Sallie Borrink has designed an adaptable, re-usable, and editable homeschool planner. This particular planner is completely homeschoolfocused. It doesn’t have monthly calendar pages or household organization sheets. Sallie’s planners are available in digital format only, through a PDF download directly to your computer. Although the PDF download that I received is labeled as the 2017-18 Editable Homeschool Planner, only the title pages and covers are dated. Nothing within the planner itself has dates, so the forms can actually be reprinted and used for multiple years.

Sallie’s Homeschool Planner begins with five different aqua and yellow themed planner covers which are labeled “2017-18 Homeschool Planner.” The covers include a title page to slip inside the clear pocket on a three-ring binder. There are also three widths of matching title strips for the side of the binder if you buy one that can also take inserts. The covers are all floral and feminine and cheerful.

This planner also includes sixteen pages of decorative quotes and Scriptures with borders that match the cover designs. These pages can be used as planner covers in future years, or as dividers within the planner. Each quote and Scripture is inspiring; simply choose the ones that speak to you most.

The meat of the planner is seventy-six pages long, with a variety of weekly planning sheets, daily planning sheets, as well as curriculum research and school-year planning sheets. The following items are included in the planner pages.

• Curriculum Price Comparison Research Sheet
• Curriculum and Resource List for a Student’s School Year (3 different formats)
• Goal Tracking Sheets (Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly, and one for the Student himself)
• Attendance Record
• Grade Tracker
• Report Card Form (two formats)
• 8-subject Prefilled Weekly Planning Sheet (3 design styles)
• 8-subject Blank Weekly Planning Sheet (3 design styles)
• 10-subject Prefilled Weekly Planning Sheet (3 design styles)
• 10-subject Blank Weekly Planning Sheet (3 design styles)
• 8-subject Prefilled Weekly Planning Sheet Two-Page Spread (3 design styles)
• 8-subject Blank Weekly Planning Sheet Two-Page Spread (3 design styles)
• 10-subject Prefilled Weekly Planning Sheet Two-Page Spread (3 design styles)
• 10-subject Blank Weekly Planning Sheet Two-Page Spread (3 design styles)
• 8-subject Daily Planning Sheet (5 design styles)
• 10-subject Daily Planning Sheet (5 design styles)
• Thematic Unit Planning Sheet
• Weekly Prep List
• Preschool Planner
• Unit Study Planner
• Nature Study Planner
• Bible Memory Verse Tracking Chart
• Field Trip Summary
• Practice Record
• Homeschool Contacts Address List
• Wish List
• Moments to Remember Bullet Journal (2 design styles)
• Read Aloud Log
• Video and DVD Log
• Personal Reading Log
• Weekly Chore Chart (2 color options)

Each of the weekly and daily planning sheets in this homeschool planner are designed for one student. Although this can be difficult for those homeschooling multiple children, it’s not insurmountable. If you are doing joint studies with your children, you can plan for a few children on the same sheet, especially if you use an initial next to the appropriate math assignment. The two-page-spread weekly planning sheet has the most space for placing multiple students’ assignments on the same sheet.

If your children do not share any lessons, you will need to have a separate planner, or a separate section in your planner, for each student. The different color and designs of the planning sheets would allow you to color code your planning sections if you have a color printer. If you want to keep each student’s records in one notebook, you’ll probably need to only carry a quarter’s worth of planning sheets at a time.

The prefilled planning pages include the core subjects (reading, math, history, science, and writing) with three or five empty boxes that allow you to type in additional subjects. The blank planning sheets are completely editable and adaptable; they are much better suited to high school students. The blank planning sheets would also allow you to plan two students on one sheet, with some subjects like history and science being shared and some boxes being labeled individually (ex: John’s Math, Susan’s Reading, History for Both).

The editable forms allow you to type in your student’s lessons before printing the sheets, rather than writing them out by hand. The different style options allow you to use only one style that matches all the way through the year, or use all three styles to plan three weeks of school at a time. You can “save file as” with a new name for each student and fill in the forms before printing them. Doing this saves the previous week’s assignments and their subject titles, which saves you work when you plan the next week. It also preserves your original copy without any editing.

If you’d prefer to keep a digital copy of each week’s lessons, you can save each week’s assignments as individual PDFs. Just select “print to PDF” on the “current page” after it’s been edited and filled in. This will require a student file on the computer with each week’s sheet numbered chronologically. This is extremely helpful if you are required to turn in a record of your student’s learning, or if you want to pre-plan the school year completely.

I prefer using the ten-subject blank weekly sheet for my older students and planning on a weekly basis. I give those sheets to my students, and they place them in their own three-ring binder to mark assignments off as they’re completed. For my younger students, the two-page spread with eight subjects works best. I have plenty of room to list each student’s individual assignments as well as our joint subjects. I keep this in my own notebook, tracking our progress myself.

This planner has everything you need to plan your school year as well as track your students’ progress and learning experiences. Not every learning experience happens on a workbook page, so make use of those field trip summaries, DVD logs, and reading logs. Track service projects on the Moments to Remember list. Sallie Borrink’s Homeschool Planner is affordable, re-usable, and easily adapted to suit your preferences and needs. It’s a great investment for a homeschool family.

