I've decided to give Homeschool Tracker Online another try this year. At this point I'm not trying to figure out how it works. I've spent a couple of years using it and figuring it out already. HST like most home school record keeping software has a learning curve. I have quit using it several times and have tried other programs in between, but now I think I have a better understanding of how best to use it for my purposes. So....Here we go again.
Being familiar with the program allows me to better use it as a planning tool, not merely a record keeping tool. It is quite flexible and can be used to enter assignments after they've been done or before as lesson plans or assignments. I think the hardest part has been figuring out what will work best for my planning and record keeping style.
In the past, I have used it to print daily task lists for each student, course descriptions, and report card, and several other ways. This year I will use it to make lesson plans, to print out check lists. and for keeping records of grades. Something I don't do until high school.
I have different ways that I plan for different subjects.
- For subjects that I don't need a lot of specifics up front and will be repeated daily, I make a Lesson plan called weekly assignments - and the student name. One example of an item in this lesson plan would be Bible. My son is doing Bible study independently this year using The Most Important Thing You'll Ever Study. I enter five assignments in this lesson plan for Bible, one for each day of the week. For the "Topic" field I enter "Study your Bible for 20 min." In the "Directions" field I put a note asking the student to write the scripture passage read that day. This way when I am marking assignments as completed at the end of the week I can also enter the passage studied. All other assignments in in this "Weekly Assignments" lesson plan are similar. Once you've entered all assignments for the week, it can be used to schedule them for a week at a time, a semester at a time, or for the entire year. It's like a skeleton of assignments that has to be thought out once, but can be used over and over again.
- For subjects that have specific assignments that are different each day, I enter them as a separate lesson plan for each subject. One example for this would be Ambleside Online reading lists. I'll make a lesson plan for each term of the year we are studying. I'll enter specifics for each assignments, and group them by week. I schedule them a week at a time.
- Last but not least. I like to enter things that come up spontaneously during our days. This way they become part of our learning record. If we go to a symphony, an art museum, watch a documentary, or do a weekend art project, I'll make sure to enter it at the end of the week. Our morning time items, which will be kept in a spiral bound paper planner (because I still need this kind of loveliness in my life) will also be entered into HST at the end of the week.
It is hard to write about planning that is this detailed without actually looking at it and hard to see the benefits of it without seeing the final outcome. I hope to share more as I go along planning this summer, and then using those plans throughout the year.
