Homeschool Tracker+ questions for those...

[swimmermom3]

I have some questions for those of you who use Homeschool Tracker Plus and write the majority of your own curriculum. I bought the program a couple of years ago and tried to use it with Sonlight. It drove me nuts. The input alone took forever and then it wasn't very easy to shift things around. I am assuming I didn't do it right. Anyway, the number of spreadsheets I have going right now is also driving me nuts. Can I use HST if I am writing my own history, writing, literature, and science? Do I have to have everything spelled out in advance before I input it? How flexible will it be if I want to make major changes during the year?

 

If all of this is feasible, then where would be the best place to start? I build everything around the history portion except math, grammar, vocabulary, and foreign languages. I have to admit that I can barely summon up the courage to drag myself back to the Yahoo group and then of course there is the manual...:tongue_smilie:

[Matryoshka]

Super duper easy. I just make a lesson plan for each book I'm using, and assign them weekly. A course may use many books, but I only put one book into each lesson plan - then it's easy to mix things up and rearrange as needed, and I always know where I am. It also makes it really easy to input the lesson plan, as you only have to split each lesson up by pages or chapter or section, and often you can use the auto-increment feature.

 

It's even easier if you use the LP schedules and work out about what you want to do when, then it automatically assigns lessons to the right days and times when you submit them. And it's just as easy to override that and assign it somewhere else if your week isn't "normal".

 

It may be helpful to watch the videos - there's even one on how to best use HST+ depending on what your homeschooling style is. There's also one on how to use auto-increment even if you have periodic breaks like labs or tests - you can enter them first and then assign the "normal" lessons and it will automatically order and number them correctly.

 

I don't have a manual nor am I on the Yahoo group. After the videos, any questions I needed answered I asked on their forum, and got a direct answer from someone at the company within hours.

[Caryl]

Can I use HST if I am writing my own history, writing, literature, and science?

 

Yes- this is actually one of the reasons I really like HST. I can plan a course using a number of materials or my own plans, and mix them up however I want. I can save all those lessons plans for each resource and re-use them in a different way with a different child later. I can also make notes to myself during the planning stage so I don't forget what I planned to do with a particular assignment (e.g., have the student work independently, 1 on 1 with me, or with a sibling). I also like the goals field, so I can remind myself why I'm doing it :tongue_smilie:

 

. Do I have to have everything spelled out in advance before I input it? How flexible will it be if I want to make major changes during the year?

 

You can actually enter what you did after you do it. I like to enter a lesson plan in one sitting so I don't lose track of where I am, but many people use HST to record what was done after the fact. It is super easy to move stuff around.

 

I have to admit that I can barely summon up the courage to drag myself back to the Yahoo group and then of course there is the manual...:tongue_smilie:

 

It was much easier to watch the videos and then ask questions (and read some on HST's forum, not the yahoo group). The manual made more sense to me after doing so. I have been impressed with how quickly the HST folks (mostly Katie Gentile) will respond back.

 

I still do course planning on paper, and keep a cheat sheet over my desk that says what each kid is supposed to be doing in each time block so I don't forget to assign a resource.

 

HST really shines for inputting resources that repeat. It only takes about 20 minutes to put in a whole year's worth of, say, Saxon, because the assignments are very similar from day to day. I just have to change the chapter #. Some take longer because I like to put the title of the lesson- helps me keep track of what they are doing (say, learning to multiply fractions).

 

I've found the lesson plans that other people have available (on the yahoo lists) to be a mixed blessing. Some of them have saved me time, but some of them required so much tweaking that I would have been better off just inputting the info myself.

[swimmermom3]

I think my head is already spinning. Let's say I am going to spend two weeks on Islam. For history, I am using The Story of Islam, Islam: Empire of Faith (PBS),and Mosque. There will be resources for literature and science as well as some writing and mapping assignments. Do I put this all under one lesson plan since it is the same topic? I don't know exactly when I will use it in the course. Do I have to keep things separated by course? Are you laughing right now, matroyshka? I would be.:tongue_smilie:

[swimmermom3]

Caryl, thanks so much. I probably just need to bite the bullet, go watch the videos and reacquaint myself with the program. My fear is that the learning curve will be so steep that I will use up valuable planning time. I have moved away from planning on paper to planning on my computer because I need to move stuff around so frequently.

[Matryoshka]

I think my head is already spinning. Let's say I am going to spend two weeks on Islam. For history, I am using The Story of Islam, Islam: Empire of Faith (PBS),and Mosque. There will be resources for literature and science as well as some writing and mapping assignments. Do I put this all under one lesson plan since it is the same topic? I don't know exactly when I will use it in the course. Do I have to keep things separated by course? Are you laughing right now, matroyshka? I would be.:tongue_smilie:

 

If you're going to read a book over the course of a school year, or semester, or number of months, then one lesson plan per book.

 

But for a book assigment for history read over a number of days, I just assign the book as a whole. I actually have always made my own history in a very similar manner to what you mention. My plan about how major rescources interact is in a table in Word, followed by a detailed reading list sorted by time period in the same Word document. Then I enter things into HST as I assign them or even after they're done. If I want my kids to watch a PBS video, I don't put it on their daily work list, I just have them watch it and then record that they did it.

 

For reading, well, I have twins and I don't have two copies of all the books. For historical fiction, they pick out which book on my list they'll read next, and then I put it into their reading log (which can show up on their assignment list), and check it off when done, rather than into their assignment grid, so while I have one master plan, their individual assigments on different days will show different books. This even works for using differen books entirely for my youngest. For a book that I assign a bit at a time but in only a few chunks (like the World in Ancient Times books), I enter them into the assignment grid manually as they come up. A book I'm using over a longer period of time and need broken up into lots of little chunks (like Gombrich's Little History of the World), I have a lesson plan for just that book and assign the next bit as we get to it.

 

For extra writing assignments and such, I am sometimes vague in how I enter them - I have some pages copied from the K12 student pages in a binder, the assigment is to complete them, whether they be writing or mapping.