Planning your homeschool day, and setting goals for your home, can be so so much easier if you choose an amazing product like The Ultimate Homeschool Planner – Orange, Blue, or Yellow, from Apologia Educational Ministries.

We were recently sent the Ultimate Homeschool Planner to review and I am really impressed with this useful tool that helps homeschool families.   Homeschool Resources from Apologia Educational Ministries never cease to amazing me with their quality and helping families maintain their focus on the Lord.

Apologia Educational Ministries

Apologia is a publisher and distributor of Christian education curriculum.  We love their science curriculum!  Everything we have used from Apologia in our homeschool has been top notch in quality and character.  The kids enjoy everything we have received from them and they always look forward to using their products.   This time though, this product was to better equip me to be a better mom, and help equip my children in their faith and oversee their education with a plan in hand.

The Ultimate Homeschool Planner

Personalize your color choice (orange, blue, or yellow) for the cover.

263 pages, Spiral Bound Planner.

Yearly, Monthly, Weekly, and Daily Planning Strategy.

Use for planning with up to 6 children.

Retails for $29.00

This planner can work alone, but is designed to work perfectly with the The Ultimate Weekly Planner for Teens (grades 7th-12th) and The Ultimate Daily Planner for Students (grades 4th – 8th) so that your kids also have their own planners too.

How To Plan:

• Once a year 4 to 8 hour planning “retreat”.
• Monthly 2 hour planning sessions.
• Weekly 30 minute planning breaks.
• Monday mornings, 20 minutes tutoring each child.
• Friday afternoons, 15 minutes to review.

The Author, Debra Bell, goes to great length to explain each step in planning.  She walks you through examples that are very practical and easy to follow. Through out all of the planning, she constantly brings you back to your primary focus of keeping “first things first” in your walk with the Lord and focusing on what God is doing in your family’s life.

How We Used The Ultimate Homeschool Planner

This is a great planner with many unique features built in just for Christian homeschool families.  It is more than just a planner, it is an actual planning system and has a methodology to promote your faith through out every day of the year in everything you do.

I was given the option to chose my cover color and I chose to work with the planner with the orange color on the cover.  When I open the planner, the first thing I see is a pocket on the inside cover that has a quote that reads: “Order brings peace.” ~St. Augustine.  Also on the pocket written in a faint and whimsical font, is a pivotal line of inspiration and the strategy that will set the pace of this planner for the rest of the time you put it to use.  ” Count Your Blessings.  Encourage Independence, Record Your Progress”~ Debra Bell.  There is also a pocket for extras on the inner back side cover too and it is a quote from Deuteronomy 5:7 about teaching your children in the ways of the Lord.   From the beginning all the way through the end, this planner is filled with inspirational quotes, scriptures, and encouragement.

The next section is 4 yearly calendars that start and stop with the school years.  So the calendars begin in July of one year and finish in June of the next, such as July 2015 – June 2016.   You can see everyday of the year for four years in a glance.  This simple visual aid is motivation to help you stay the course and not loose sight of the overall goal of training day after day the precious children God has put into our home.

The next section goes over, in great detail, the planning system and walks you through lots of examples to help you understand.  Then there is a one year planning grid for every day of the entire year, a student goal section for Character goals and Academic goals, family priorities and goals, monthly planning for all 12 months.

The next section is the weekly planner.  This covers every day of every week for 48 weeks.  Each week covers four pages.  There is room for writing everything down each day.  Along the side there is also room for notes, supplies needed, and upcoming appointments.

The next two pages are really unique.  I love this section of the weekly plan, because in addition to writing down everything for each day, it also has scripture, and room for a Bible Plan, Battle Plan and Prayers and Hospitality / Outreach. Then on the following page there is lots of room to write down even more notes, like a journal where you record special things that happened with your family during the week that you want to remember.  There is also a place to record what you want to remember about how God showed up in your life that week.  How you experienced his grace, mercy, faithfulness, protection, and provision.  This my friends is what sets this planner experience above the rest, a place for you to record your experiences connecting with God and your family.

The next section is for recording student grades on quizzes, lists of books they are reading, field trips and outside activities.  And then there is a section on Teaching Tips with some great information about all sorts of subjects. There is a highschool transcript planning guide, room for more notes you might want to write out, and also a bibliography section and a biography about the author of the planner, Debra Bell.

I am grateful to have been given this opportunity to review this planner.  I am not one to go looking for planners.  I usually just print off a month at a time from my computer and hang it on my bulletin board and though it is terribly inadequate, it is the method I use.  But I want to do better and I want to have a system that functions in running an effective homeschool and being the hands and feet of Jesus in our home and community.   This planner has given me the strategy to intentionally plan both of them and then a place to record how it is going on a regular basis.

Debra Bell is a homeschool mom who has been right where I am at and she knows the challenges we face first hand.   I am excited to read about her life and learn how she homeschooled successfully by using this strategy to plan it out.  She is a super hero.  She achieved homeschooling 4 kids k-12 who all graduated and went on to graduate from college too.  She is an inspiration.   I would encourage you to check out this wonderful planner for your homeschool.

Social Media

Be sure to follow Apologia Educational Ministries on the Social Media links for all the latest news and updates.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apologiaworld/timeline
Twitter: https://twitter.com/apologiaworld
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/apologia/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/105053356034237782125

Check out what others on the TOS Review Crew had to say about using The Ultimate Homeschool Planner in their homes.