Preparing for our School Year Using MS Excel (Part 1)

In my past life, I used MS Excel for reports and such in a business setting.  It's a format that I'm comfortable and familiar with, so it's where I keep a lot of my "record" type things.  It's also where I think through a lot of my planning, and it's where all of my year-long or term-long planning lives!

We use a loose 6 week on/1 week off plan, sometimes called "Sabbath schooling."  We like to start school at the end of June/beginning of July, because in the mid-south of Tennessee, it is brutally hot and humid by that point.  To save us from a Summer of screen-time, we take our Summer break in Spring, starting at about the beginning of May, and going for 6-8 weeks.  (I like six, but visitors from out of town, and VBS happened... so it was eight this year!)  That means we usually have a short term between Thanksgiving & Christmas (about three weeks - our Advent Session) and another short term (Spring Session) at the end of the year.

Once I figure all of that out, I put it into an Excel form, so it looks like this.

This is last year's document, so you can see how it looks filled in.  I just have a projection up top, because it helps me.  You could certainly do just one.  Peach blocks are weekends, and blue blocks are planned days off.  Yellow blocks are days we had Co-Op, and the two orange days are when we went on an unexpected trip.

I've used formulas to count how many times "p" (for present) is marked in each month, a total number of days and weeks remaining and completed.  If you're familiar with Excel, you'll probably be able to figure that out, but if not, just leave a comment and I'll help you out!

In addition to attendance, there are a couple things I plan for each school term.  The children rotate some of their chores each term, so I always put out a new chore sheet (on the refrigerator.)  Here's what the upcoming term's chores look like.

In addition to chores and attendance, I am trying something new for our first term.  I have planned out meals for the next seven weeks.  I rotate breakfasts and lunches to an extent - different muffins and smoothies, I might put different things in our scrambled eggs.  There's a three week lunch rotation, and I stick to things I can serve cold during the summer, because turning on the oven during the hottest part of the day is a big No-No!  Dinner isn't repeated exactly on any of the nights, because my husband appreciates variety! 

Here's what it looks like:

I'll be back soon to talk about how I format our actual school plans into Excel!