This is an exceptional homeschool organizer, planner, and record book, well-suited to someone using a Charlotte Mason or Classical homeschool approach. I especially like the planning resources, which fit well with our Charlotte Mason style of homeschooling, including forms for the study of Plutarch's Lives and Artist and Composer studies. A "Yearly School Calendar" helps you to lay out your desired (or required) number of days of instruction, while the "Annual Subject Planner" lets you break out your studies by the month, especially helpful for those doing unit studies, or nature studies that vary by season. (I think of the friend we visited today, who told me that "of course" they're reading about Colonial times and explorers, because "it's July"!) Another convenient form, "Frequency of Subjects to be Taught" helps you to work out your daily/weekly schedule by jotting down how many days a week a certain subject is to be taught.

A reproducible "Weekly Assignments" sheet gives your student a week-at-a-glance overview of all the work he or she needs to do for the week. Additional forms include a "Letter Writing List," a reproducible page for listing "Books Needed" and "Mother Enrichment/Education Needs" (with instructions to copy and take along to book stores and homeschool conferences), and a list of "Newbery Medal Winners, 1922-2001" just in case you needed help getting started on good books to read aloud. (Although a word of caution is in order. You might want to pre-read the titles in the later half of the list, to judge their suitability for your family.)

"Daily Lesson Planner" pages contain a two-page spread for thirty-six weeks of academic endeavor. Subjects include Math, Grammar, History, Copywork/Spelling, Science/Nature, Geography, Fine Arts, Foreign Language, Computer/Crafts, and Logic/Other. The boxes are generously sized, and as a bonus there are boxes for Saturday and Sunday as well as weekdays. There are also additional spaces where you can note "Child Training Issues," "Weekly Memorization," "Activities of This Week," "Field Trip Details," "This Week's Read Aloud," and the names of the musician, artist, and work of art studied during the week. Three areas are provided where you can put post-it-notes, convenient for planning and then taking with you on your errand day, and these are labeled "Things To Do This Week," "Errands to Run," and "Library Needs List."

The School Planner is available in a variety of pleasant colors, or you can economize by ordering "plain white." Boxes are large, with plenty of space for writing. Pre-printed text is in a graceful, easy-to-read font. An old-fashioned pen-and-ink illustration of a book-reading mother, interrupted by a child's question, graces the cover, and there are several other examples of Victorian-style "clip art" on a few pages of the text, lending a gentle, unhurried feeling.

This planner might be overwhelming if your students are very young, and you get frustrated at not filling in something each week for every subject! (I found it rather convicting, myself. Oops. We didn't do fine arts... again. Oops. We forgot to play the Spanish tapes from the library. Oops...) Our youngest most likely will not be doing all the subjects listed, even this year. But this book promises to be a good resource for planning and keeping records of our academic work, especially for our middle and eldest children. And hopefully we'll get around to those Artist studies this year...