It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the ins and outs of homeschool tracking and planning. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s really just a matter of having the right tools around to keep everything on track, which is why you need to know about our favorite online planner for homeschoolers.
**I received free access to Homeschool Planet for review purposes and was paid for my time reviewing it. Also, this post contains affiliate links. You can read my full disclosure to learn more; however, I was not asked to write a positive review and all opinions here are my own.**
If you’ve spent time working through my homeschool planning series, you know that I’m a big believer in finding the planning system that works best for you. That can take a lot of trial and error, but finding that system opens allows you to put the administrative parts of homeschooling on autopilot and focus on the teaching and learning alongside your kids.
Here’s the thing about homeschool autopilot. It’s awesome, but it’s nearly impossible to DIY the autopilot. The closest I’ve come is using Trello, but even that took a TON of work to build it from scratch. And truthfully, the planning is covered, but it’s pretty limited on tracking and documentation.
That’s where Homeschool Planet steps in and saves the day. It handles the lesson planning, tracking, and all the documentation so that you don’t have to.
Homeschool Tracking and Planning with Homeschool Planet
It’s been several years since our first introduction to Homeschool Planet Online Planner. But even though I had a good grasp of this online planning system all those years ago, my favorite things about it have changed since then.
That’s because my kids were preschool and older elementary age when I began using it. As you can imagine, my recordkeeping and planning needs have changed significantly since then. Now that my oldest is nearing the end of high school and my youngest is in middle school, homeschool tracking and lesson planning matter in a way that they didn’t when I first moved to this online homeschool planner.
Whether you’re new to Homeschool Planet or simply haven’t checked it out in a while, here’s an overview of how it works and how it can help with all your planning and documentation needs.
Homeschool Lesson Planning
The actual planning part of Homeschool Planet’s online planner is efficient and easy. Also worth noting, there’s lots of guidance available to help you set it up. As for the specifics,
- You can schedule classes, specific assignments, chores, and extracurricular commitments like sports or music lessons through this planner.
- You can create separate logins for each family member and arrange it to where they can access their homeschool to-do lists.
- It can be accessed on mobile devices.
- Assignments and lessons are highly customizable.
- Rescheduling is ridiculously easy. So, if you get behind for whatever reason, it’s just a matter of deciding which rescheduling option suits your needs.
Homeschool Planet Lesson Marketplace
One of my favorite things about Homeschool Planet is their Lesson Plan Marketplace. Through the marketplace, you can search for lesson plans for lots of popular curricula. After you subscribe to the lesson plans, you can quickly plug them into your homeschool schedule.
Some of our favorite marketplace finds includes lessons from:
- Literary Adventures for Kids
- Music in Our Homeschool
- Learning Language Arts Through Literature
- The Mystery of History
- Handwriting Without Tears
- Life of Fred
- and their reading plans.
You can certainly bypass the marketplace and manually enter every lesson for every subject for every child, but it’s such a relief to know that you don’t have to! This is a feature that didn’t exist when we began using Homeschool Planet in 2016, but it’s one I can’t imagine not using now that it’s there.
Homeschool Tracking: Transcripts, Attendance, & Grades
The planning component of Homeschool Planet is great, but you can make that happen in other ways if you want. After all, making a plan for your homeschool *can* be as simple as grabbing a notebook and pencil. That said, a notebook and pencil will never track your attendance, grades, or specific assignments. A notebook or other DIY planning option also can’t provide legitimate documentation for transcript or portfolio review purposes.
That’s another way Homeschool Planet shines. The homeschool tracking and documentation process allows you to easily track, generate, and print all the standard reports needed for your own recordkeeping. These are also the documents typically needed for graduation, college admissions, and homeschool compliance on a regional or state level.
With Homeschool Planet, you can quickly provide the following homeschool tracking reports:
- Official transcript
- Assignment lists
- Grade resorts for individual classes
- Class hours
- Report cards
- Attendance
I’ve tried a lot of planning options over the years. Some were better than others, but all technically got the job done on the planning level. NONE of them could help me provide these reports, though.
All that to say, if you need to provide homeschool tracking information or official documentation for any reason, you’re going to LOVE Homeschool Planet Online Planner. It makes the documentation and recordkeeping process ridiculously easy and efficient.
Household Planning
Another important thing to know about Homeschool Planet is that it can also be home base for your household planning. I love this because, as any homeschooler knows, it’s nearly impossible to fully separate home from homeschooling.
Thanks to all of the customizable widgets, you can keep to-do lists, shopping lists, and weather info next to your homeschool lineup. Worth noting, these lists are so helpful because you can add an item here and there as it comes to mind and then print or email them to yourself or anyone in your household when it’s time to shop.
Beyond the lists, you can even directly message others from your Homeschool Planet household should you need to send a reminder or note about lessons, scheduling, or anything that comes to mind while planning or tracking your progress.
Try Homeschool Planet’s Free 30-Day Trial
Want to learn more about this homeschool tracking and planning tool? Head to Homeschool Planet to get started with your 30-day free trial.
With your trial, you can test-drive Homeschool Planet by setting up your unique schedule. You can also choose a lesson plan from the Lesson Plan Marketplace, plug it into your schedule, and see how easy it is to get organized. Better yet, your 30-day trial is a great time to check out the documentation options.
In closing, I encourage you say goodbye to homeschool planning and recordkeeping stress and let Homeschool Planet take over. I know you’re going to be blown away by how easy it is to set it up and keep your homeschool on track. Better yet, I know you’re going to love putting all of the planning and record keeping on autopilot so that you can thrive in the new homeschool year.
