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A Planner for Classical Conversations

I've struggled over the years to find a planner that would suit our needs for Classical Conversations - AND homeschool and life in general (you know - meal plans, grocery lists, books I wanted to read - all that good stuff).

Having children in both Foundations and Challenge made it hard for me to keep all of MY planning in one place, and I always wound up purchasing/making customized planners for my own children. 

As is generally the case with CC moms, when there is a need they are among the first to fill that need. 

I've discovered the BEST planner for CC - for students and parents - and it is has been developed by a talented, creative CC mom, who just KNOWS what we need in a planner. 

I'm excited to share the 18 month Classical Homeschool Planner from Hot Pink Lime with you!

*I was given a copy of the digital and physical planner for my review. This is a compensated post, but I never recommend anything we don't use and love in our own homeschool. Period.

About the Classical Homeschool Planner

The planner can either be purchased as a downloadable product, or a physical, spiral-bound planner which will be mailed to you. When you purchase the spiral bound planner you will also receive the downloadable planner.  

The advantage to purchasing the physical planner would be that you would have a beautiful, spiral-bound planner for yourself, as well as the option to customize and print planners for your students from your downloadable planner. 

This is the Sunflowers design - there are lots of other super fun designs to choose from.

A Printed Planner Includes:

– Month-on-two-page format with calendars for June 2017 – December 2018.

– Holidays for 2017 & 2018

– Undated Attendance Logs for the entire year that can be used for up to 6 children

– Lesson Plans: 24 weeks specifically designed to coordinate with CC, plus 16 Weeks of Generic Lesson Plans

– 24 Weeks of Community Day Sheets – perfect for taking weekly notes or Tutor Planning

– Weekly Class Notes Pages – ideal for taking notes during Essentials or at a weekly co-op

– Memory Work Review Rotation Schedule – prefilled in each lesson plan to simplify memory work review

– Reading Log for Multiple Students

– Resources include a Skip Counting Chart and Multiplication Table – both go through the 15s!

– Just for Mom: Book Log, Goal Planning, Bucket List, Moments to Remember & more

– Field Trip Planning Pages and Field Trip Scheduler

– Web Resources list to keep track of useful websites for your homeschool

– To Do list pages, (6 pages, double columns with check boxes)

– Lined Note pages (14 pages)

– Christmas & Special Occasion Gift Planners

– Planning pages for 2017-18

– Mileage Log

– Master Meal Planner and special Holiday Meal Planner sheets

– Coloring Pages

– Exercise Tracker

– Expense Tracker

– Mileage Log

– New School Year Checklist

– Curriculum Shopping List

Extra items only included in the Digital Download:

– Week on One Page – for those who need more calendar room.  This is an undated page with fillable fields for the dates.  Print as many as you need!

– Health Tracker – to log food, water, exercise and sleep all in one place

– Individual Student Plan

– Weekly Student Checklist  

(Thought I'd snap a shot of what the planner looks like as a downloadable file on my computer)

– Unit Study Planner

– Three complete digital planners, ready for printing:

– All Color Version

– Mixed Version – covers + calendar pages in color, with the Planning and Homeschool pages in black & white for economical printing.

– No Background Black & White Version – plain pages with no background for the most economical printing, or where you need “un-themed” pages, such as student planners or checklists.

What I Like About the Classical Homeschool Planner

Honestly, I've been pleasantly surprised by this planner. I'm NOT much of a planner person, but I can get on board with using this planner, and here's why:

  • Everything is is ONE PLACE:  All of my planning pages are right there, and my kids' planners can be customized and printed right from the downloadable file. Everything for meal planning, books I've read, and just notes in general are is included, too. Just put the planner in your bag and you're set!
  • Good for ALL LEVELS of Classical Conversations: There is something for everyone here - from Foundations to Challenge
  • Plenty of space to write:  And, if you need more pages for more room, just print them! 
  • SUPER CUTE!  Ok, I admit it. This really appeals to me. All of the designs just make me happy and I could see being quite encouraged to really use the planner because it looks cute. There are many fun planning accessories to purchase, too (if you're a planner junkie!).
  • Designed by a CC Mom:  This is a big deal. Eileen, the woman behind Hot Pink Lime, is a CC mom and gets it. She's in the trenches with us and knows what we need.

