More and more parents are making the decision to homeschool their children each year. Doing this allows us to have more control over out children’s education, and keeps them out of a public school system that fails so many of our young people. However, this is not an easy task, especially for those who are new to teaching and education. However, advancements in homeschool software have made the job organization and education much easier for parents.
The term homeschool software is actually quite broad. Some parents are only looking for an organizational tool to help generate lesson plans, progress reports, report cards, and transcripts. Others are looking for programs that deliver the curriculum that their children will be learning.
One of the most difficult aspects of homeschooling your children is the organization of it all. This task is big enough to cause much stress, and even cause some people to give up on it altogether. You should be providing similar documents to those they would receive from a regular school. Report cards, transcripts, and diplomas will be essential when applying for a job or to college.
Homeschool record keeping software is the saving grace for all home educators. One simple program can keep track of all your student’s progress and product professional looking documents that can be submitted to colleges and employers. This will save you hours upon hours, and ensures that your student will not be disregarded by college admissions.
Programs like this range from $0-$750, with the average price somewhere near $50. It is possible to find free homeschool software, but it is often wise to pay a little bit to ensure the program does everything you need it to do.
The other type of software is homeschool curriculum software. These types of programs provide all the course material you need to teach your children. Software programs can be purchased by individual subjects or as one big group for an entire year. The full packages try to mimic the structure of a regular school and are usually purchased by the different grade levels of your typical public schools.
These types of programs take a lot of the burden off the parent, especially for subjects which they are not familiar with. However, many homeschooling parents do not like to use curriculum software, because they want to develop their children’s education on their own. This makes sense because avoiding someone else’s curriculum was the reason they decided to homeschool in the first place.
Homeschool software can be a teacher’s best friend. Most parents would not be able to handle the job if it wasn’t for the organizational capabilities of these programs. They can also be a great tool for supplementing learning, or developing a child’s full curriculum. If you have made the choice to educate your child at home make sure to look into the many different programs available.
Types of Homeschool Software
Finding the right type of homeschool software can be quite difficult, because there are so many different variations of the term. You might be searching for something used for record keeping, only to find software for learning. It is important to know what you are looking for when starting your search, as many of these programs can be quite pricey. You need to make sure the software covers your needs before you make the purchase.
Here is a quick guide on the different types of homeschool software:
Homeschool Record Keeping Software
The goal of this type of program is to handle all the administrative record keeping that is needed for home education. Attendance, report cards, and transcripts all need to be produced in a professional manner to ensure you child’s education is legitimate. This is a huge task, but there are many good software programs available that make this job easy.
Homeschool Planning Software
Some parents choose to teach their children in a very organized fashion (to keep the feel similar to “normal” schooling), while others have a more free flowing style of education. Both of these methods work great, but for the organized parent software that helps plan out each day can be a huge help. These planning programs help schedule months in advance, as well as produce daily lesson plans.
Homeschool Curriculum Software
Many parents look to experienced homeschoolers for help on the best curriculum to teach their children. In fact, there are programs that provide a full set of courses for the entire length of a child’s education. This is great for those who do not want to their children to attend public schools, but do not have the time or the ability to produce a full curriculum by themselves. Using these programs does not mean the parent is not involved, it just means they have all the information laid out for easy use.
Homeschool Supplemental Software
Supplemental educational software is great for practicing and improving a child’s learning. Programs are available for math, spelling, foreign languages, and nearly any other subject you can thing of. These are a great way to make “homework” fun and interesting for both the parent and the child. This type of program is very engaging and goes a long way to keep kids interested in a subject, and want to work more on it.
As you can see there is a wide range of software options available for those who choose to teach their children at home. The goal is to decide what your software needs are and find a program that fits all of them. There are even programs out there that cover all the different needs and are excellent all encompassing resources. Make life easy on yourself and go out and find a great piece of homeschool software today.
HOMESCHOOLPANDA
Homeschool Panda is an all-in-one software that helps you plan, budget & collaborate around your kids homeschooling needs.
