Homeschool Tracker: Using what you own

I'll admit it, I'm not organized, at least not in the classroom. I have books stacked, books in the basement, books elsewhere (long story...), and books on shelves. Much of what we're doing for next year involves using what I already own, it's like a mantra, Check your shelves first!


Part of that is checking the digital shelves too. I have an old laptop, a new laptop (with nothing on it), and a dead netbook. My files and software are everywhere, stashed on a hard drive, USB drive, dead drive...One quirk of my personality is forms, I love forms and software that can create forms. Donnayoung.org is one of my favorite sites.

I needed something to help me organize our week. I don't like hand writing it and I wanted something that would save the schedule from week-to-week. Enter Homeschool Tracker. I've had it on my old laptop for years. I put it on the netbook just before its sudden death. I already have it on my new computer. However, I'm not using it the way you're supposed to. I needed the flexibility to change an assignment, we schedule over the week, not the day. So in spirit of many homeschooling parents, I tweaked.

I only own the free version. I looked at the plus version, which would be nice, but between the free version and forms from DonnaYoung, I'll be able to create what I need.

If you number the subjects they'll print in numerical order, once you change the assignment report to subject. I set the start date as Monday, end date as Friday. I put the assignments in the Notes section. I also have a last section, Z's schedule where I put an ideal schedule in the directions. I leave little blanks after the assignment so I can check it off or mark the time.

I was able to input and print seven weeks of assignments in a long morning. It looks nice, Z can see how much needs to be done each week. I have space to write. I plan on using this system next year as well. I'm not sure how we'll schedule our days, but we will use HST.

Here's a sample of our schedule. 

Hopefully this will be helpful to someone, at least take a peek into those dark corners of your computer. Dust off the cobwebs, open a few ancient PDFs, you never know what you might find. 

Self-Education Form

If you're like me you plan on doing some self-education during your tenure as a homeschooling parent. I like that part, sometimes. Sometimes, it's like running down a hill a mm in front of an ever growing snowball. You could get buried at any moment.

As with any form of chaos I feel better if I can organize it. Come to think of it, I do that with decorating projects. Tigger and I were remodeling a bathroom once. It had some funky faux marble wallboard on it. Well to help in the demolition (I'm very helpful in that way) I ripped all the wallboard down. It had been glued on years before. The big thick brown glue that leaves trails bigger than termites. Well it was a few months before Tigger to get to the scrapping of the glue, I did what I could and then I hung a bright shiny new silver toilet paper holder on the wall, right on top of the glue covered walls. It became organized, sort of. Self-education is kind of that way.

So I have created a form to help organize your self-education efforts. It's not fancy, it's basic. But you can print it off, fill it in, and file it with your other school papers. You'll feel more organized at least. I make no guarantees that you'll actually do the work, but baby steps, right?

There are two links. One is to the form with my notes attached. The other is to a blank form for your personal use. Please feel free to print as many as you need, pass along to friends, use it to line your birdcage, whatever floats your boat.

Scribd self-education form with notes

Scribd self-education form, blank

Enjoy! Now go learn something, you'll feel better.