Other Details About the Classical Homeschool Planner

 

Free Download & Giveaway

Hot Pink Lime has designed a coloring sheet with my favorite Bible verse as a special free download for my readers.  I hope you enjoy this...

Download the Exodus 14:14 Coloring Page

Hot Pink Lime is also giving away TWO DIGITAL PLANNERS:  

ONE of the Classical Homeschool Planner (designed for CC families) and ONE of the Traditional Homeschool Planner (designed for any homeschool family).

Please follow the instructions in the widget below to enter:

 

Using The Story of The World as a Spine For Learning

Do you ever just wonder WHERE TO START in homeschooling?  

What can be the basis for all of your learning?

The Story of the World has been an integral part of our homeschool over the years - and served as the spine for our homeschool for many years.

I want to share how we use this basic history text and activity guide as a spine for learning in our homeschool. Along with those two things I got just a bit creative, did some research, and came up with engaging, memorable, and fun activities for my children.

Yes, we used the Story of the World at points for supplemental reading, listening, and just for fun, but his post will address how we used The Story of the World as a spine for learning in our homeschool.

Using the Story of the World as a Spine for Learning in Your Homeschool

The Story of the World was always a wonderful SPINE for all of our other learning. I pulled read-alouds, music selections, art study, science, and other subjects from our activities in Story of the World. 

Plus, this book is written by Susan Wise-Bauer. I have enormous respect for her and all of her curriculum pieces have worked well for my children. (We are fans of Writing With Ease and First Language Lessons.)

If you are on the beginning of your homeschool journey, or have never read The Well Trained Mind, I HIGHLY recommend this book. I read it before we started homeschooling and it shaped my philosophy then and continues to do so today, as well. 

The Story of the World presents the history of the world in a chronological manner that makes SENSE. I could see my children (and me!) learn about new events in history and relate them to many other events they have learned about in SOTW. They are learning history isn't isolated. Everything is connected.

Our Story

Our story (which I think is very similar to many other homeschoolers) is simple.

I was schooling my children at home without the aid of a co-op or structured program we would attend each week.I wanted a history curriculum that incorporated LIVING BOOKS, HANDS ON ACTIVITIES, and A CHRONOLOGICAL PRESENTATION.

We began  with Volume 1. Fast forward 5 years and we made it through Volume 4.

( Yes, that means it is taking us more than a year to get through each volume.  Don't hyperventilate.  That's ok! )

We stop at points that are interesting. Sometimes one chapter will take us an entire week (or two).

We spent several weeks studying Robin Hood in a delight directed way.  What fun that was! It was all inspired by an edition of the book recommended in the SOTW Activity Guide.  

I know we have TIME, and as long as my children's interest is there I'm not worried about completing the volumes in a certain time period.

Examples

In this post I will use Volume 3 - Early Modern Times as an example.  I think this is because it was my personal favorite of all 4 volumes.

I always purchased the book and activity guide.

We pull most of our read-alouds and activities from the SOTW Activity Guide.

It's important to note I didn't do anything fancy.  We notebooked through the activity guide (more on that in a minute) and I chose some of the suggested read-alouds to share with my children.

Some of our favorite read-alouds from Volume 3 were:

bloodontheriver.png

Take, for example, the above example from Chapter 3:  James, King of Two Countries.  

The student pages (included in the activity guide) include mapwork, coloring pages, and other activities. 

Example Lesson from Story of the World

  • Read the chapter aloud - have children take notes (more on that in a minute!), do narration questions and mapwork suggested in the guide. 

 

 

My son (who is 8 and in second grade) builds LEGO creations to along with our chapter, colors a coloring sheet from the activity guide, or draws while listening to the chapter. I require my daughter to take more extensive notes since she is middle grades now. 

  • Throughout the course of the week we had read-aloud to go with our chapter. This particular week it was Blood on The River, an excellent living book about a page working for Captain John Smith. 

 

I also know that Handel was living at this same time in Europe, so we completed the Handel lesson from SQUILT Volume 1.

