NEW BEGINNINGS

If you are building your Free 7 Step DIY Curriculum Planner, this is NOT the main page. Start here with the Main Page. You can use these forms stand alone too.

{Listing forms at the top of this page will help you to locate more quickly what you want.}

1.Weekly Tracking/ 2.Attendance Charts/ 3.Year Around Homeschool Schedules/ 4.Curriculum Resource Checklist/ 5. Mission Statement/ 6.Curriculum Weekly Planning Forms/ 7.Reading Log/Reading List/ 8. Day at a Glance Forms/  9. Notes or Journal Pages/ 10.High School Planning Pages

Purpose of Form: To help you track your time and find the rhythm to your household. Scheduling needs to be on your timetable, not the rest of the homeschooling world.

Our New Bee Homeschool  Members need this form for their September homework. You might find you need it as well. This form works well to track your time for a week for several purposes:

You might be new to homeschooling and need to "find" your rhythm. So it helps you to see where you place "items" on your day. Items are grocery shopping, laundry, rest time, work time, family time, etc. Also this form is good if you need to track a diet, work or if your homeschooling day is broken up into chunks. It can help you to manage those times. There is no need for anybody else to see this except you so that you can find where your "troubled" spots are. Print off several and space throughout your planner so you can track your time anytime you feel you are falling behind.

Purpose of form: Track Attendance. There are two choices here depending on how you schedule your school. The charts at the bottom are labeled across the top beginning with July to June to coincide with an academic year. The one chart at the bottom is labeled beginning with January to December if you do not follow the public school schedule but follow more of a physical year.

Even though we don't have to keep attendance here in Texas, I do from time to time. I do this because I feel as a Leader, it keeps me accountable for my time I give to my family and to others. So if I need to ever check the "pulse" on my homeschooling journey, I add these in for the year. It especially becomes important to use for the high school years where you do want to keep up with attendance a little better.

This picture shows you how to use it in case all of those lines make you look at it sideways. One thing about forms is that they are no good to the user if the user doesn't fully utilize their value. So here is a sample picture to explain how to use it. We made it real big so you can see it and explain how to use the chart below.

First, I made it so that you can use it with at LEAST 4 children or students on this one page. 

(Note: I made a form for one child too if you prefer separate pages. We just like things streamlined. Too, if you have 5 or 6 children, you can still just use two pages.)

Second, each child's name goes on the line that says student. You noticed I indicated that on the picture with a different color marker for each child.

Third, EACH day of EVERY month is divided on the chart into 4 columns. So one column for each child. The space is just big enough to either fill it in, check it for attendance or put the corresponding letter "S" for sick, "F" for Field Trip, etc.

Are you with me ?

Look at Aug. 1. You see the YELLOW Student 1 and the space for that student corresponds to the YELLOW space on that line. It is the same on that one day for each student.

So you get all 4 kids on one day using 4 columns.

Fourth, the gray lines where the black arrow is pointing to on the left side are there just to help you find your way across as you use it during the year. The gray lines using 5's increment. So a gray line is on the 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th,etc. all the way down the page. Again, it is just so you do not get a headache navigating your way around the chart.

Once you download them, you will see how easy, I feel, they are to use.

Purpose of this form: Plan your school year.

One of the true gems of homeschooling is to be able to school year around. Look at the sample below to see how I highlighted the days we plan on schooling. I have taken off some in March, almost the complete month of April off, some in Nov and Dec, July and even June. Also I am keeping up with our schedule in both weeks and days. Our days we plan to school are highlighted in light yellow.

Why take ALL of your "Summer Break" in the summer? :o) Take some in the spring, some in the fall or some in the summer.

You can download it under the sample picture to study it if you like to.

Also, I know some of us follow the academic year (July to June) when we school year around and some of us follow a physical year schedule (January to December) so I have created two options.          

 Download Sample Schedule for a better view to study and learn

Option 1. Academic School Year Around Planning Schedule

Option 2. Physical Year Around Planning Schedule

Purpose of Form. Can you remember which resource is for which child during which term? This form should be used in your planner to help you see which resources you will be using with which child and for which term. {keep it straight ma'am}

In addition, because you might not use the same resources for the 1st semester as you would the 2nd semester or even each quarter, this is NOT called a YEARLY Curriculum Resource Checklist.

