Little Homeschool on the Prairie: Homeschool Planet a Homeschool Review Crew Review

https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/homeschool-planet-free-trial/

I’m a paper and pen gal when it comes to planners in my homeschool. I remember when I started homeschooling there were two popular digital planners available. I tried them both. It was a nightmare and way too complicated so I decided to go back to my physical planner after being completely frustrated and overwhelmed.

Last year the Homeschool Review Crew had an opportunity to review Homeschool Planet from Homeschool Planet. I was curious and read many of the reviews as I wasn't reviewing it myself. I was impressed with what everyone had to say about this online planner. I decided to put down my pen and try another online planner. I received a year subscription to Homeschool Planet and I also received a free lesson plan for Math Mammoth from their new Lesson Plan Marketplace.

Some of the lesson plans are from well known curriculum:

All About Spelling

BJU Press Math

Math Mammoth

Rosetta Stone

Mystery of History

Veritas Press

..And so much more.

The Lesson Plan fills it all in for you. All I had to do was set the date I wanted to start and a few other things I had to clarify and it was put in the planner.

Homeschool Planet is an amazing online resource that works to get you some amazing prices for homeschool curriculum since 2005. They have weekly deals and group savings going all the time. They also have lots of free resources from Homeschool ID Cards and much more. I have been a member of Homeschool Planet for many years and have received some great deals on curriculum. It’s free to become a member.

Homeschool Planet is an online planner that will help you organize your homeschool schedule and much more.

The big test for me is:

Is it easy to use? I don’t want anything to complicate. Life happens and can I easily transfer individual subjects, days, or even weeks over to another date?

There are several tutorials for getting set up and for other situations that may come up while using Homeschool Planet like needing to reschedule some of your curriculum. I was impressed with the ease of being able to navigate around and to put a schedule together.

Adding my schedule into the program was easy. I added my kiddos and then put in the subject. They have color-coded subjects and you can add in your own subjects also. I can choose to put it in a set time frame or without a set time. You choose which days of the week to schedule it.

You can customize it to fill in the schedule for you. My son still has 30 lessons left in his history course and 20 lessons in his math left from last year. I was able customize it to start at lesson 130 and so forth.

You can also add the classes in individually. There are some keyboard shortcuts which allow you to add on the next day’s assignment. I still get a bit stuck with it as I forget how I did it the last time. I remember with previous online planners it literally took me hours to get everything scheduled and when the scheduled changed it was a task getting it adjusted. I didn’t find this an issue with Homeschool Planet and it didn’t take me hours to do it. I just needed to write myself a few notes so I can recall how to do it again.

They have a Rescheduling Assistant which will draw your attention to any courses that you missed when you first log in. It was so easy to do!

You can even add in a books ISBN and it will set up the details for you.

Does it keep track of attendance and grading?

Yes, it will keep track of attendance and grading. I don’t keep track of grades other than test and quizzes at this time. This is a nice feature for keeping track of grades.

You can also generate transcripts for highschool!

Can I print it out so I can have a hardcopy for my records?

Yes, I can print off daily and weekly assignments, shopping list, I can create my own list for anything.

The nice thing that I quickly discovered is that I can create multiply signs in for my kids. That is nice that they can check off the assignments they have completed.

I like that I can set up reminders with the “Daily Digest”. I receive a daily reminder on things I need to complete. You can set it up for weekly schedules also. You can set up to show up in your email or a text message.

I can make my own list and sent it to my phone or print it off!

You can also set it up to use on your mobile device also. This is a nice feature as we do school a lot on the road. I haven’t done this yet with us being in the summer mode school. I plan on doing this when I start to get serious this next school year.

Final Question is what is my overall thoughts and do I like it?

First of all I have to say that this has been the friendliest online planner that I have used. I still haven’t utilized all the bells and whistles. I’m still exploring the many features.

My son really likes it a lot. I have always typed out his weekly schedule for him. He just marks his assignments off his paper schedule and hands it back to me at the end of the week. My son likes anything with technology. He has helped me a lot with all the features.

I can see an advantage with all the products we review as I can plan out things for a few weeks and then decide whether we continue with the product or not. I can easily just add it or delete it.

I’m going to actually give this a try for the coming school year. It has so many nice features and I like that it is so easy to use.

My only reservation is that I need access to the internet. We live in a small town and don’t always have the best internet here. Or what if we don’t have power? I can access it through my phone which is a big plus and I can print off my weekly schedule so that makes me relax a bit.

This is a biggie for me to switch over to an online planner!

Also through the month of June, you can receive a free lesson plan when you sign up for a free one-month trial.

Stop by and see what other members of the Homeschool Review Crew think about Homeschool Planet.