cooking, hands-on nature projects, and robot building. I also looped some of our language arts subjects.
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Paper vs Digital Homeschool Planning Pages
Even though I’m approaching this year’s homeschool planning with paper and a pencil, the Plan Your Year forms are editable PDFs. You can type up your plans and save them to your computer. I’m going to save my eraser by not writing out exactly what we’re doing day by day until we actually get there. The planning steps that come before that step set a clear path forward. You don’t need to write out the details weeks in advance.
Now that my kids have seen me working with these pages, they’ve taken a strong interest in what I’m planning. When I used Excel, it was just me sitting at my computer doing something. This work was invisible to them. I’ve brought them into the planning process and gave them a voice. They even want their own binders to keep their own planning pages. The forms that come with the program include ones that older students can use on their own to lead them towards keeping track of their own work. My kids are a bit young for that still, but they’ll get to practice this year.
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If you’ve struggled with homeschool planning and need someone to hold your hand through this process, then this is a great tool for you. Even for more experienced homeschoolers, this can be a refreshing change to get you out of a homeschool planning rut. I’ve really enjoyed planning out this coming year. Including my kids was an unexpected bonus. I’m really looking forward to putting our plan into motion!
What a great review. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for a great planning course. It’s been fun to use it!