Make Your F/E Planner Your Own

(This post is referencing the F/E planner)

Hey friend,

If you're engaging with both Foundations and Essentials this year, can I just say — I see you. You're holding a lot. Memory work and EEL charts, spelling lists and timeline songs, four little ones at four different stages all needing you at once. The last thing you need is a planner that adds one more "should" to your day.

So let me tell you what this new edition of the Foundations/Essentials Planner is really for: not boxing you in, but giving you a calm, flexible home base you get to shape around your family. So, sit with me for a minute and let me walk you through how to make it feel like it was made just for you... because it was!

A fresh layout with more organization

Each week opens to a layout that keeps your Foundations memory work and your Essentials side-by-side without burying you under boxes you'll never fill in. Plus, this year there are clickable links along with the QR codes that were available last year! (Annnnnnd SPOILER ALERT.... there's extra BLANK planner pages in the back for you to add in between each F/E spread that allows for your own schedule or extras!)

You've got the Foundations weekly page — memory work across all subjects, devotions, the fun weekly extras — and right alongside it the Essentials weekly page with your EEL Day 1–4 flow, chart tracker, spelling list reference, and spelling menu choices. Each week even points you to the matching page numbers in your EEL guide, so you're not flipping and hunting mid-morning.

But here's the part I'm most excited to tell you about. It's FULLY CUSTOMIZABLE!

Flexible Printing Options to Make it Your Own

The back half has no page numbers — and that's the whole point! Flip (or scroll) toward the back of the planner. Notice anything? The latter section intentionally has no page numbers.

I know — it might feel a little rebellious at first. But this is the heart of "make it your own." Those un-numbered pages aren't meant to live in one fixed order or one fixed quantity. They're built to be printed on demand, as many times as you need, in whatever combination actually fits your family. You're not locked into one (or multiple wasted pages) of anything. You print what you'll actually use — and skip what you won't. Nothing wasted, nothing guilt-inducing.

Here's what's waiting back there for you:

The 2-page monthly spread

Sometimes you just need the whole month in front of you — community days, off weeks, field trips, the recital, the week everything overlaps. The two-page monthly calendar spread gives you that big-picture view, with space for notes, to-dos, looking ahead, and a little planning reflection (what went well, what needs a tweak). Grace built right in. Print one for every month, or just for the seasons that get wild. Your call.

Individual pages you can print again and again

More pages for your planning needs! Each of these lives in the un-numbered section so you can run off as many copies as you want, whenever you want:

• The Field Trip Planner — one for every adventure. Chaperones, itinerary, meeting spot, what to bring, dress code, and the learning objectives you're hoping for. Print a fresh one each outing and tuck them in as you go. Two field trips a month? Print two. A dozen this spring? Print a dozen.

• The Campus Directory — a clean, pretty place to keep every family's names, ages, phone, email, and address all in one spot. Print one, or a couple if you like a backup in the car. Big community this year? Just print more pages.

  

• The blank weekly planner pages — extra weekly pages with no number attached, so you can add a week, a catch-up week, or a flexible planning page anytime your year doesn't fit a tidy box. Print as many as your real life needs.

  
  

Because some families run a true four-day week, and some fill all five — and you shouldn't have to apologize for either. Print the rhythm that's yours.

And yes — you can mix them. Print four-day pages for your lighter months and five-day pages when you're in the thick of it. Your planner, your call. You can also use them to represent your children rather than days of the week! Totally Flexible!

So… how do you actually "make it your own"?

Here's the permission slip you didn't know you were waiting for: there is no wrong way to assemble this planner. But if you'd love a starting point, try this:

1. Print your core first. 

   These are the specific Foundations/Essentials curated planner pages pages with all of those added extras. (Pages 1-66) - Plus pages 107-108 to give you a solid back page.

   
   

2. Month At a Glance Pages

   Do you benefit from seeing the full month in one place, plus the added room for planning and reflection? Add this section next! Pages 67-90 will give you just that! Plus, it naturally flows nicely behind your core section.

   
   

3. Community Section

   This portion gives you space to store your specific community info - like birthdays, your kid's tutors and rosters for their classes, community field trips (with the field trip planner), and a community directory. Print as many of these pages that fit your specific needs!

   
   

4. Notes & Extras

   This section gives you a nice place for blank pages to keep notes or add in other pages throughout the year. This is also where the blank weekly page spreads live. Originally designed as a 4-day or 5-day planner - but the beauty of it being BLANK means that you can make the headers apply to your children rather than days of the week. This blank spread gives you the most flexibility for your homeschool needs!

Further Tips

Continue to make this planner your own and allow it to give you the freedom you need and the organization you crave!

• Laminate/Reinforce - Want to give your Planner some extra strength? Try these tips:

  • Laminate the front & back of your book (Pg. 1-2 & 79-80) Sheet protectors work too!

  • Optional laminating of the section dividers:

    • Parent Planner (Pgs. 15-16)

    • Calendars & Planning (Pgs. 66-67)

    • Community (Pgs. 93-94)

    • Notes & Extras (Pgs. 101-102)

  • More Stability

    • Print on heavy duty (heavier weight) printer paper

    • Printing on Cardstock is another option to give your planner more stability

• Print extras of what you'll lean on. 

  Love planning field trips? Run off a handful of Field Trip Planners and keep them ready. Big community this year? Print your Campus Directory early.

  
  

• Bind it your way — whatever makes you want to actually open it.

  • Pop it in a binder so you can add and rearrange all year

  • Use a disc-bound system, or run it through a comb binding

  • Spiral Bind it so it can lay flat while staying secure

  • Break it up quarterly/Monthly/Weekly - whatever your flavor!

    
    

• Leave room to add later. 

  That's the beauty of un-numbered pages: when life shifts in February, you just print more. Nothing has to be perfect in August.

  
  

• Make it pretty if that sparks joy for you. 

  Washi tape, a favorite pen, a sticker on the cover — if it makes you smile when you sit down to plan, it's doing its job.

A little reminder before you go

Sweet Friend, your homeschool doesn't have to look like anyone else's to be exactly right. And please — hear the planner's own gentle reminder tucked right inside it: don't try to "do it all." All those weekly extras? That's the icing, never the cake. Keep a "stick in the sand" simplicity. Your kids will thrive on the repetition and the peace far more than the bells and whistles.

So print what you'll use. Skip what you won't. Make it messy, make it yours.

You've got this. ✨

Ready to make it your own? 👉 [Grab the Foundations/Essentials Planner here]

Spark joy in learning. 💛