A Yearly Plan

Planning time is here! At least for me it is. I enjoy planning, and what better excuse then a new school year to start. OK, so I'm a bit early. Our school year starts on June 1st, but I was already trying to figure out schedules because of a wedding, summer travel, and sporting events. So, I decided to do it all at once. Save time. And I like it.

Here's what I've done:

Last year, I made a one page master calendar using my Microsoft Word program. Three columns with four small graphs each (7x6 cells). I labeled each graph by month, starting with June, abbreviating the days of the week in the first row, then placing the days in the remaining cells in calendar form. Took a good long while, but this year, all I had to do was pull up the old calendar and change the dates (delete-1-tab, delete-2-tab, etc). Took about ten minutes, and I was set.

After printing it off, and saving (of course), I like to color code the days. I color the days of the week cells in each month red. Then, I color all of the important family dates, like birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, etc. in blue. Next comes holidays, colored in green. (Federal holiday Dates can be found here. For other holidays, like Easter, you can go here.) This year, I added sporting events in purple. After all of that, I color in planned breaks (in other words-no school) in orange. Last of all, I color planned school days in yellow. The days that are left in white are fair game. If we get behind on school due to sickness or whatever, we can use those days to make it back up to speed.

A year round schedule works best for us. I like to plan school brakes around birthdays, holidays, etc. Aside of those, I like to have a pattern of three to four weeks on and one week off, more breaks clustered during the summer and winter when we would like them most. Colorado requires 172 days of school per year, so I plan 36 weeks, giving us 8 extra days to wiggle around in. Anyway, below is a picture so you can understand better what I'm talking about. Sorry it's so dark.