A Mother’s Journal

First of all, in my series of posts about our school plans, has to come the planner.  It hasn’t been long since I went back to carrying a large purse/planner because I just love having everything with me, all the time.

I have SO enjoyed working with my planner and getting it just right.  You know how often I’m in thrift stores, and it is really fun to look through books, papers, and the bag/purse section of the store to see what I can find to enhance my planner. 

The purse planner above started out as a 2-dollar cloth-covered notebook, though the actual notebook part had been taken out of it.  Still, the zipper was in good shape, it had room for credit-size cards, and I liked the bright colors.  As Gru says in Despicable Me, LIGHTBULB. 

I knew my notebook would fit right in and I imagined using something to make a strap and maybe adding a purse part to the planner somehow.  Basically, visions of glue sticks danced in my head.

I ended up finding two belts in complimentary colors in Goodwill, and a small satiny purse planner to glue to the front.  (Note:  fabric takes glue better and holds better than a small purse made from vinyl.  I should know.)  The belts are the kind that are just fabric with no holes and have the metal rings on one end, so I hooked one to the other and glued them across the “bottom” of the planner and then glued them up the sides, gluing one on one side and the other on the other side, thus ending up with an adjustable strap!

I found that the reproducible planning page provided in the Five In A Row manual was the perfect size to cut in half, hole-punch and put in the planner.  I made copies, front and back for 8-10 weeks of lesson planning.

 Since I work at home three days a week, I love having everything with me in my purse planner, all the time, so when I’m out shopping or running errands, if I think of something to write down for school, I can do it immediately and not have to re-write when I get home.   When you are working and homeschooling, every minute counts.  

I made pretty dividers by using pictures from old magazines that inspired me, laminating them and hole-punching them.

The small notebook you see me holding to the left holds weeks worth of lessons once they are done.  I keep the pages in my purse/planner until the week is over and then transfer them to the notebook that will be a permanent record of what we did.  (I do realize that a purse planner can’t reasonably hold a year’s worth of lessons all at one time. )  The goal is to keep our current eight weeks of study in the planner at all times.  More about that in the next post or two.

The planner has sections for shopping, routines, school, to-do, addresses, etc.   It also holds one or two things that I just love to read over and over because it helps me stay on track.

So there you have it:  The Planner. 

It makes sense to me and it works for me.  And now I’m always on the look-out for cool paper that I can hole-punch and use in my planner binder.  Or cloth-covered notebooks that can be turned into a purse planner with cool belts.  Stay tuned.

PS – This planner is indeed 5-1/2 x 8-1/2.  I am adding some more pictures to help explain how I did this.  Now I’m looking for fabric-covered notebooks everywhere I go so I can make another one!

Important to note that one strap is glued on one side and the other strap on the other side, for balance.