I was in such a homeschool planning rut this year. I was not looking forward to it at all. Bored with my Excel spreadsheets. Frustrated with planning extras that I knew would be forgotten a month or two into the school year. While searching for a different way of planning our homeschool year, I came across Plan Your Year and Put Your Homeschool Year on Autopilot. Both are from Pam Barnhill. I started with one and then jumped into the other. There are some similarities and differences, so let’s compare the two products to see if one might be what you’ve been searching for.
** Since I first wrote this post, Pam combined 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 one complete product. In this post, I compare the video course and the physical book, but now they have been combined. All links now go to the current product. All other information in the post is still accurate.
I first chose Plan Your Year for one obvious reason. It’s quite a bit cheaper than Put Your Homeschool Year on Autopilot. I’m not exactly a newbie homeschooler, so I figured the cheaper product would probably be just fine. I thought Autopilot might be a deeper dive into planning, and I thought the basic would be just fine for me.
But I was wrong.
Plan Your Year
Plan Your Year is a physical book. It reads just as if you’re sitting with Pam over tea as she guides you through the process of planning your homeschool year from start to finish. The book also includes several articles from the “Who’s Who of Homeschool Bloggers” as they add to the conversation. I really enjoyed this part. It adds another dimension to the book. Pam shows different aspects to planning and different ways to do it. This is not a “one size fits all” approach. It is very customizable to work for everyone no matter which type of homeschool category you fall into.
Plan Your Year is available with the option to upgrade to a bundle which includes downloadable forms and access to a private forum. (This is now all included in the combined course.) The book has forms in it that you can photocopy, but the downloadable forms package actually has more forms than the book. The PDF files are editable, so you can choose to keep everything on the computer instead of printing them out and filling them out by hand. The forms in the book are just fine, but I like the extra ones too. Plus, photocopying out of a book can be annoying.
I recommend downloading all of the forms right away, but only print them out as needed. Each form has it’s own file. They’re grouped by planning stage, and I recommend saving them in the same manner on your computer. That will make it easier to find each one as you need it. I printed out all of the forms at once, but I skipped several that I knew I would not need.
Again, I was wrong. I was certain that I wouldn’t need any forms for block or loop scheduling. However, the way Pam explained these planning techniques made me realize that I really wanted to try block and loop scheduling this year. It was difficult to keep all of the forms straight throughout the planning process, so I recommend printing them out as you need them. The book tells you exactly which forms to use during each step.
Put Your Homeschool Year on Autopilot
I went through the whole book and planned out our year following the steps Pam lays out in Plan Your Year. Soon after, I decided to get her Put Your Homeshool Year on Autopilot course. At the time I purchased it, she offered a bonus module that dives deeper into loop scheduling. Autopilot is a video course, not a physical book. It comes with the downloadable forms and forum access which is an optional add on for Plan Your Year. (These two options are now combined into one product).
Autopilot has 10 modules that are less than 15 minutes long each. These lessons walk you through planning your school year from start to finish. Just like Plan Your Year, Pam holds your hand and shows you how to plan your year in a way that’s customizable to meet your needs. I love that the videos are short, sweet, and to the point. I normally don’t like videos because many people often take a long time to make a point. Pam doesn’t waste any time in these videos, but she packs in the information.
When I first started Autopilot, the lessons seemed very familiar. Both programs are based on the same planning ideas. The book Plan Your Year actually has more content than the videos in Autopilot. The chapters are wordier than the same content in the videos. However, I don’t think the extra words in the book are wasted. I enjoyed the further elaboration of her ideas. Also, the videos don’t have the extra essays from the other homeschool bloggers.
Related post – Homeschool Planning with Autopilot
Plan Your Year vs Autopilot Summary
Plan Your Year
- Physical book with optional add-on of editable PDF forms and forum access
- Downloadable forms package has more forms than the book
- Additional essays from other bloggers
- Wordier chapters that provide more examples and insight to the planning steps
- Cheaper than Autopilot
Put Your Homeschool Year on Autopilot
- 10 video modules with slides
- Downloadable forms and forum access included
- No additional essays from other bloggers
- Videos are short, to the point, but packed with info
- Occasionally offered with an optional add-on real time virtual workshop
If you learn better with videos, Autopilot may be a better choice for you. If a physical book is important to you, take a look at Plan Your Year. Both programs offer very similar content, but I think Plan Your Year is a bit more in depth even though the cost is less. Autopilot is more streamlined and gets to the point quickly. Many people like to start with one and use the other for a refresher while planning their next school year. You can’t go wrong with either program. Hopefully, I’ve been able to shed some light on their similarities and differences to help you choose between the two programs. ***As mentioned above, these products have been combined into one course. Now, you don’t have to choose!
[…] Related post – Planning Your Homeschool Year – Plan Your Year vs Autopilot […]