I can NOT figure out HST+

[abreakfromlife]

and I'm about ready to lose it. I've watched the videos and I can't get it. I feel so dumb and frustrated!!!

 

I can't tell if I'm supposed to be in Weekly Planner or Lesson Planner or what!! Here is what I'm trying to do: Schedule reading 1 chapter a day out of a book, for 2 kids.

Then for one of the kids, also have her outline corresponding pages in History of the World once a week, and do notebooking pages with extra reading 2 days a week.

 

How can I not figure out how to input that???????????? :banghead::banghead::banghead:

[HootyTooty]

Try this:

In Weekly planner hit New from the menu. Choose assignment.

Fill in the info you would like.

Then click on copy. (if it is the same for both kids choose both of them)

Choose Repeat over date Range

Choose the option (copy the same thing over and over or auto increment)

Then on the right choose the days you want to do this on. (M-F, or once a week)

Select your date range

Hit preview

And if you like it hit submit.

 

There are many ways input info into HST. I usually create a lesson plan then input things, but you can also do it the way I explain above for an activity you are pretty much doing the same way over a period of time.

 

Did I make that as clear as mud?

:lol:

[abreakfromlife]

ok...that worked, but it only shows up on the student assignment page. It won't show up on the weekly planner page or lesson plan page.....:confused::confused:

[abreakfromlife]

maybe I'm starting to get it....I did the same thing only in the lesson plan part and it worked.....This better be worth all the hassle :tongue_smilie:

[chepyl]

I did not like HST or HST+ at all. I find that Edu-Track is much easier to navigate.

[abreakfromlife]

Then for one of the kids, also have her outline corresponding pages in History of the World once a week, and do notebooking pages with extra reading 2 days a week.

 

Ok so I could do that the same way you outlined above, but that would only show up on the assignment page. I want it to show up in the lesson plan section, but under the same subject, just under a different course. I have a course for 'notebooking' and a course for 'outlining'. How do I enter that and have it show up???? I am hating HST right now. I'm just trusting everyone's reviews that it will really be so helpful in the end.

[boscopup]

I would put this in the Lesson Planner, not the Weekly Planner. I assume you're reading a specific book? I use the Weekly Planner for things that don't have lesson plans - like practicing the piano or doing math fact practice for 15 minutes. That sort of thing that just repeats over and over but has no details to it.

 

For what you want to do, I'd open up the Lesson Planner and make a lesson plan for History (name it whatever you want). Now create a new lesson (Add button), select the resource (you can add the book at this point if you need to - use the ISBN lookup feature!), set your subject/course/etc. details, then hit the Copy button. Select "Auto-increment Page/Lesson/Chapter". Under "First Part", select "Chapter" from the Leading Text dropdown box. Then you want it to start with 1, increment by 2, and end with however many chapters there are in the book. This will automatically create lessons that are like Chapter 1-2, Chapter 3-4, etc. Now hit OK and look where it talks about sequence numbers. I usually start on 1 and then increment by some number that makes sense to me. You might increment by 1 (so it'd be 1, 2, 3, 4), or in some cases you might like to throw stuff inbetween and just pick some random number to increment (like 5 or 10). It really doesn't matter. It will submit assignments in sequence order, whatever the increment is. Now, hit OK and you have all of your reading assignments. These will be assigned to both kids.

 

Since you have one kid doing extra stuff and one not, I'd probably create a separate lesson plan for the extra stuff for the one kid (note that I haven't used HST+ for multiple kids yet, so someone doing so might have better ideas at this point!). So in that plan, I'd probably figure out how many days a week you're doing it - let's go with 4 for this example. Now you want outlining one day a week, so create a lesson (in this new plan - History Extras - or whatever you want to call it), make a lesson for outlining, copy it and do the chapter thing again like you did with the other one. This time when you do the sequence numbers, I'd have an increment of 4, so it will be 1, 5, 9, etc. We'll fill in the other sequence numbers with the other lessons. Repeat this process with the notebooking pages, but do the sequence numbers starting on 2 with an increment of 4 (so it's 2, 6, 10, etc.). Then repeat the process with the extra reading (don't fill out the resources at this point), but do it twice so you'll start with 3 with an increment of 4, then do the same thing again starting with 4 with an increment of 4. Now you have a bunch of lessons. If you set activities when creating the 4 initial lessons ("outlining", "notebooking", "reading"), you can then group the reading lessons together for editing by dragging the Activity column header up into the space above the headers. Now you go down to the reading activity group and start adding resources in and making any notes you want to make.

 

With the activities, you could probably technically put these in the same lesson plan as the other history reading if you made the activity names different (like "group reading" vs. "extra reading" or something like that).

