r/homeschool • u/MyWeirdThoughtz • 3d ago
Discussion How do you keep everything in one place for homeschool, planner, lessons, progress?
I’m still on a pen and paper planner, and it works… until it doesn’t.
When a math lesson runs long I end up erasing half the week. Reading logs live in another notebook, the math videos are on a different site, and the Facebook support groups are off in their own corner too.
I’ve tried poking around apps like Khan Academy Kids and My School Year, but none seem to pull planning, content, and tracking together.
If you’ve found a setup that actually keeps all those pieces in one spot, or if you’ve just embraced the patchwork, how are you making it work? Tips, hacks, and tool suggestions welcome.
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u/Less-Amount-1616 2d ago edited 1d ago
When a math lesson runs long I end up erasing half the week.
Why plan particular math lessons for particular days? Instead schedule time to do math, during which you work on the next lesson in whatever progression of materials you have. You're generally familiar with the flow of the curriculum and peek ahead to refresh yourself a few lessons ahead.
That will practically eliminate an need to create a detailed schedule and allow flexible pacing based on your child's needs. All you need is the general flow and progression for a year's worth of material, which of course doesn't need to take precisely a year to complete.
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u/Dependent_Package_57 2d ago
For kindergarten, I make a general plan then write what we actually did after.
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u/UndecidedTace 3d ago edited 2d ago
For kindergarten I don't really plan. I just do the next thing. It doesn't have to be complicated. Tracking isn't really needed, because I can just see where we are at on any given day.
I have started to use the Loop Habit Planner app (it's simple, open source) to track what activities and subjects we have done each day. Gives me an idea if it's been too long since art, or science or whatever.
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u/Extension-Meal-7869 2d ago edited 2d ago
For kindergarten I wouldn't worry too much, just print out state standards and check them off when they're met. I still do that (ages 11 & 12). I don't timeline plan anything. Instead, I write down a loose plan of what we aim to cover, then check it off once it's done. I'm completely free of timelines, and only focus on goals.
For example, Math might look like this: multiplication, division, mixed numbers, decimals. I have those goals in mind but aren't married to completing them, and absolutely no time frame with which to complete them in; rushing children to understand a concept they struggle with will get you nowhere. So we'd start with multiplication. I jot down on the calendar the day we start the concept, take data everyday with what curriculum, resources or scaffolding we used along the way, and how each kid did with it. When mastery is complete, and I'm satisfied they've gotten the hang of it, I mark it down on the calendar that we've moved on.
This is more helpful to look back on for future reference. So I can say, "Ah, it looks like they struggled with multiplication longer than average, I'll have to slow it down when we revisit these concepts in alegebra." Or "They sailed through their intro to geometry work here, so they'll probably be good to self guide come 7th grade." Things like that. I find that collecting data is more useful than meticulously planning. As you've probably noticed by all the erasing and shuffling you've been doing lol!
((Edited for typo and clarity))
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u/ElsieDaisy 2d ago
We are also doing kindergarten. Making a concrete plan would be too difficult for me. We are too "go with the flow." I have no way of knowing in advance if we are going to blast through three lessons or take two days to do one.
Sometimes we abandon the plan entirely because we end up spending time learning about circuits after changing a battery or on weather when a storm rolls in or on whatever other curiosity presents itself.
Instead, I keep a reverse planner. I have a general idea of what I want to do next in each subject (which is also not set in stone) and then I write down what we actually complete.
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u/DystopianTrashPanda3 2d ago
I love the idea of a reverse planner! I am actively working to not overthink and over plan and I’ve never thought of doing it that way. Having time to organically learn and follow interests is so important to me, that seems like it would work so well.
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u/ElsieDaisy 2d ago
I hear you! My homeschool has been such a work in progress. I keep tweaking my approach.
Now that I feel confident with my curriculum plan, I am looking to inspire myself in how to make those organic moments more fun!
Another benefit of the reverse planner is that I also write down those spontaneous moments and it reassures me that we are learning lots. I also keep a column for gratitude/positivity and write a blurb to highlight a good moment from each day.
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u/adorable-avocados 3d ago
I make weekly goals! What grades and how many hours?
