HOMESCHOOL RECORD KEEPING

I was always skeptical that a software program could help me feel more organized about homeschooling. Pencil and paper were my tools of choice. I’m a rabid note-taking, list-making organize-a-holic… so I figured I had it all under control with my monolithic homeschool 3-Ring binder (that my kids call “mommy’s brain“) – doing things the ‘old fashioned’ way.

Doing it all on paper wasn’t working for me. Sure, we could get by, but I was bogged down with it all. Never mind that my 3-Ring Binder used to weigh half as much as my SUV (until I purged it this year after digitizing a lot of my school paperwork). You all know how heavy library books are – especially when you are taking home 30 or 40 at a time. My KONOS Curriculum manuals weren’t that easy to carry around, either… and having them with me was a bit of a crutch.

If those things weren’t heavy enough, I also had the ‘stress monkey’ on my back:

1. There were piles of papers to grade.

2. I always seemed to be behind on the lesson plans because we couldn’t get to the things I planned on the correct days. I beat myself up when we are behind.

3. I was chained to my teacher’s planner book trying to write everything in that we had accomplished in the tiniest print humanly possible because the planner was created by someone else – not perfectly fit for my needs.

4. Relying on having the entire curriculum book in front of me kept me from spending ample time micro-planning my lessons… which ended up leading to ‘winging it’ (and we all know where that leads).

Etc.

TRYING IT OUT FREE

Could software really be what I needed? I certainly didn’t need more WORK. I kept hearing about Homeschool Tracker from friends. I even got a free copy of it at a homeschool conference I attended and never installed it; that was, until a friend of mine sat down and showed me how it worked for her. Visual learner that I am, I was intrigued enough to install it. After spending some time with the free version and hearing about all the neat options that the paid version had (such as a Library with a barcode scanning and ISBN entry function), I forked over the money for the “Plus” program – and have never been sorry.

FEATURES

Tracker offers a way to keep up with your school year plans for the kids in every imaginable way. It isn’t just a list or a lesson planner like I was using before with pencil and paper. It is a database that keeps track of EVERYTHING (and fits neatly in a backed up file on my USB drive).

Here are some of the things you can keep records on:

• Attendance
• Assignments (that include directions, notes, links and attachment fields)
• Grades
• Field Trips
• Goals and Progress for Teacher and Students
• Journals/Notes for Teacher and Students
• Memorization, Books and Chores for the kids
• Your home Library (What you Have and Haven’t read)
• Resources (Curriculum)
• School Year Terms/Calendar/Holidays
• Lesson Plans (reusable and easy to manipulate)
• Schedules and Calendars

and… REPORTS!

Just the report section in Homeschool Tracker alone made all the set-up time I spent worth the plunge. You can print out Assignments, Agendas, Calendars, Lists, Tasks, Field Trips, Memorization, Reading Logs, and Resources. You can print your goals, your entire home library book list, your lesson plans, and your teacher planner. It has report cards, transcripts for high-school (full page or columns), progress reports and even a “time spent/sessions” option for those in states that require it.

You can even input and print a scope and sequence, a supply list, or a borrowed items due list if you use the program to the fullest potential. It seems they have thought up every input column a homeschool mom might need and included it. I was truly impressed. [I used to be a database manager, so impressing me with software is not so easy.]

SIMPLIFYING MY JOB

The great thing about finding out that Tracker WORKS for me (after all these years of ‘doing it on my own’) is that it has simplified my teacher duties and made my life easier.

How?

• I don’t have to create manual assignment lists any more or type up my own report cards. Plus, the kids don’t have to waste time hand-writing out their own lists.
• I don’t have to hand-write chore lists or lesson plans any more.
• The program automatically populates the children’s math page assignments across a 180 day school year – skipping my chosen holidays and following my schedule! With just a few clicks – the entire year’s assignments evenly spread out without me even having to do math in my head. Just like that!
• I can reschedule my assignments in huge blocks so I don’t ever feel like I’m WAY BEHIND any more. This is a huge one for me. I hate to feel the stress of being behind. It turns me in to a drill sergeant. It’s not a pretty thing.
• I can print out a beautiful, clean, neat assignment list for the kids for the week and they can take ownership of doing the work at their own pace and turning it back to me with initials for me to grade. Did I say beautiful? And thorough, too. With notes and directions and page numbers. Oh my!
• Grading math is simplified because the program automatically calculates the percentage and letter grade based on my entry of how many problems they missed. No calculator needed. No extra steps.
• With just a few clicks, I can see how many assignments are past due without flipping through my cumbersome lesson plan binder (that tended towards chicken-scratch after the year was well on its way).
• I finally have a place to store grades that is easy to look through and even easier to create report cards for. It makes you feel like a ‘real’ teacher. [Quick, somebody put an apple on my desk!]
• If I ever have to put the kids in school, I have a professional-looking resource for printing a hard copy of all they have accomplished. Or I can just print it for fun… to pat them on the back.
• I can print a high school transcript for my kids so they can apply to colleges… instead of paying someone else to do it.

I could go on and on. But I’m starting to sound like an advertisement.

PROGRAM BENEFITS

In addition to making my life easier, I have also been impressed with the people behind the software (customer service especially). I’ve never had an unanswered technical support or program usage question to Homeschool Tracker’s team. Katie usually writes back within hours. Their discussion group provides a lot of interesting tips and moral support from other Tracker users as well. I’m a very visual learner and have greatly benefited from their free online video training. For those “read it and retain it” moms, they also have a free printable user’s manual you can download. I love helping out other Christian homeschooling families (like the creators of Homeschool Tracker) by using their American-Made products. Best of all, your Homeschool Tracker purchase (if you buy the paid version) is a one-time fee and every subsequent release and upgrade of the system is free!

