Free Homeschool Planner and Discovery Journal

I am excited to share our new Homeschool Planner and Discovery Journal!  This unique homeschool planning packet is currently FREE to download! It is nearly 100 pages! Not only does this packet include daily and weekly planning pages, checklists and record keeping pages, but it also includes various homeschool journaling pages… think gratitude journal meets homeschool goal setting!

What is unique about this planner? We all want to be the very best educators as we can be, right?  I wanted a planner that would help me (and you!) really dive into what is working in our homeschools. What are our daily goals?  How can we make our homeschool lives better?  What am I grateful for?  How do we make our homeschools more engaging? Fun? Appealing? Rigorous?

It takes self-reflection, persistence, and motivation to keep all the parts of our homeschools working smoothly. I hope the Homeschool Journal Pages help me (and you) to grow as an educator.

So now for what’s in the packet:

Some families write out extensive lesson plans, well in advance. Others have a loose schedule they follow.  For this reason, I have included quite a variety of daily and weekly planning pages – in different styles. This packet is close to 100 pages and had dozens of planning pages and checklists to choose from – both in color and in black & white.

For the past few years, we’ve used daily checklists, so you’ll find a number of different styles of those.  This is a glimpse of where we keep the kids’ homeschool planners – homeschool checklists.  Below is a Monday-to-Friday dry erase weekly planner with cork board (affiliate link).  It is currently under $10. I also got a colorful set of clear, dry erase pockets (affiliate link) that hang from the cork board area. There is one for each of the kids. We keep their checklists and other assorted papers in these during the school year.

Our Homeschool Planner & Discovery Journal packet also includes attendance sheets, blank book list forms, science experiment planning pages, a page to jot down a list of our favorite meals, emergency contacts, password tracker, assignment forms, and more…

What is unique about this packet is that it is designed to make you think about and reflect upon the homeschool you are creating.

I am super excited about the Morning and Evening Homeschool Journal Pages… which has us think about goal setting, has us reflect on what is working for the kids, distractions to avoid, struggles, special quotes and inspiration.  There are pages to consider how we create joy and wonder in our homeschool and in our families.

I can’t wait to try these when we start back up again!  (Let me know if you wind up using them! I’m SO curious!!)

There are also pages to consider how to improve our teaching and grow our teaching tool box (the hands-on and active learning strategies that work for our kids).

How did the Homeschool Planner & Discovery Journal come about? In the past two years, I’ve gotten many, many emails from homeschoolers who are feeling overwhelmed and are not quite sure where to begin.  I am in the process of writing a homeschooling book (diving into creating engaging, hands-on, fun-filled, rigorous homeschool)… but in the meantime, I really wanted to share some practical tools you can use in your homeschool – planning pages that get you started… and some journaling pages that will help you find your strengths as an educator.

Starting is the hard part… whether you are a veteran homeschooler starting a new school year or you are starting homeschooling for the first time, starting out is tough!!  We question if we have the “right” curriculum, if we’re covering everything we need to, if the kids will be engaged and motivated. If the kids will learn all the skills they need to.

It is easy to spiral into self-doubt, fear, and/or overwhelm!

I wanted to provide some tools you can print out… jot down a few ideas and just get started!!  You can then tweak and figure things out from there!!

You can do this!  You will be amazing!

So, here you go!! These huge packet is currently FREE to download (and will be for the remainder of the 2017-2018 school year at the very least!)

Note: In order to share new edits/changes to this packet, I am making it available (free) through SendOwl, the delivery service I use. When you click the link below, you will see a pop-up box that says “Your order is free.” Once you type in your email address, the download link will appear.  You will also receive an email from SendOwl which says “Homeschool Den Purchase” even though it is FREE!!! This is an automatically generated email that gives you the download link.

Click here (or the picture below) for the

FREE Homeschool Planner and Discovery Journal

If you have thoughts/suggestions/special requests, be sure to let me know!

You can email me here. ~Liesl

Remember to check your PayPal email address for the download link. Again, the email may say Homeschool Den Purchase (even though it is free!!)

If you have suggestions for pages you would like added/changed/edited, let me know! I hope to make this packet as useful for the homeschooling community as I can!

P.S. I did not include a yearly calendar, but have been sharing our free monthly calendars for years.  I print them out and include them in my Homeschool Planning Notebook. The latest one is here: Free 2020-2021 Calendar Printable.  (It goes from Jan. 2020 to August 2021).

I often will print out 4 or 6 months to a page and include it in my printed Homeschool Planner.

Click on the link or the calendar below to download this free printable 2021-2022 School Year Calendar PDF:

FREE Calendar 2021-2022 School Year – Free Printable

Click here to save this for later on Pinterest:

You can grab the half-page version of our homeschool planner here: Free Booklet-Style Homeschool Planner. It is also free!

My 12-year-old wanted her own planner with a daily checklist.  She writes her subjects, to-do items in the top section and writes in her scheduled activities (online classes, soccer practice, French horn lesson) in the bottom area.

Wondering what to do for Homeschool Science? Be sure to check out this post for our FREE printable checklist of science units/topics to cover K-8!