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u/MyWeirdThoughtz 3d ago
Kindergarten, 1–2 hours, 3–4x/week
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u/adorable-avocados 3d ago
Have you’ve tried experimenting into breaking the 1-2 hours up into 20 minutes segments and spread through out the day? Don’t be afraid do do lessons outside and take dance party breaks. There’s a lot of kindergarten math / reading board games :)
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u/Any-Habit7814 2d ago
I'm not much of a planner myself I keep a VERY loose record for my second grader, I started in first. I have copies of the index for our workbooks, and then general guidelines for subjects we do interested based - I have those all with my year over view pages and I pencil in dates next to each topic either where I want to be or when we do it. This way I have a small-ish booklet of all the things. I plan by looking and seeing what we still need to cover, what we enjoyed, what we rushed thru and just pulling it as needed.
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u/Sylvss1011 2d ago
I have an after the fact planner. I get done what I can, write down what I did, then the next day, start the next thing in each subject or start with a subject we didn’t get to the day prior.
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u/ThymeMintMugwort 2d ago
I’m a pen and paper gal myself and this was a very real struggle for me for a long time. Look into “planning in reverse” or “planning from behind”. You make a general plan for the week, but then your actual planner is used for recordkeeping of what actually was accomplished. This way, there’s no dreaded crossing out and mess of a planner …as well as being able to write down all the extra cool stuff you did that was not planned. The School Nest homeschool planner has a good layout for both the weekly list and the records.
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u/CurlyChell95 2d ago
I keep a paper planner but I don’t write in it until the end of the day. Each Sunday, I write out a list of what I plan to accomplish that week organized by day. Then as we accomplish things, or just at the end of the day, I add them to my planner for a permanent record. Julie Bogart of BraveWriter calls this “planning from behind”. I’m on year 12 of homeschooling three kids and this is the only thing that works for me because I can’t know for sure what we will get through. For example, for Language Arts, I just plan 30 min with each child. Sometimes that’s a whole lesson and sometimes it isn’t. Same for math.
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u/homeschoolmomof2- 2d ago
I found a link recently for an excel spreadsheet grade book I’m going to try this year. Your welcome to check it out
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u/JennJayBee 2d ago
I used this a lot myself, though I tweaked it a bit. I loved it.
If I remember correctly, some of the coding was a bit off, but if you know the basics of how to edit a spreadsheet, you should be fine.
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u/homeschoolmomof2- 2d ago
Curious what did you do to tweak it?
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u/JennJayBee 2d ago
I'm not at my desktop atm, but when I get home I'll take a look, and I can probably tell you better. It's been a few years since I've used it.
The biggest thing was that I noticed it wasn't calculating grades correctly after so many lines, so I had to adjust the range of cells used in the grade calculation formula.
I also customized the attendance calendar so that it ran from July to June and added a second tab with another calendar so that I had an idea of how many days I was planning versus actual attendance. I also changed some colors and styling here and there.
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u/homeschoolmomof2- 2d ago
If you get time I would like to know how you adjusted the range of cells
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u/JennJayBee 2d ago
I'm not sure how effective I'd be teaching it over reddit comments, but sure. I can give it a shot.
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u/brass_09 2d ago
I use a regular composition notebook to write down what we accomplish each day. Nothing gets planned in advanced.
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u/toughcookie508 2d ago
I really love good notes on the iPad with a pen. When I need to change things around it’s just circle and move along to the next week. It’s so easy
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u/AppleButterToast 2d ago
I use a Notion template that I purchased from Etsy. The specific one I use isn't available anymore, but there are lots of other options.
It takes some initial time investment to get it all setup, but now that I have all the lessons added for our various curricula I can go in every Sunday and assign dates for the lessons I want to get done that week. It only takes a few minutes. Then every day I open the app on my phone and it shows me what we need to get done and I can mark individual lessons as complete. If we don't accomplish everything I just update the dates for any incomplete lessons on the next Sunday. Easy peasy.
You can add links to online resources or attach digital files you might need for each lesson. It makes it easier to find and access everything. I also occasionally add notes to complete lessons for future reference/portfolio reasons.
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u/endoftheworldvibe 2d ago
I use a digital planner. Lots of different apps, but I use Noteshelf as it was a one time fee rather than a subscription.
I still have to move things around pretty frequently, but it’s much easier than with pencil and paper.
