About the V Planner

The V Planner is a spreadsheet file that I made using Microsoft Office Excel. The V Planner is designed to help you manage your lesson plans, *maintain grade records, keep attendance records, create a course of study, generate transcripts and other grade score/class reports, and, with the current V Planners, keep records of extracurricular activities and awards. The V Planner also has a personal calendar where you can schedule events such as appointments, chores, meal plans. Each child also has a space on the personal calendar.

*The V Planner named Lesson Planner does not support grade scores. Lesson Planner is ideal for those who either do not keep grade records or use something else for grade records.

V Planner’s Main Purpose – Manage Lesson Plans

A spreadsheet program is designed to “perform calculations, analyze information, and manage lists” and I took advantage of these qualities when I created the V Planner. A set of lesson plans is, basically, a list and V planner uses formulas and your settings to display weekly lesson plans. Lesson plans may be displayed based on either a date (Date System) or a number (Number System). You can read more about the two systems at the links.

Plans are entered exactly like they would be in a Subject Planner and the V Planner displays weekly lesson plans very much like a Weekly Planner. V Planner includes two systems, Date System and Number System, that allow you to manage which lesson plans are displayed.

Pictured Below: A Lesson Planner from V Planner

V Planner is a File & Requires Microsoft Excel

The V Planner is a file, an amazing spreadsheet file — it is not a program, nor is it installed. The V Planner is downloaded from donnayoung.org, and only donnayoung.org, and opened with Microsoft Excel. Because V Planner is a file, you can create additional reports or charts to display your data if you are familiar with Excel.

When I say that V Planner requires Microsoft Excel; I mean it. If your computer does not have **Microsoft Office installed, then you cannot use the V Planner. I’m not trying to sell MSExcel; it is just that the V Planner file will not work well with other spreadsheet programs.

**V Planner cannot work with Trial or Free versions of Microsoft Office.

One Year

The V Planner is meant to be used for one year and then for subsequent years, a new file is started for the new school year. No additional purchase is necessary. The old file should be saved on a backup to serve as a record. The only exception to this “one year” is the High School V Planner; it is designed to be used for four years.

Up to Four Students

The V Planner supports up to four students and no more than four. If you want to use the V Planner for more than four students, you will have to use two or more V Planner files.

Scheduled Classes

The number of classes supported by the V Planner’s Subject Sheets (s-sheets) varies depending on whether or not the class is for a full year or for a semester. Below is a list of the number of supported schedulableclasses. The number in parenthesis shows the number of classes and the statement following the number tells how this can happen.

(10) Up to 10 full-year classes may be scheduled
(11) Up to 9 full-year classes and 2 different semester classes: 1 1st semester class and 1 2nd semester class
(12) Up to 8 full-year classes and 4 different semester classes: 2 1st semester classes and 2 2nd semester classes
(13) Up to 7 full-year classes and 6 different semester classes: 3 1st semester classes and 3 2nd semester classes
(14) Up to 6 full-year classes and 8 different semester classes: 4 1st semester classes and 4 2nd semester classes

Non-Scheduled Classes

As of V4, V Planner supports up to 6 classes that do not require a Subject Sheet (s-sheet). What this means is further explained at Other Courses, but in a nutshell, the V Planner allows 6 extra class names to be entered. None of these 6 classes can use an s-sheet, but certain records, such as scores, from the class may be entered. Information from these classes will appear in the Reports and Transcripts.

Current V Planners

(If you are a Member, please login at Members to access files)

V Planner V4

Released for use during April 2014.

V3+ has a new feature that should help speed up lesson plan management. The lesson planners can now be used for either Number System or Date System. Additionally, each subject can use either system on the planners by selecting “Override” from a drop-down list on the planner of your choice.

Other Changes

— S-Sheets —
-A 10th S-Sheet
-S-sheets 7-10 are “Split”
-Split S-sheets can function as usual or can support up to two different semester classes
-3 Columns for Plans instead of 2 .. Note: 2nd & 3rd column cannot be separately bumped or numbered
-Each S-sheet has an extra place for semester grades and a final grade that can count a percentage against the totals or, optionally, count as 100% of the grades for that particular s-sheet.
— Lesson Planners —
-Fewer lesson planners, but the new controls make the speciality lesson planners unnecessary
-Extra controls on all of the planners
-For Date System, you can choose which calendar to use- the regular calendar or a new one that has more current dates on top.
-A subject planner based on PR-S
-The AU planner, a planner that might need some explaining
— Miscellaneous —
-Today shows you a truncated list of today’s lesson plans
-Records for two outside classes may be added to show on reports
-RC1 replaces all report cards
-Awards records
-Extracurricular activities records
-How grading terms are set up is improved beyond recognition
-Each child has his own school calendar

High School V Planner

The additional features in High School V Planner

Most of what is listed in V3+ Plus:
-Two 4 year transcripts as well as four one-year transcripts
-Course Descriptions with use of Course Categories
-A sheet name Plan with which you can evaluate your 4-year high school subjects and credits plan against what is required and what you are actually doing.
-High School V Planner is a 4-year planner, which worries me a little. Please back up your files!