We also had a book of Isaac Newton activities and chose a couple that interested the kids. 

One night we sat as a family and watched Nightmare in Jamestown on Netflix.

We read passages from the King James Version of the Bible.

 

  • You get the idea. Anything related to this period of time we were researching and enjoying. Use your imagination and let your children be your guide, too.

 

Yes, it took some legwork on my part. But, it's a lifestyle of learning that I believe is worth it.

The activity guide does a lot of the research for you, though, and after a while I came to enjoy the research. I am learned so much about history.

Notebooking

If you aren't familiar with notebooking, I would like to recommend my friend Jimmie's post: Getting Started With Notebooking is a great post to help you understand what it's all about!

When I put together the Volume 3 notebooks for my kids, I did the .pdf download of the student pages. Yes, I still ordered the physical Activity Guide (for the teaching notes and activity suggestions), but downloading the student pages allows me to print them for my kids, and only print what we need/want. It also keeps everything on the up and up with copyright.

Both of my children keep extensive history notebooks. They look back on them with pride and joy. It is something we will save for years to come.

This video might be helpful to you as you notebook through the curriculum.

Notebooking Pages

Since my daughter is in middle school now, I really wanted her to do a little more written work this year. With each chapter I require her to take notes. She records any terms she doesn't know, important dates, people, places, etc... 

My membership to Notebooking Pages has been such a tremendous help with notebooking. There are templates for every single event in history you can think of. There are blank templates that you can print and have the child customize. And, I don't even have time to go into how awesome the Notebooking Publisher App. is.

If you are considering using SOTW as your history curriculum, I believe the investment in a Notebooking Pages Membership is WORTH IT! 

I have printed  country pages, animal pages, and so much more - all to go with our studies in Story of the World. There are timeline pages, book of centuries pages, and pages to go with each era in history. If you need a notebooking page, Notebooking Pages has it.  I promise.

And if they don't, they will most likely make one for you upon request. 

oldsotwpost.png

Here is a simple lined notebooking page I gave my daughter after our Jamestown chapter. She narrated back from the chapter and did a beautiful job. 

jamestownnotebooking.png

She also completed a "Modern Times" notebooking sheet (I require one of these for each chapter!), which helps her take notes during the chapter.

Do you see why I love Story of the World so much?

moderntimesnotebooking.png

In the very first chapters of Volume 3 we were learning about the Incas in Peru. My son latched onto this. I was able to print a map of South America, and make another page all about Llams from the Notebooking Publisher Web App. We had a science study about Llamas for a week and it was such fun! 

 

Notebooking Pages LIFETIME Membership

 

Final Thoughts

The reasons we use Story of the World are simple:

  • Beautiful stories, in chronological order
  • Wonderful suggestions in the activity guide for extending learning
  • A Classical approach to history, which works well for my children - lots of narration and quality literature appeal to us
  • It provides a spine for all of our other learning - from science to music - from art to literature

If you're looking for a neat and simple history curriculum, The Story of the World is it.  You can do as little or as much as you want with it, and it is customizable for a wide age range. 

Story of The World Resources & More:

The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor, Revised EditionThe Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: The Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance (Second Revised Edition) (Vol. 2) (Story of the World)The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child, Volume 3: Early Modern TimesThe Story of the World: History for the Classical Child, Volume 4: The Modern Age: From Victoria's Empire to the End of the USSRThe Story of the World, Activity Book 1: Ancient Times - From the Earliest Nomad to the Last Roman EmperorThe Story of the World: History for the Classical Child, Activity Book 2: The Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the RenaissanceThe Story of the World Activity Book Three: Early Modern TimesThe Story of the World Activity Book Four: The Modern Age: From Victoria's Empire to the End of the USSRStory of the World Audiobook Collection, Volumes 1-4 Books on CDThe Kingfisher History Encyclopedia (Kingfisher Encyclopedias)

 

 

*Note:  Peace Hill Press publishes The Story of The World.  I did not receive any compensation or product for this post. I just love this curriculum and it has worked well for my children.  

Using the Story of the World as a Spine for Learning In Your Homeschool