 

Ok, now go to the LP Schedules tab (under Teacher tab) and set up your schedule the way you want it. Tell it what days you want to do the regular history reading (set this up for both kids), and tell it what days you want to do the other activities (for the one kid that does those). Now when you go to submit, you can select both kids, submit using LP Schedule (that's an option that you select), and tell it both kids. It will put the lessons on the appropriate kid based on the LP Schedule (so if Kid #2 doesn't have an LP Schedule entry for outlining, the outlining lesson won't go on that kid's assignment grid).

 

So this is long winded and hopefully you can follow it, because my MIL called in the middle of it. :lol:

[boscopup]

Ok so I could do that the same way you outlined above, but that would only show up on the assignment page. I want it to show up in the lesson plan section, but under the same subject, just under a different course. I have a course for 'notebooking' and a course for 'outlining'. How do I enter that and have it show up???? I am hating HST right now. I'm just trusting everyone's reviews that it will really be so helpful in the end.

 

Why do you need separate courses? This is all for history, right? I'd just make them all one history course. The activities can be different, but the courses would be the same. I have the subject "history", and then my course is "World History". I have many different activities in that same course - reading STOW, narration, extra reading from Usborne, extra reading from library books. They're all in one course and one lesson plan.

[abreakfromlife]

So in that plan, I'd probably figure out how many days a week you're doing it - let's go with 4 for this example. Now you want extra reading one day a week, so create a lesson (in this new plan - History Extras - or whatever you want to call it), make a lesson for outlining, copy it and do the chapter thing again like you did with the other one. This time when you do the sequence numbers, I'd have an increment of 4, so it will be 1, 5, 9, etc. We'll fill in the other sequence numbers with the other lessons. Repeat this process with the notebooking pages, but do the sequence numbers starting on 2 with an increment of 4 (so it's 2, 6, 10, etc.). Then repeat the process with the extra reading (don't fill out the resources at this point), but do it twice so you'll start with 3 with an increment of 4, then do the same thing again starting with 4 with an increment of 4. Now you have a bunch of lessons.

 

This makes so much sense. I think I can follow it, lol. Thank you!

[boscopup]

This makes so much sense. I think I can follow it, lol. Thank you!

 

I'm glad you can, because I don't know that I can! :lol:

[abreakfromlife]

 

Why do you need separate courses? This is all for history, right? I'd just make them all one history course. The activities can be different, but the courses would be the same. I have the subject "history", and then my course is "World History". I have many different activities in that same course - reading STOW, narration, extra reading from Usborne, extra reading from library books. They're all in one course and one lesson plan.

because I don't know what I'm doing :lol:

[abreakfromlife]

oh, I know why! It made me put a course name and pick an activity. I tried leaving the course area blank and it wouldn't let me. I don't get the 'code' or nickname part of it either. Seems dumb.

[boscopup]

oh, I know why! It made me put a course name and pick an activity. I tried leaving the course area blank and it wouldn't let me. I don't get the 'code' or nickname part of it either. Seems dumb.

 

I forget in which cases courses are required and which cases they aren't. I do have courses set up (I know the people on the HST+ board say you don't have to use them for younger years, but I saw no way around it).

 

So I have subject "History" with course "World History". I have a Lesson Plan named "SOTW1 - Ancient History", and all the lessons in there are in the "World History" course.

 

To edit the activities all at once, you can go to the Maintenance Tab and select Subjects/Courses. Click on a course, and you can move Activities over from the left side to the right side in the list. You can also add activities there. Alternately, when creating a lesson, if you find you need a new activity, where it has the activity drop down, select "Add new", and it will let you add an activity to that course.

 

So then in the LP Schedules, you can have "World History" with an activity of "Outlining" on a certain day, and all of the outlining activities will show up only on that day when you submit.

 

It takes some time using the program to figure out what is what, but once you get past that learning curve, it is very easy to use and very powerful. The main thing I haven't liked is the reports, as they are not quite as flexible as I would like. But they're not awful either. There are a lot of choices. Just not necessarily the choices I want. But for lesson planning, I haven't run into anything I needed that it didn't provide. I just had to learn how to do it and how to set things up (I think setting things up like you're learning now is the hardest part of the program). Now using the program is quick and easy, and adding a new lesson plan for an entire curriculum takes very little time.

[abreakfromlife]

 

Now using the program is quick and easy, and adding a new lesson plan for an entire curriculum takes very little time.

That's what I'm hoping. I have all of history for 1 kid done and in and showing up on the right days, so I must be getting somewhere. Thank you so much. You're so much more helpful than those videos!!

[smile.its.me]

:bigear: subbing...

 

this was certainly helpful for me! thanks!