Review: TOS Schoolhouse Planner

It's official, well, my first official review for the TOS Crew that is & let me tell you, I'm thrilled! Our first assignment was to review the TOS Schoolhouse Planner. I have to admit I've been eyeing this since it came out. It certainly looked good through the samples & such, but really, did I need it? I already had some forms pulled from here & there off the 'net - things I've made up, things I've found, things I've borrowed. Then I opened up this planner. Oh.my.gosh. Seriously. This is the ONLY planner you will ever need & you won't be sorry. It's worth every penny.

Okay, now that the drooling is done, let me tell you what's included in this product. This is a pdf download. What I like about having it as a pdf is that I can print out those pages I want. I can print multiples of one page and skip over another. There are plenty of options included as well. I know there are some pages I will not be using. For instance, there is a daily planner page for up to five children. I may need it in the future, but for the fall, I'll be using their planner pages for three children.

• There are calendar pages for 2009 up through 2012.
• There are large (two page) planners for each month of 2009-2010 starting with July & going through until June 2010.
• Each month also includes recipes, a brief article about various topics (for instance February 2010 has an article & charts on Jesus' miracles & parables), and there is an extensive list of resources from the TOS Store if you want to delve in to the topic further.
• There is also a large list of miscellaneous information such as a list of composers and their pertinent dates, lists of presidents and vice presidents, etc.

Then this is where my mouth literally dropped open in amazement. Really. There are over 116 different forms for planning your homeschool. Did you see that number??? ONE HUNDRED and SIXTEEN different forms! That is simply amazing. As I mentioned above, not everyone will need to use every single form. However, I would venture that there are a lot in here that folks never even thought they would need, but will love having. As an example, there is a form to plan out all 12 years of your children's education. Are you following a classical method? This form will be great for planning out history & science rotations.

I was even more excited to see forms to track grades and even a transcript. I have a son who is going in to seventh grade in the fall & I'm starting to worry just a bit over high school. This planner looks like it will definitely help ease the transition for me.

That isn't all that's included though. There are over another hundred forms (107 to be exact) that can be used for your household management. There is everything from a form to record your important phone numbers to recording your household budget to planning out a monthly menu and far more.

There are so many forms included - both for homeschooling and household management - that I can't even begin to list them all. However, TOS has done that at their store. Click HERE to go check out what's included. Needless to say, I will be spending some time this summer printing out forms to set up my planner for the fall plus a household notebook as well. I'm very, very excited about this.

But you know, this isn't even the end of it. TOS also puts together monthly modules to go with the planner. These are basically monthly unit studies covering various topics. You can view samples of them at their store or click HERE to go directly to the March 2009 sample. They are also running a special for June where you can get the November 2008 (Amusing Mathematics) module for only $4.77. Click HERE to check that out.

PS: Edited to add: The cost of the planner is $39. Not sure how I managed to leave that out! Sorry! Click HERE if you are interested in the samples or in purchasing one.