A LITTLE WORK INVOLVED

I will tell you that keeping records is not an easy task. The hardest part of doing it, though, is not the maintenance part. The hardest part of keeping records is finding out WHAT works for you (your system), and SETTING IT UP. Homeschool Tracker is such an amazing tool and has so many awesome options for keeping track of every aspect of your school year that you can expect to be required some TIME to get it up and running. Some folks open it and are so overwhelmed by the options it has that they never turn it on again. There’s no magic pill in record keeping that prevents you – the teacher – from having to do SOME work.

The great thing about Tracker is that the WORK is almost entirely on the FRONT end. Maintenance is easy. You input your data and then the program can really shine. If you have been searching for something to make your record keeping easier and aren’t afraid of a little data entry and learning something new (Homeschool yourself!), I would highly recommend giving Homeschool Tracker a try.

In Him,

Sprittibee

Disclosure: I like Tracker so much that I signed up for their customer referral program. That means if you buy the program through my ‘code’ (HHGK9), I’ll make a few dollars. I purchased my own copy of Homeschool Tracker a year ago and they did not pay me for this review. My opinion is my own and was not compensated for in any way.

If you decide to purchase Tracker because of my review, please use my code and tell them Sprittibee sent you! Let me know what you think! Just type in: HHGK9 when you go to the purchase page on the Homeschool Tracker Website.

Homeschool families are at a disadvantage when it comes to getting organized. Having children at home – and even mom at home – all day adds to the mess tenfold. Just imagine: three meals a day in the house, all of the school papers and projects spread out on the floors and tables, book cases and cabinets full of educational supplies, and chores that get neglected because of other, more important learning experiences. Add these all up and you have a colossal mess: a daily challenge to overcome that tends to overwhelm even the most dedicated of organizing mamas!

You can ‘tread water’ by just tackling the urgent – laundry, dishes, floors, paperwork… but if you ever plan to get ahead, you have to create your own system – and then devote your entire family to keeping it. Everyone will have their own system – based on what works for your family. Each of us is different: different amounts of children, different types of stored things, different amounts of times in the home, etc. No matter how different all of us are, though – one thing is the same for everyone (homeschooling or not): clutter.

The first part of getting organized is getting rid of clutter. Clutter can be anything that is in the WRONG place, or things that don’t really need to be in your home any more because they aren’t being used. We all have our fair share of those types of things because for the most part, things just keep multiplying. The longer you live in one place, the more you accumulate. There are easier ways to learn to purge unneeded things than moving. It takes time, but it is so worth the effort when you can remove the mental weight of all that clutter off of your back. Clutter stresses people out. Having a place for everything and an organized system that works for YOU will give you peace of mind.

Here are some ideas to get rid of the junk and organize the things that stay:

1. Use the 3 Box System: “Keep”, “Donate”, “Trash”

Have your family pick a room together to tackle on a weekend. Just like many of the Home Improvement Television shows instruct their participating home owners to do, set out a set of boxes and start going through the closet, drawers, corners, shelves, and crannies – emptying the room down to it’s core. It’s amazing how much you will begin to ENJOY getting rid of things when you see progress. If you have more than one person doing all the work, you’ll tend to stick with the project until it is done. Better yet – enlist a third party that isn’t as sentimental as you are (someone who hates clutter and keeps a clean house is preferrable). Watch your home begin to slowly morph into an organized haven, one weekend at a a time!

2. Move things UP

Clean floors can give the illusion of a clean space – even if you have your shelves packed and your room busy with furniture. Have a rule in your home that children (and parents – remember to set the good example) can’t create floor piles. It’s tempting to just set things aside to tackle later, but stick to your guns. Utilize upward spaces… such as the wall (hang a floating shelf if you don’t have one to use) or even the ceiling (hang a stuffed animal hammock). Put things in stackable boxes in the top shelf of your closet – ones that are easy to get down and work with so your “to-do piles” can remain tucked away out of sight until you have time to work on them.

3. Light it on Fire

School projects are fun, but it isn’t realistic to keep every single toilet paper animal, macaroni necklace, overly large construction paper glitter painting, or towering clay volcano. The children might balk at the idea at first, but let them start a project scrapbook and PHOTOGRAPH these items. Make them write a paragraph or two about the fun they had making them. Then set a date to have a bonfire! Goodbye clutter, hello sneaky writing assignment!

4. Meet a Need

Freecycle and Craig’s List are great ways to give back to others in need and keep the landfill from growing. People (especially in today’s economic times) are looking for gently used items on both of these great websites. Join either one to get rid of your stuff. Craig’s List is a selling site like Ebay that charges no fee to list your items. Freecycle is a FREEBIES only site and you are allowed to give requests for needed items as well as give your things away. I have a special place in my heart for Freecycle. There was one year that I was supplied with a Christmas tree and an entire set of pots and pans by giving Freecyclers. I have even seen people giving away LAND on Freecycle. Someone else’s junk might just be your treasure. Just be sure to give away more than you bring home!

5. Thin out your drawers.

Keep only what you need. This is hard for women in the closet department… but before you start figuring out what wardrobe items to give away, tackle the areas where it is easiest. Do you need 10 kitchen skillets? 25 serving spoons? 30 boxes of dental floss? 13 boxes of primary color crayons? Start small and begin to fill a box of ‘Extras’. Before you know it, you’ll be able to donate to Good Will or list things on Freecycle. Keep reminding yourself that the less you have, the less you have to keep up with. Liberate your time by limiting your responsibilities to ‘things’.

I’d love to hear your organizing ideas. Leave me a note in the comment section and let me know what things have helped you to keep your homeschool house functioning with ease. It is an endless battle, but one we can’t afford to lose if we want to keep our sanity.