The very name "year" implies one does not have flexibility or that you are "locked' in to using the same resources or curriculum for the whole year.

If you find that the same resources will be used for your whole school year then simply type in the current school year.

Look at my example here that is in my planner for the first part of Jan. 2011. It is only for the 2nd semester. These were not all the same resources I used for the WHOLE year.  This reminds me of what I will be using this next period to finish up our school year.

Purpose of Form: Put into words what you want at the beginning, middle and end of this journey. Every year some things will change and some things will not. Highlighting what your goals are each year will keep them fresh in your mind and help you to navigate your way.

Purpose of Form: This is a weekly glance (that means brief notes if you want to plan a week ahead.

Why is this not a weekly glance at my home, my whole life and my school form? That is what a family calendar is for that is in a place for all the family members to see.

This form was designed only for planning your school. Some people may think that its more organized to have your whole life on one planner. It may be if you aren't homeschooling. Organizing and homeschooling is a slightly different lifestyle. The fact is that you do control your school time and you do not need to clutter up your curriculum planner. You should know ahead of time before you plan school that week that you have a dr's appointment, field trip, etc and that is noted on your form for that purpose only. 

Because some people may need to see a big picture of school for the week these forms give you a place to glance. Because my planner is daily, some of you might choose to have weekly glances. 

Also another tip for this form is that you can plan one week ahead and if you arrive at that week and prefer to do something different, then just write something different in your daily lesson plan.

Think of the weekly planning page as a "blue print" of what is to come or what perhaps you planned but did not accomplish. Just like the daily planning page, erasing is NOT encouraged. It is just a "plan" remember. Surrender to it and plan. Go back and make notes. It is for "planning" not lesson making.

There are small boxes on the form so that you can go back and check off what you actually accomplished and this may help you plan more efficiently to see what you planned versus what was actually accomplished.

Purpose of Form: To List and Track Reading of Each Child.

 A short personal story here: When I started homeschooling I pored over a book written by Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell. It was about how to teach reading and it listed books by genre. As wonderful as it was in helping me to see I needed a balanced reading program, I learned that I didn't need to know how to teach reading to 30 children only my 3.{quit stressing} So I put the book aside but remembered the wonderful key they used to classify books by and have used it since I started homeschooling. I have incorporated that key, which is a code to the types of genre, in this form.

Even though the key is intended to be used up through 6th grade, I believe it has merit all the way through school. How many of us know how to classify genre?

Once you and your child become familiar with the key or genre overview sheet below, it will be easy to code your reading.

The follow Genre Overview is from Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell Reading Logs found here.

About how to use the form:{it may be easier to download the form below as I explain it to you} Once you and your child become familiar with the above table, then it's easy to use the form. I did put the key at the top of the form for easy reference; Then select either Fiction or Nonfiction then put the code in the box.

At the bottom of the form for each book is a way to track reading. "Ch" represents Chapters. Simply check off the chapter number as your child goes along reading each chapter or have them do it. This makes it easy to glance and see where child is in their reading instead of trying remember in your head or ask them each time.

In addition, if there are more chapters than listed {30 are on the form} there is a blank grid below to fill in. Also you may want to just use the bottom blank grid and keep up with the chapters by using 2's, 3's, or 5's..Use the blank grid if need be to customize how you want to track.

Also, because some books are just "way out there" on the number of chapters they have, you can simply fill in the number of pages. {My oldest son just read one that had 80 chapters - who does that? It was an informational book. Each chapter was only like 5 pages long because they quickly switched topics} In that case you can just use "Number of Pages" and fill in Date/Started and Date/Completed. The form was designed for any age reader and flexibility.

Purpose of Form: Some big picture people feel comfort in writing things down in more than one place and need to see it all. I have created a few forms to help them along but encourage you to divide it out. Use a Home Management Binder and a visual central command center in your kitchen or other area that is used by all of your family members to see. I believe that simplifies tasks but again to help you along I created a few forms so you don't give up all your creature comforts as you learn to organize.

Purpose of form: Purpose of Form: Help Plan High School and determine your grading scale.  Also after driving courses and to get your teens on your insurance some providers give you a discount if your student has good grades. I had to prepare progess reports mid term to show my sons grades.