It's Almost Back to School! Printable Planning Pages for Home or Classroom
It’s JULY!! The END of July! School starts TOMORROW. Ok maybe not tomorrow, but soon. My oldest daughter moves back to campus the last week of August, which is as close to tomorrow as I want to think right now. Of course my homeschool planning is totally completely done...
Um. Not so much. I have some things done. In my head. There, I’ve gone through last year’s binders and papers and pitched/filed/archived things.
I put new curriculum materials on the shelf and even looked at them! (They’re actually on the table and haven’t been opened yet.)
Oh! And I developed a system for activity bins and made a schedule … a schedule I KNOW will be blown the second day of school. Sigh. How do I even begin?
Here’s a secret: the planning part is fun for me. I enjoy making elaborate plans of books and films and field trips ... The doing of the plans, however, that’s when things break down. Because when I plan, I have this perfect day in my mind, right? And within five minutes, my perfect idealized plan NEVER ever ever, works out as I planned it.
Because, life. Because I have real children who wake up cranky or in a wet bed or who used allll the tape (tape I needed for that PERFECT craft I PLANNED) to make a swing for their stuffie.
On a typical day, I spend half my morning frantically trying to get back on track, and the rest of it feeling less than adequate for all I’m NOT getting done.
I have this funny feeling I’m not alone. (Tell me I’m not alone? Please?)
At some point some previous school year I created a handful of printables in an attempt to stay on track. Did it work? Did I have endless days of perfect productivity?
Shrug Sort of not.
Some of these printables were very, very helpful to me. Some of them I printed and didn’t use, either because I forgot about them, or because I had another method in place already, or I created them too late in the school year for them to be truly helpful (the first side of my Semester Schedule, for example!).
But, and here’s the wonderful thing about me and you and each of us—we have different ways of working. What is too much record-keeping for me, blessed to be in Michigan where homeschooling is free from a lot of busy-work, may be exactly what you, in Florida or California or (etc.) need!
So let me walk you through the pages I created, and you can see for yourself what will be a help to you and your teaching workflow, and what won’t.
A Weekly Lesson Planning Page (that’s super cute!)
The bookmark and day markers: designed for those who need to track the number of days spent in school: classroom teachers, homeschoolers in states with more stringent oversight than Michigan.
Essentials box: use this for the week’s theme, supplies you can’t forget, or a reminder like, “Be Kind!”
Morning Time & Dailies: in our home classroom, we have a morning routine (some might call it a Morning Meeting) that’s largely the same every day. Do you start with the pledge? A certain song or game? List your first things here.
Then write in the habits or activities you need to accomplish every. Single. Day. For us it was Math, Reading, Read-aloud, Latin. For these things I didn’t need page numbers or book titles, just a reminder to DO THEM, and a check box to mark them off (because doesn’t it feel soooo good to check things off?).
This Week: I have four columns because we “plan” four days/week. But the previous year I had four columns because I had four students at home. Use this to map out your week in whatever way makes sense for you!
Learning Centers: Note any themes or seasonal items you may want to pull out to accompany the week’s lessons. I’d often try to have my little guy’s “extras/games” (his special School Time Toys for days he’s home) match up with what the Big Kids were studying. Only problem, sometimes they preferred his activities to their own. Let’s be real, a magnetic fishing game is pretty epic.
Gratitude & Praise: I cannot tell you how essential this little corner is. I have the same thing in my personal planner, and two minutes of gratitude can heal all the crankiness. All of it.
Back side of the sheet: This side should be fairly self-explanatory. Record scores, list supplies, make notes for next week!
In the full PDF you will also find:
Semester Schedule listing times by hour from 5am to 11pm, five days a week. Perfect for tracking class schedules and recurring events.
Grade Record. Print one for each student if you need to keep track (I didn’t use this at all. Because my parent-teacher conference is … well … I have it every day!).
Media/Books list. For all those books you plan to read, and especially the movies you know will be perfect for that upcoming unit, if you can just remember when you’re actually, you know, in that unit. Forget no longer. Record books to read/videos to watch, and check them off when done, or use to record books read throughout the year.
What does your summer planning routine look like? Or have you been done since May (like me! Um… cough cough)? Don’t forget to download the full, multi-page PDF below! And check out the useful infographic to size your printables for a Happy Planner. You can actually size them for any planner by playing with the SCALE percentage box!
You can get the printable for free below, or purchase at This Joyful Shop to support my site!
Download here!
