For those who use Homeschool Helper

[diokos]

I was wondering how detailed you enter your lesson plans on here.  There isn't much space for details-do you have a paper planner or computer file somewhere with more specific details?  We're bringing our 8th grader back home this year and I'm hoping to have her pretty much independent; will this app do it, or do I need another planner of some sort for her?  Also seems like it could get very time consuming to enter too many details in here-do you have tips or examples of how you do this to make it easy to work with (easy for entry, for student use, and for records)?

[Momling]

I've used homeschool helper for a couple of years and am quite happy with it. It's a little annoying to input the lessons at first, but once done, it's great. I do all planning over the summer and surprisingly manage to stick with my plans for the most part.

 

I set my custom dates for vacations first. I don't like using their holidays since we definitely work over Columbus Day and such. For several subjects like math, I do a batch entry of 180 lessons that looks like this: "Lesson ". Then once I have the dates right, I go in afterwards and add in the numbers so it looks like this: "Lesson 2-5, 1-43 odds" Some days get changed to "Chapter 2 test" or something. Science is also batch entries: "Read & questions p. " and then I'll add in the numbers "Read & questions p. 214-226". On days when I've planned an activity or game or experiment or documentary, I just erase the note and change it to whatever we're doing -- i.e., "Write lab report". History is too varied for batch entries, so it looks like "Read ch 25 and outline" or "Watch Am. Exp. - Triangle Shirtwaist Fire" or "RLAH - populism". I use lots of abbreviations. English has some batch entries -- like I might do a week for a novel study... So I'd do a batch entry of five lessons: "Read Great Gatsby ch. " and I'll add in numbers to make,for example ,"Read Great Gatsby ch. 1-10". This year we're doing a study skills class. So I did a batch entry for like 35 Mondays that say "How to be a superstar student" and 35 Tuesdays are "SAT verbal prep" and 35 Wednesdays are "Current Events". This class will be more fluid, and I'll probably change things up, so for now it's pretty vague with no page numbers.

 

I don't use anything more than just the lesson note in homeschool helper. In the morning while my daughter gets to work on math, I look up the plan and prep what I need to do for the day (find a youtube video, print off a worksheet online, make a test). I'm not too rigid and often change things a little if I've over or underestimated what we can get through or if a surprise orthodontist appointment takes up the morning.

 

I hope this helps!

[JanetC]

The only lesson plans that get into Homeschool Helper are for "just turn the page" kind of things -- i.e. Lesson 1A, etc.

 

The rest are in OneNote (used to use Evernote). I used to still use HH as my grade book for those classes, but I ended up embedding an excel spreadsheet in my OneNote for the grade book for those classes instead, since all the microsoft office stuff plays together nicely.