On the subject of planning and scheduling....

[jewel7123]

What programs do you use for your daily schedules and also for lesson planning? Any great software out there that I can use to input all the information and just print it out as needed? Something with a monthly calendar would be nice also so I can schedule doctor's appointments and homeschool group events, etc. Does such a thing exist, lol?

[ahngele]

I pretty much made my own planner from a hodge podge of resources. I have not found anything computer based that I like but I do have homeschool tracker- which is not bad but I never used it. I like having an actual binder of stuff instead of doing it on the computer. We also have to turn in a portfolio at the end of the year so I keep our samples in my binder as well. I print out my monthly calender just from the windows calender on my laptop. If you have the windows calender you can put any appts/field trips ect on it and print it out. I also have pages where I list what we do each day of the week, I used pages from this
http://www.christianbook.com/record-lea ... iew=covers
As far as scheduling I don't think the free homeschool tracker has it, but the paid one might. I don't have a "planner" this year because the HOD manual is my planner, I make any additions/changes that I want via post its in the HOD book. I also have a workbox planner page from the workbox website that I use to record what I put in thier boxes, my kids have 7 boxes for them to do while I am working with the other since they are in 2 different programs. As for us I just do our schedule by inserting a table into open office and typing it up how I want it.

[Jen in Va]

I've used Homeschool Easy Records since my 20 yo was in middle school. I LOVE it. It generates daily/weekly lesson plans, progress reports, report cards, and transcripts. When he needed a transcript a couple of weeks ago to prove to the university he's transferring to that he took 3 years of foreign language in high school, I just went to his records, hit a couple of buttons, and voila! So easy.

For my youngest, all I'm doing is inputting the unit and day we are doing for Beyond and then which pages we are doing in Singapore math, as we are working ahead of Carrie's schedule due to slowing Beyond down for him. In a week or so, we'll start slowing Beyond down to 3 days a week, so on the non-HOD days, I'll be keeping track of books read, what he did for writing, etc. In the next couple of years, I'll start breaking it down more specifically by subject for him in the daily lesson plans as he does more and more independent work. That way he can just check stuff off as he goes. Right now, I'm doing the checking, so I don't need to be so very specific.

For my high school kids, I go through at some point during the summer and plan out their work for the year (for my dd, this will happen next week). Then I start with math, for instance, and start uploading her assignments for the year into the program. If we get off a few days, the lessons are easily moved to another day. I do the same for all her subjects. Time consuming on the front end, but each Monday I just go to her plans, hit print, and I have a list of her daily lessons for the week. She checks off each item as she finishes. Then when I grade, I write the grade on this sheet and put the grades on the computer at a later point. I love my HER!