Homeschool Science Unit Checklist for Elementary and Middle School

Here are some of the science units we have available:

Many of these are available in BUNDLES such as the

Earth Science BUNDLE optionsBiology Bundle (upper elementary or middle school)Big Animal Bundle – Zoology Units (elementary)

Chemistry Bundle

And find out more about our History Units here

Happy Homeschooling! ~Liesl

See you again soon here or over at our Homeschool Den Facebook Page! You might also want to check out some of our resources pages above (such as our Science, Language Arts, or History Units Resource Pages) which have links to dozens of posts.  You might want to join our free Homeschool Den Chat Facebook group.  Don’t forget to check out Our Store as well. Happy Homeschooling, everyone!!  ~Liesl

I’ve chosen not to use pop-up boxes at this point, but you can click here to Subscribe to our Homeschool Den Newsletter!

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this post are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase. If you do make a purchase, thank you so much for supporting the Homeschool Den!

If you are still in the Planning Stages of your Homeschool Year, you might want to check out this free resource:

Homeschool Planning for Next Year (Free Planning Pages): Homeschool Vision Planner

I shared these free Homeschool Planning Pages that I use as I try to figure out our long-range homeschooling goals.  This post shares share the process I go through as I plan out the next year… I shared the planning pages that I’ve been using the past few years. I like having colorful planning pages to work on. This isn’t really a weekly/monthly planner, but rather a homeschool vision planner. This 30+-page pdf is currently FREE to download! Let me know if it’s helpful! ~Liesl

Free Homeschool Planning Pages (Homeschool Vision Planner)

If you are looking for more general tips about creating routines, organizing and keeping things running smoothly, be sure to grab our newest Homeschool Packet: Homeschool Foundations: Establishing Routines that Work!   It is currently FREE and I will be adding to it throughout the summer (2021).

You might also be interested in these FREE Homeschool Curriculum Resource Guides:

If you are looking for more practical homeschooling tips, you might be interested in our Homeschool Planning Series with tips on Creating Your Homeschool Curriculum. We have a number of free resource guides available for K-1, Grades 2-3 and Grades 4-5, Grade 6-8 and High School – Grades 9-12 Resource Guides.

Creating a Homeschool Curriculum: Kindergarten, Grade 1  This FREE 50-page Resource Guide has been created to answer some basic questions: What subjects should I cover? Where do I start? How do I know what to teach.  It offers topics, units and hands-on activity ideas that might appeal to your kids.

Creating a Homeschool Curriculum Grades 2-3  FREE 30-page Resource Guide
This guide is a starting point for choosing the material you might want to cover in your homeschool. What subjects, units and topics should you cover in Grades 2 and 3?  Where do I start?  This resource guide will offer suggestions on what topics and hands-on activities might be engaging for your kids at this age.

Creating Your Homeschool Curriculum – Grade 4-5 FREE Resource Guide

• Creating a Homeschool Curriculum for Grades 6-8 – Free Resource Guide

Here are some other useful Homeschooling Posts:

• Starting to Homeschool – This page has links to dozens and dozens of posts: How to find a homeschool curriculum? What about socialization? How do I know what to teach the kids? What does a homeschool day look like? How do I start homeschooling my preschooler? My kindergartner or 1st grader?
• Homeschool Resources
• Science Units

• History Units

• Here are some projects and activities we enjoyed for early elementary science. Here is a similar post with 20 science activities for Early Elementary.

And, the science resource page above gives you links (and pictures) with some projects we’ve done along the way.

And here are some of the science topics I hope to cover K-8 in science:  Homeschool Science Unit Checklist – K to Grade 8.

We’ve made our way through time in history. This is a history checklist of topics I hope we cover K-8 — and the history tab might give you some ideas if your kids have a particular interest.

There is also a Language Arts Resource Page with dozens of free grammar pages (comma rules and practice, their/they’re/there, apostrophes and quotation marks and more!!), writing resources, and various fun spelling packets we’ve made along the way.

Also this post shares some of the language arts curriculum we use for grammar, spelling, etc.:

The homeschooling community (online and off) is amazing. Be sure to find a network of homeschoolers to encourage you in the hard moments!!   We’d love to see you over in our free Homeschool Den Chat Facebook Group!

See you again in August! ~Liesl

A few of our packets include:

Earth Science Packet

Be sure to check out the Earth Science BUNDLE options (in our Store):Layers of the Atmosphere Packet

 

• K-2 Math BUNDLE – (20+ pdfs, 300+ pages) with games, activities, worksheets on more… covering addition, subtraction, calendar words, place value, time, temperature, fractions, geometric shapes and more!

• Multiplication & Division BUNDLE (with 20 pdfs – 300+ Pages!) Colorful, fun worksheets, games, skip counting activities and more for learning the multiplication tables 2s through 10s! This is an amazing value with

• FREE Planets of the Solar System Worksheets

• U.S. States and Capitals Packet

• Age of Exploration Packet

• Civics and Government Packet

• Chemistry Packets

• Simple Machines Packet

Animal Unit  (Animal characteristics, vertebrates-invertebrates, nocturnal vs. diurnal animals and much more!) and  World Animal Unit

• Rainforest Unit: 50+ Page Packet

Biology BUNDLE of 5 (Biology Unit, Cells Unit, Botany Unit, Ocean Unit, Scientific Classification and Taxonomy Unit)

World Facts & Geographical Features Packet

Do your kids know the 4 largest countries? Which countries have the most people? The longest river? This packet covers basic world and U.S. facts. It also has a section on geographical features and land form words (both the basics like island, lake, peninsula, but also words like atoll, archipelago and so forth).  This packet also goes over some of the famous World Landmarks, world deserts and more!

P.S. You might want to check out this post: What science topics should/could I teach my 5-7 year old?

You’ll find these packets in Our Store:

Spelling Games & Activities (sold separately or in a bundle). Details here: That’s it for now! 🙂  ~Liesl