Using A Simple Plan Student Planner to Prepare for the New School Year

Over the past few years, I have been on the search for the perfect planner for our homeschool assignments. After searching and searching, I think I have finally found the right homeschool planner for our busy family. 

In the past, I have purchased a planner without dates. This meant I had to spend time writing dates in the entire planner. If a couple pages got stuck together and I got off, then let the erasing begin. After that experience, dates have become a convenience required for a planner. 

I have also purchased a pocket sized weekly calendar, a spiral notebook sized weekly calendar, and a textbook sized homeschool mom planner. (The text book was way overkill for us. I use mostly ‘open and go curriculums,’ so I do not need 5 pages to write my own curriculum plans each week.) The biggest complaint for all of these is that even after planning, I still needed to write out the schedule for each of my children on something else that they could check off daily. So I felt like I was causing myself more work. 

A Simple Plan Student Planner fixes the issues that experienced by using other planners. I will be able to stay organized and also use the student planners to keep record of our homeschooling journey. Not only is the planner dated from July 1, 2023- June 30, 2024, but each week has separated columns for the different subjects for assignments. The weekly assignments columns will make it easier to plan. 

With the nice size of each column, my children should be able to checkmark when they have completed their assignment, and I should be able to mark the assignment being done as well. This will prevent the need for my children to have their assignments written on something else to checkmark. This planner will encourage any student to be independent while also giving clear expectations.

Another neat feature the planner has in each month are sections with things to accomplish, special activities, websites, reading list, prayer list, etc. There are two different planner designs. One design is floral and the other design is an outdoorsy camp-like design. Each design is very eye appealing and has its own unique stickers to go with it too. 

The one complaint I have about the planner and any spiral bound item, is that spiral bound items tend to have pages that come off of the binding by the end of the year. Sometimes spiral bound items have the covers look pretty mangled by the end of the year too. One perk of this planner is that the front and back cover are thickly laminated, so the covers should not tear.

SAHM REVIEWS TIP: In my homeschooling journey, I have found that a good resolution to a spiral binging issue is to lacing up the back between the back pages with string. If you want, you can even leave a long tail for a bookmark. I lace up the binding with white string, a task I do with all spiral bound curriculum before we start the school year. 

We won’t know until the 2023-2024 school year starts out, but overall I have high expectations that this planner will be the planner that will resolve all of the past homeschool planner issues. Mardel’s Student Planner would also be great way to stay organized for students who go to school outside of the home. 

Extra SAHM REVIEWS Tip: Check out Mardel’s website for their coupon code. I was able to use their coupon for ‘30% off one item’ when I checked out. You can also find an assortment of their student planners on Amazon.

What are your best tips for preparing for the new school year?