-Product review by April Elstrom, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, June 2017

Another Reviewer’s Perspective:

2017-2018 Editable Homeschool Planner (PDF)

Sallie Borrink

https://sallieborrink.com/product-category/planners/

Homeschool planners are a hot commodity within the homeschool crowd. From completely online to store-bought, printed planners, and everywhere in between. There is an abundance of options out there, but each of us is looking for different features to fit our needs, and in my experience, there is just not one planner that has it all.

I’ve personally used many different types of planners. When we first started homeschooling, I began using an online planner. I quickly found that I didn’t like having my computer in front of me to log and plan while I was teaching young kids. Unfortunately, it became more of a distraction than a helpful tool.

Next, I tried a store-bought planner, but after a few different premade planners, I found that there was something missing in each of them. No store-bought planner seemed to have all the things I needed.

This problem led me to use a combination of a store-bought planner and a printable planner. This is where Sallie Borrink’s Editable Homeschool Planner comes into the mix.

One of the first things that caught my eye was that Sallie’s planners have a great selection of planner pages. There are multiple styles and layouts as well as the option to completely customize the subjects. These options give you the freedom to print the style and setup that works best for you.

I loved that there were pages for a weekly and daily view. I used these to see the big picture and then slowly zoom into each day. This has been very helpful for my planning needs.

One way we used the daily planner pages was to accommodate our morning basket activities and readings. This is something I have not found in another planner. While it wasn’t the perfect layout, it worked well for seeing what I wanted to accomplish each day with our morning time, which had been lacking in my previous planners.

What I loved most about the planner was the ability to customize the subjects for what we were using. I’ve used blank planners where I had to write in the subjects and plans each week. Sallie’s planner allowed me to make those changes on the computer, saving time by printing the edited pages multiple times and only filling in our scheduled items for the week.

In addition to the options for layouts and editable pages, the basic planner includes planner covers and spines, divider pages with beautiful quotes, curriculum forms, goal sheets for both you and your students, attendance records, a grade tracker, report cards, and much more. These options give you the ability to customize the planner completely, printing only the pages you need and as many of each as necessary.

And if the options are not enough to entice you, there are so many beautiful, whimsical, and colorful designs to choose from! I loved the Strawberries Planner. It’s whimsical and bright, making me smile as I use it throughout my day.

Overall, Sallie Borrink’s planners have been very helpful in my planning, and at $9.99, they are a great deal. The many options, styles, and customizable pages are a great way to create a planner that will fit the needs of your homeschool.

- Product review by Alexis Bennett, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, June 2017

Another Reviewer’s Perspective:

2017-2018 Academic Year Editable Planner –– Aqua and Yellow
Sallie Borrink
www.sallieborrink.com

Let’s face it. There are a lot of homeschool planners out there, and it seems to be based off your preference of digital or printed. I myself prefer digital planners that can be used for several years especially when I have multiple children and many more years of homeschooling under my belt.

Finding the perfect planner is a task in and of itself, but I think I have finally found the one for me with the 2017-2018 Editable Planner by Sallie Borrink. It is a full colorful academic planner jam-packed with over 270 pages and is available to purchase in four different color schemes including aqua and yellow, pink roses, pink vintage flowers, and strawberries. For this review, I was able to choose my color scheme, and I picked the aqua and yellow planner.

This editable planner is filled with everything you could possibly think of to take you through July 2017-June 2018 with homeschool-specific and planner-specific components. Since it is editable, you are able to type directly in the editable fields within Adobe Reader. Don’t feel like you have to print all the pages either. Whether you like weekly or daily layouts, you have the option along with monthly layouts too. That’s the beauty of a digital planner, just print the pages you need and are going to use.

This planner includes the following components:

-          Planner covers and spines (10 designs)

-          Divider pages with quotes

-          Curriculum and resource forms

-          Monthly, quarterly, yearly goal tracking

-          Attendance record

-          Grade tracker

-          Report cards, booklet or single-page style

-          Planner pages in either a 1- or 2-page spread

-          Thematic unit plans

-          Weekly prep list

-          Preschool planner

-          Nature study planner

-          Memory verses

-          Field trip summary

-          Practice record

-          Contacts’ list

-          Wish list

-          Moments of remember

-          Family read-aloud log

-          Video and DVD log

-          Reading log

-          Chore chart

The planner has 10-12 options for style of how you prefer your topics/subjects to be laid out. Personally, I prefer to use the daily planner with my grammar-stage students so they have a daily log of what needs to get done. Then, at the end of the week I like to print weekly pages and transfer what did get complete onto a master planning file for record keeping. Since there are many different design and color options in this planner, I choose a different style for each of my kids. With this being a digital planner, I don’t have to worry about wasting paper or ink, because I only print the pages I need for the week. This style of record keeping works best for us right now, and I am so glad to have the option at my fingertips.

I love this planner! It has changed the way I plan and organize my day and is a huge help as I begin to plan our new school year. Since we are year-round homeschoolers, we will start our year off again on July 31^st. The curriculum and resource pages were so helpful in helping me plan our upcoming curriculum choices. I printed a page for each child and used the form that already had prefilled courses. All I had to do was to write the curriculum resource and make a note to myself whether we already own it or if I need to buy it.

If you are in the market for a planner,definitely give this a look before you go and spend big bucks. This planner will give you everything and more of what you are looking for and will help you simplify, organize, plan, and enjoy your homeschool journey with all the options that it provides.

-Product review by Jacquelin Caffey, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, July 2017