As I patiently (?) wait for my planbooks to arrive, I thought I would share this post from the archives:
Planbook Alterations
I do just about everything on my computer. Everything except my homeschool planbooks. I want to be able to take them with me, give them to the kids, erase, regroup, and visually “see” the week or year in a way that just can’t be done on the computer. I have given lots of thought to designing a planbook on the computer and printing out pages, but again, I want the whole year in front of me and some courses just can’t be filled in completely in late summer. I’ve thought about printing pages as I go, but I know myself and that might never happen! There are also the economics of it to consider. I get my Whaley planbooks from Rainbow Resource for about $7 a piece. Once you start factoring in costs of paper, ink, and binding, you are well past the $7 deal.
So, once again, I ordered my planbooks. The one thing I really dislike is having to write in all the course titles on each weekly spread. With three planbooks to do that starts to get old fast.
This year, finally, I came up with a solution. Using my vintage paper cutter, I sliced off all but the first strip where you write the courses in. This is a quarter inch strip on the left side of each spread. Then, using the computer and Quarkxpress, I typed in each students’ classes and formatted it to fit in the course area on the first page of each planbook. This is the one strip that I didn’t slice off. I printed one for each student on a different bright-colored paper. I cut this to fit and glued it on. I added a strip of tape to keep it sturdy, and I was done.
Now the first strip extends beyond the remaining pages like a tab and is viewable from every spread in the planbook. Took a fraction of the time all the writing in does, and it is bolder and more pleasant to look at.
The other thing I really like about these planbooks is the heavy gauge frosted plastic front and back covers. Holds up incredibly well throughout the entire school year.
My kids draw or print out a picture which we glue to the page with the eagle, then they have a personalized and easily recognized planbook.
Megan
Good for you! I did the same thing (after copying everything for 3 weeks. Took me a little longer to figure it out! LOL) We are using the middle school planners from PFLAUM publishing here http://www.pflaum.com/catalog/childcat/studentplan.htm I bought all three ages, but decided the middleschool years gave us the most room to work with and they had the feast days listed in the planner. Also they had some fun Catholic stuff in the front of the books. Our homeschool co-op did a group buy to save money so I am not sure exactly how much I paid, maybe $6 or $7. I bought the teacher book for myself, but actually think the middle school book would have been best for me too. OH WELL, live and learn! Happy School Year!
evann
Happy School Year to you too, Megan! Planbooks are such a personal thing and it takes us a while sometimes to figure things out 🙂
Thanks for visiting.