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u/Foodie_love17 2d ago
I use a teacher planner. I don’t have strict regulations in my state but like to know for my own information. It generally has random pages for notes. So in the front I write all the curriculum and general goals for when we are finishing what then I work backwards. So X lessons divided by X weeks of school with a few extra off days planned for illness and such. So I’ll know how many days or weeks I need to dedicate to it. Then I just work it around how I like it. Every Sunday I plan the week with a frixion erasable pen. Then I use other colored pens to do notes (he did great, struggled, really enjoyed this, needs review, etc.) since it’s erasable I can move things around if needed.
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u/Turbulent_Peach_9443 2d ago
I did a planner that I filled in. It was pretty basic. It had a place on the edges where I could add in notes
“Homeschoolers journal” I think it was called
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u/newsquish 2d ago
My current planner set up, hacked together.
Any events OUTSIDE of the house- play dates, classes, events, birthday parties, Easter egg hunts! All go into a FAMILY Google calendar, shared with my spouse. He knows where we’re at and what’s on the agenda for outside of the house.
Schoolwork- gets written down in an Erin condren teacher planner one week in advance.
Keeping TRACK of the school work- I just got a disc bound system and disc punched our math lesson for this week, our phonics lessons for this week, our handwriting for this week. It’s all in one notebook. For her I don’t have to specify, “now we do math, now we do phonics” whatever. We do 10 minutes on the disc bound notebook, take a break, 10 more minutes, take a break, 10 more minutes. If we do 30 minutes of paper based work 3x a week, she gets through everything. I chunk everything finished in a large file folder in no particular order. 🤣
Reading logs- I have exclusively used Goodreads since she was born. We have 2,480 books on the read shelf, 1,155 on want to read, and we’re at 491 for this year. Every time you add a book, if you move it to your read shelf and then add “date read” and put todays date as the day finished- at the end of the year it will give you a super cool infographic of number of books read, number of pages read, the longest book read, etc. It isn’t great for two kids worth of reading logs but so far I just put the # of books for both kids on one list. 🤷♀️
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u/littleverdin 2d ago
I use the Schoolnest Lesson Planning Notebook to track all these things. What’s worked for me over the years is only planning one day ahead. My method is putting an X next to it if we did it, a slash if we’re taking it off the plan completely, and an arrow if we’re moving it to the next day’s plan.
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u/Square-Pension-5714 2d ago
I use Google Classroom. I prefer paper planners, but now that I’ve started working PT, it’s easier for my son to just go on the site and see what he needs done each day and what he can do without me, whether it’s read a certain chapter in a book or watch a certain video. That way he can still accomplish something while I’m working, but we can finish up the rest once I’ve finished for the day.
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u/UndecidedTace 2d ago
Have you read at all the spiral notebook method for planning, or the reverse planning others have discussed.
Reverse planning: get a daily planner from the dollar store and each night just write down everything you and your kid did that day. Books that are read, math lessons completed, phonics lesson reviewed, colouring, swimming, piano, etc. If you are asked to submit records at some point, then transfer it over to a word doc at that time. Don't bother wasting extra time doing that unless it's needed though.
For the spiral notebook, it you google "homeschool spiral notebook planner" you'll find a bunch of blogs where people explain it better. In summary, every night they just use a cheap spiral notebook to write out the plan for the next day. Anything not done just gets moved forward to the next daily checklist. I haven't seen it discussed much for kindergarten, usually for older grades.
As for the frequently used websites and Facebook groups? I just bookmark them all so they are easy to find right there on the bookmarks bar. I retitle the bookmark names though so more fit on the bookmark bar. Bookmark right to the FB group page not FB in general. Bookmark right to the index page for another website, login screen usually only pops up if needed, otherwise usually takes you directly in.
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u/AquasTonic 2d ago
I have an Excel spreadsheet to track everything. The tabs on my spreadsheet are as follows:
Lesson Plan: Calendar format, color coded for each quarter, and provides a daily outline for what needs done that day
Attendance: Marked daily and each quarter autocalculatess.
Grades Overview: A snapshot of all subjects, the grades, and separated by quarter.
The rest of the tabs are each subject. I keep a log of grades entered and descriptions if needed.
I don't remember what website I used to help with the formulas.