V Planner 44

BETA version released February 2013 and as of this writing, is still BETA. Before attempting to use this planner, please download the BETA version and “play” with it to make sure that it’s the planner for you.
Help files are not yet written for this planner.

V Planner 44 is a completely different V Planner. I actually started this planner shortly after making the first V Planner in 2010. This V Planner is designed to support lesson plans for subjects that your children do together. It also supports regular stand alone lesson plans that one child does. How this “together subject” planner could be made escaped me for the longest. I resumed working on it during 2012 and finally made a break through. The premise behind the planner is that each of the possible 44 subjects can have one or more children attached to it rather than having one subject attached to one child. To sort out this “mess” of lesson plans, keys are assigned to subjects and the admin row that is added to the planners offers the biggest clue because it generates a “check-off or score” space for each student involved in the subject.

I have to be honest, although there are only 11 S-Sheets, managing the lesson plans seems ominous if you have a small computer screen. Each S-Sheet supports up to four subjects and it is wide. The lesson planners seem a bit ominous as well. The printable planners are no less than two pages long. They are formatted to resemble (a little) my favorite lesson planner – 2-Page Lesson Planner. The ominous part is that the lesson plans use the keys that you created during setup, so please be sure to make good keys! I would love to hear from anyone who is using it.

Grading System for V Planner 44

This was next to impossible. Actually the impossible part was integrating the grading system into the S-Sheets and that is probably not impossible, I just did not have time to work it out. I added a version, a greatly expanded version, of G&A II to this planner to support, hopefully, all of the possible subjects – it supports 88. The grading system has its own setup, and don’t worry, I included an extensive reference with formulas to the setup page to guide you.

The amazing part of the grading system, to me, is that I figured out how to compile the scattered scores and subject data for each child into a report card.

The Two Older Retired V Planners

A note: I do not support retired versions. As far as I know, all of the bugs are worked out of V2.5. Just remember the one quirk of V2.5 – Always place the first lesson plan in the first row of the lesson plan area. Not doing so will confuse the formula and no one wants a confused formula.

V Planner V2.51 DT

Released March 2012

I think the big deal about this version of the V Planner was the addition of the second system of sending lesson plans to lesson planners – Then I called it “-D” but now it is known as the Date System or DS for short. The “Bump” column was introduced to manage the date system. Also the terms date thing was improved. I don’t remember exactly what was changed with this version, but it is is nice version.

Lesson Planner V2.5

This version of V2.5 was requested and it was released shortly after March 2012.

Lesson Planner V2.5 is a V Planner without the grading system and without items that are typically attached to a grading system. It is a basic lesson plan manager. It also includes the following:

Uses the Number System and Date System
Has the School Calendar with Attendance counts
Has the Personal Calendar
The Today Sheet

A Few Important Points

The V Planner is a spreadsheet file that requires Microsoft Excel 2002 and newer. Free or trial versions of Excel will not work. If you do not own Microsoft Excel, then you cannot use the V Planner.
I do not know if any of the free office suites will run the file and I have tried to open the file with the popular free office suites. All of them crashed and burned.
The V Planner is not one of the free items at DonnaYoung.org. It is one of the few items that is exclusive to YoungMinds 2010+ CD-Rom owners and to YoungMinds website subscribers.
The V Planner is not for sale individually; it is simply one of the files at YoungMinds.
If you want access to the file or if you want to recommend the file, then visit the page YoungMinds Subscription or YoungMinds CD-ROM. Choose to either subscribe to YoungMinds or to purchase the CD-ROM (CD-ROM is USA only). Either option will grant you same day access to the file after you set up your membership log in at http://donnayoung.org/dymem/member.

Legalese that content creators should include with their work.

Terms of Agreement

This planner, as it is now [2011], has taken more than 220 hours to create, so I really hope that you find it useful but I also hope that you do not take advantage of me by giving out the file. The V Planner is only available to YoungMinds CD-ROM customers (2010+) and to subscribers (when that becomes an option at donnayoung.org). If you have purchased YoungMinds CD-ROM or if you are a subscriber – I know it’s a nifty file, but please do not give out or send the file to others or upload it anywhere.

Disclaimer

The file is “as is.” I make no warranties whatsoever regarding the file, it’s quality, it’s accuracy [although I do try very hard in those two areas], and I cannot guarantee that you can open and use the file. The V Planner is part of the large file collection that is on YoungMinds CD-ROM 2011 & 2012+. The V Planner is also a part of YoungMinds website. The V Planner is an XLS or XLSX file and requires that you have a compatible spreadsheet program [Microsoft Excel] on your computer in order to open and use the file. I do not provide the spreadsheet software.

Updates

If you have found the V Planner to be an efficient way to manage lesson plans and grades, then you might want to use it again next year and the next. Log in at Members and go to the V Planner Access link to get the newest version or a fresh copy of your favorite version before each school year. No additional purchase is necessary.