The Well-Planned Day Homeschool Planner ~ Review & Giveaway

Planners are something that I adore ~ in any shape and size. The prettier, the better. At convention this year I passed the booth of The Well-Planned Day and had to stop and flip through their planners.

They are gorgeous!

The 8.5 x 11 spiral bound homeschool planners are over 200 full-color pages and include:

• A full year of planning from July 2010 - June 2011
• Room for planning for up to four children’s assignments
• Four Student Time Schedules: Track each day by the hour.
• Weekly Schedule: Organize your week with class assignments, weekly priorities, prayer requests, dinner menu, and notes.
• Month at a Glance: Plan field trips, enrichment activities and books to read
• Monthly articles and tips on homeschooling.
• Semester Attendance & Progress Reports
• Perforated Report Cards
• Perforated weekly shopping lists and room to plan meals
• Reading through the Bible schedule on the daily calendar
• and much more....

The first few pages give examples on how to best use the planner and the planner itself is printed on quality paper including thick cardstock for the report cards. Each month has a different color theme to help you keep track of the month to month changes. The Homeschool Planner is available in two different formats ~ spiral bound {$24.95} or pdf download {$19.95 ~ note the perforated lists will not be such in the pdf download}. See a sample of the planner by clicking here.

If you purchase a copy of the Well-Planned Day, you receive a bonus of a 1 year subscription to the Home Educating Family magazine! A one year subscription {published quarterly} to the magazine can also be purchased separately for $15.95/yr.

Well-Planned Day also offers a spiral bound Middle School Assignment Planner {$12.95} that a certain 4th grader in our house quickly hugged to her chest and ran off with. The Middle School planner is also a 12 month planner {July 2010 – June 2011} that includes room for your student to keep track of assignments and chores, learn catechism and Bible verses, explore 12 attributes of God, and keep track of the month-at-a-glance.

My Thoughts

The Family Homeschool Planner is intended for homeschool planning, but I am using it a little differently for our family. I really needed a larger planner for our daily routines and activities, so I am going to be using it for my personal planner and just ignoring the subjects that are in the sidebar. I LOVE the full color graphics and designs that are throughout the entire planner along with the inspiring articles and room to plan menus and shopping lists ~ having some of the lists perforated is wonderful!

As a homeschool planner, there was one thing that I really wish the calendar would have included ~ a bigger ‘year-at-a-glance’ planning page. There are monthly calendars and a small yearly one, but I like to have room to write a little more all in one place so I can get the big picture of our school year and figure out our break times, etc…

The Middle School Planner is already a big hit in our house and Laurianna is anxious to really use it all the time! The issue of Home Educating Family magazine that I received featured the family of Tim Hawkins and had a variety of articles that I really enjoyed {specifically the one on over-scheduling…ahem}. If you are interested in finding out more about the Home Educating Family magazine, you can request a sample issue.

Ready to win??

This giveaway is now closed. Thanks!

The Well-Planned Day has offered to give a planner to THREE of my readers. PLEASE be sure that there is an email address linked to your comment ~ if I can’t get in touch with you, I will choose another winner!

Mandatory first entry: Visit the Well-Planned Day website and let me know what other product you love! Leave a comment and tell me!

For additional entries {leave a separate comment for each entry}:

~ Become a friend of Home Educating Family on Facebook

~ Follow them on Twitter ~ be sure to leave me your twitter name!

~ If you already subscribe to my site, give yourself an extra entry.

~ Send out a tweet about this contest. You can copy/paste the tweet below if you’d like!

@jolantheerb is hosting a giveaway for a Well-Planned Day Planner. Enter to win here: http://bit.ly/amrfel. Ends 8/17.

This giveaway is open to US residents only. Please be sure to leave a separate comment for each entry. The contest will be open until Tuesday, August 17th at 8pm EST and a winner will be chosen using Random.org.

These products were given to me for review purposes, and I do not have to return the product to the company. I was not paid for this post. All opinions expressed in this post are mine.

Guidecraft School Library Cart ~ Review

When I taught in the school system, Guidecraft was a familiar name to me. My classroom had several products that we ordered out of their catalog, but my homeschool classroom hasn’t.

Until now!!

Trying to keep all of the kids school supplies, books and whatnots in one location and then find room for all of my teaching books and manipulatives was getting a little tricky. We had shelves, drawers and baskets overflowing with all of our school gear…and truthfully it was beginning to drive me a little more than nuts. When things around me are scattered…I am too.

This gorgeous School Library Cart showed up on my doorstep one day from Guidecraft ~ and our UPS guy was nice to bring it inside for me. Trust me, this is one solid piece of furniture! It weighs over 40 pounds, so I opened the box when a friend of mine came over to visit and roped her into helping me put it together.

Overall, it was pretty easy to put together. The assembly instructions for the library cart were easy to follow and all done using pictures. At times, the wheels were a little tricky, but from start to finish we had it put together in about 45 minutes. It is definitely a two person job {ok, maybe one if my hubby would have put it together, but I was too impatient to wait for him to get home!}.

Aside from a screwdriver, we didn’t need any additional materials, but I would highly recommend using a socket wrench to tighten everything…otherwise, you’ll be turning the little wrench that comes in the kit for much longer. Besides, using a socket wrench is fun and makes a lovely little noise that makes you feel handy. :)

 

Laurianna was the official photographer since my hands were otherwise occupied, but here we are about 45 minutes into our endeavor with a successfully assembled library cart that was ready-to-use!

The library cart fits perfectly into the corner of our dining room and is going to be wonderful to use this year. I’ve organized it so that one side has all of my weekly teaching supplies on it {teacher’s manuals, extra books}.

 

On the other side each of the kids have space to put their books and extras. Instead of putting shelves on the end, we used some removable 3M hooks to hold the kids pencil cases so they can grab them quickly.  The bottom shelf holds our extra manipulatives, our spelling curriculum bin, reading bin and extra school supplies.

I love that it has wheels and we can move it around as needed during our school time. It takes up much less room that what we had previously {hooray!!} and there is still plenty of room to fill it up as we go through our school year ~ and trust me, we’ll use it!

…..THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED…..

Do you want to know the best part?? Guidecraft has offered to giveaway a School Library Cart to one of my readers!! How wonderful is THAT?

Ready to win??

Mandatory first entry: Visit the Guidecraft website and let me know what other product you love! Leave a comment and tell me!

For additional entries {leave a separate comment for each entry}:

~ Follow Guidecraft on Twitter ~ be sure to leave me your twitter name!

~ If you already subscribe to my site, give yourself an extra entry.

~ Send out a tweet about this contest. You can copy/paste the tweet below if you’d like!

@jolantheerb is hosting a giveaway for a library cart from @Guidecraft. Enter to win here: http://bit.ly/9SZ1Tn. Ends 8/3.

~ Will you blog about it if you win? Give yourself an extra entry if you will!

This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only. Please be sure to leave a separate comment for each entry. The contest will be open until Tuesday, August 3rd at 8pm EST and a winner will be chosen using Random.org. {GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED}