Aug 02, 2016 Homeschool Planning: why I am a planner rebel. There are a lot of planners out there. Some specifically designed for homeschooling, a lot of people use their Happy Planners or Erin Condren’s for homeschool planning, but traditional planners never worked for me. They never include what I want, they aren’t tailored to suit my taste and needs, and they have all these pretty boxes that I. Jul 08, 2019 This 2020 homeschool planning form is a 12-month view so that you can see at a glance and highlight which weeks you’ll school and which weeks you’ll have off. Grab your FREE 2020 homeschool year planning form (7 steps free homeschool planner) from Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool. The free Homeschool tracking and planning software that started it all. Since 2002, we have offered Homeschool Tracker Basic Edition entirely free of charge as our service to the Homeschool community.
Written by contributor Lora Lynn Fanning of VitaFamiliae
As my children have grown, my needs in a homeschool planner have grown, too. Google Calendar is our family’s go-to for scheduling and I’ve used it successfully for several years for planning out our school work.
But when my boys were reading better and were beginning to work more independently, my needs changed a little.
- I wanted to be able to print them an easy to understand assignment sheet.
- I wanted to save the lessons plans I was creating and use them for future children.
- I wanted something that was intended for homeschool plans, not something I adapted to “make it work.”
Because we are a family addicted to Apple and Mac products, my choices were limited.
Web-Based Options
Homeschool Tracker and Scholaric are web-based, which mean you need an internet connection to view them. There are advantages to this, namely that your plans and grades are accessible from any device with internet and there’s nothing to download or update. These services are subscription based, which means you pay a monthly rate to use them.
Software Options
Olly and iPlan are downloadable one-time purchases. Olly is currently a Mac App with plans to expand with iPad and iPhone apps very soon. iPlan is only available on iPad or iPhone. It will sync with iCal. The updates are free, but you do have to remember to update!
To be honest, not being able to use iPlan on my computer seemed too limiting to someone who hasn’t completely given up her old-fashioned ways of using a laptop and I quickly nixed it. But if you mostly use your iPad, it’s a cheaper option than Olly.
After a few days of fiddling and inputting the same lesson plan into each service, I quickly identified my favorite.
I chose Olly for several reasons:
- The interface made the most sense to me.
- I don’t have to have internet access in order to see my lesson plans.
- I can reuse my lesson plans and even duplicate them easily for my twins.
- The assignment sheets it creates are color-coded and simple for my kids to understand.
- I can keep up with grades and even create reports and transcripts easily.
- Eventually, I will have access to Olly on my iPhone and iPad, too.
- Olly was designed by homeschoolers for homeschoolers and their forums are extremely helpful. Any changes we suggested have already been implemented.
One important thing to note: Any of these programs will have a learning curve. Pick one program and stick with it.
None of these were immediately intuitive to me upon first glance. I invested just enough time in them to determine the features I liked, but I didn’t spend hours learning the ins and outs of each program.
Once I decided I liked Olly, THEN I took the time to completely understand the inner workings. It took a few weeks, but it was a good use of my time. Now I can make lesson plans, assignment sheets, and report grades in a matter of minutes each week.
Are you a Mac family? What do you use? Do you prefer web-based programs?
The free Homeschool tracking and planning software that started it all.
Since 2002, we have offered Homeschool Tracker Basic Edition entirely free of charge as our service to the Homeschool community. Over that time, Homeschool Tracker Basic Edition has been downloaded by over 150,000 Homeschoolers.
The program was discontinued in 2007 in favor of our more advanced products, but it will still install and run on Microsoft Windows XP, 2000, 7, 8 and 10. There are thousands of people all around the world still using Homeschool Tracker Basic Edition successfully. You can download Basic Edition by filling out the form at the bottom of this page.
Please keep in mind that we have no plans to add or modify features of the program, and our support for this program is limited. If you are interested in a more advanced, modern, and robust record-keeping, lesson planning, and reporting system, please check out Homeschool Tracker Online.
Interested in importing your Homeschool Tracker Basic database into an online account? We can help! Just sign up for a new Homeschool Tracker subscription and e-mail us your basic database file (support@homeschooltracker.com). We'll get it imported into your new account in no time!
Homeschool Planning Printables
Homeschool Tracker Basic Edition Features
Homeschool Planning Software For Mac Download
- Track Attendance and Hours
- Manage, Copy and Reschedule Assignments
- Track Resources
- Generate Reports