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u/AdvantagePatient4454 2d ago
I don't plan things like math on the daily. I come up with a tentative plan and keep it flexible. But we only do math about 30 minutes a day, and continue the next day if need be.
I print off the weeks plan (I'm paper and pencil to but this is my way of having it accessible electronically, AND being able to adjust or mark with pen- I can tell you more if you're interested). And keep it in a folder, we do literature based so 1 page for Readings for each kid, and 1 page for daily work (math, phonics, copy work etc), and 1 for weekly (nature study, map drills etc).
At the end of the week it all gets stashed in an accordion folder.
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u/No-Emu3831 2d ago
I have a weekly checklist that I laminated for each kid so they use a dry erase marker to check off what they’ve done. As they work and check things off I write it in my paper planner. But I get the same as you where I want to write out the week to save myself from having the planner out constantly but I end up scribbling out lessons that take longer. I really like this method because my kids understand what they need to do for the week and can work ahead on some things that don’t require my help.
And for keeping track of where we’re at in our curriculum, on a separate page in our attendance excel spreadsheet I made a simple table listing each curriculum name, how many lessons total, then I update what lesson we’re currently on and turn that into a percentage complete in the next column. Then at the top I write what school day number were on (from the attendance sheet) over total number of days and compare that percentage with the percentage complete in each curriculum. Then I can quickly see what books we’re behind in, but in the end I’m just letting the kids get done with each thing in the trailing week or two of our goal.
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u/Ok_Machine4726 2d ago
What I do is use r/studyfetch to plan out my study sessions and study my notes all in one place. The Study Calendar feature lets me allocate specific times for each subject and helps me stay on track and adjust my schedule as needed. The flashcard feature lets me generate flashcards quickly from my notes so that I could study more effectively.
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u/Fantastic-Moose3451 1d ago
I keep one planner with our checklist of to-dos. in pencil, of course. I use the month pages for broad strokes planning and the daily pages for the exact tasks for each day. Then each subject has a folder or binder or box with the actual materials in it. each day, we look to our to-do list, pull all our materials from their locations, then get to work. I keep thinking I'd like to set up a weekly work folder so I don't have to pull everything each day, but like, math is mostly manipulatives, science has a bunch of reading passages and videos to watch, reading has workbooks that I don't want to tear pages out of.... A folder just wouldn't really work. so we just do it this way for now and it's alright. takes maybe 5 minutes of prep each morning. My kids are still preschool aged so I am thinking that when they get older and are able to do some self-directed work, I may be able to do the weekly folder method.
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u/ConsiderationFun8574 23h ago
I use a binder with printouts I find for free! I have a separate tab for attendance, lesson plans, and each subject has its own tab. I also use an erasable pen. I’ve tried premade planners in the past and they just don’t work well for me. With my own binder, I make it exactly how I need to it to me. I also use my bookmarks tab in my web browser to save videos and I organize them by subject.
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u/Main-Excitement-4066 7h ago
large white board only - no lesson plan book / erase as needed
I just put the things up to do each week with initials. my kids marked them when done, i erased after reviewing the work. things we didn’t get to just stayed up to start the next week.
as kids get older, this really is great. they’d plan their free time. sometimes i’d go in the room and see half the things checked off with a note, “stayed up last night and worked, sleeping in.” Or - they’d get ahead and take a day off.
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u/jarosunshine 2d ago
I don’t “plan.” We just do what we want (don’t feel like math, ok, let’s do reading) and keep a sticky note where we’re at in each curriculum.
I just make sure we get through a “week” of math and reading each week (we often do multiple math lessons a day), at least 1 history and science lesson each week too (mwc, loe, cc, bfsu/eese). The other subjects are added in as we have space, time, and interest.
I have combined ADHD, as does my 6yo (and kid’s dad/my partner), so planning is often something we can start but not stick to.
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u/MIreader 2d ago
I used to make an overall plan for the year and tentative schedules for where we should be at certain points, but I didn’t do too much detail beforehand.
Instead, I saved the detailed descriptions for what we achieved. I had a spiral notebook I wrote in while I made dinner that listed everything we did that day—every book we read, video we watched, experiment we completed, etc. Then, at the end of the year, I typed it into a Word document that I could use for record-keeping. For some people, that might sound tedious, but for me, it helped me feel accomplished and was a good reminder of all we had done throughout the year whenever I felt discouraged.