Homeschool Record Keeping With Homeschool Tracker

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,

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.

* This post originally posted at Complete Organizing Solutions