Features:
- Lesson planner
- Budget & Expenses
- Calendar
Collaborate:
- Connect
- Panda-messenger
- Homeschool community
Security:
- Security
- Encryption
- Redundant storage
Available Everywhere:
- Available natively on both Android & iOS to help you continue planning even on the phone
- Cloud & Web based software means all your data is synced, backed-up & secure
HOMESCHOOLMINDER
Education is our passion. We create the world’s best software for homeschooling teachers. See what you can do with professional-grade tools at a fraction of the price.
- Drag and drop calendar events to reschedule them to different days. Click any event to edit it directly in place
- Keep track of student attendance for each day or by total hours
- See today’s schedule at a glance. Instantly edit any event or delete them when there’s been a change of plans
HOMESCHOOLMANAGER
Homeschool management software for record keeping, planning, and scheduling. Quickly track grades, print report cards and transcripts, and record time and attendance.
- Drag-and-drop tasks
- View your entire week
- Printable version
- Edit tasks on-the-fly
- Add tasks quickly and easily
HOMESCHOOLTRACKER
Homeschool Tracker is the premier online homeschool planner, record keeping, and reporting software solution trusted by over 150,000 families since 2002.
- Say goodbye to post-its, erasers, and calculators
- Save time by creating reusable lesson plans
- Grade with confidence
- Show off with professional reports
CALVERTEDUCATION
With over 100 years of experience in homeschooling, Calvert offers engaging an accredited 3–12 online academy and homeschool curriculum.
- Math
- Language Arts
- History & Geography
- Science
OLLYHOMESCHOOL
OLLY – The Organized Life and Learning Yearbook; small school lesson planner & gradebook software; homeschool planner
SONLIGHT
Purchase complete Christian homeschool curriculum for preschool through high school. Sonlight thoughtfully curates packages and products for your student.
- A complete library of books for History, Bible, and Literature
- Sonlight’s famous full-year
- Access to the Sonlight Advisors
- Sonlight Science
- Sonlight Language Arts
HOMESCHOOLACADEMY
Bridgeway Academy offers Home School Programs, Homeschool Curriculum, Programs for Home Education, Online Homeschooling Programs, and More!
- Founded in 1989, Bridgeway has been the trusted education partner for more than 30,000 K-12 students
- The homeschool program that works for the realities of your unique home and schedule
- Your students get exactly what they need, fully customized to their needs, abilities, goals, and learning style
- With Bridgeway Academy, you are never alone — your personal advisor walks with you every step of the way
Designing Your Kid’s Curriculum with Homeschool Software
Deciding to homeschool your child is one of the most difficult choices a parent can make. However, if you feel you can provide a better environment and education for your child than the school systems could, you are really doing them a huge service. Many parents do not trust the curriculum set forth by public schools, and wish to design their own. However, this can be a very difficult task and many teacher parents could use some help in this department.
Luckily, there is an incredible range of homeschool curriculum software available today. These programs range from full grade level courses to supplemental teaching materials. Each individual should decide what the goal of their child’s education should be, and choose a type of software that best suits their needs.
Many parents who choose to homeschool their kids are very demanding when it comes to what their children should learn. They want to have total control and be there to work everything out with their child. This is a great approach, and there is a ton of software out there that can be used to supplement this method. Software programs are a great way for kids to practice all the lessons they have learned, especially for subjects such as math and spelling.
When educating at home there is nothing wrong with using someone else’s curriculum. Just because you do not trust the public school system does not mean there is nobody out there you can trust besides yourself. There are many highly acclaimed full curriculum homeschool software programs available. This is a great option for those who want a better education for their children, but do not feel confident being fully responsible for it all by themselves.
These types of software programs usually attempt to have a similar structure as regular grade school. You will have to purchase a new set for each grade level. The one downside to these programs is that they can be fairly expensive, costing anywhere from $200-$900 per year. While this may seem a bit pricey the time and effort you save is well worth the money.
One type of program that any type of homeschooling parent should invest in is foreign language immersion software. It is best to start teaching children new languages at a young age, and these do a great job of teaching even if you have no experience with the language.
The job of a parent and a teacher is not easy, especially when you have to be both at the same time. Using well designed homeschool software programs is a great way to make your life easier, while at the same time improving the quality of education your child receives.
Homeschool Software for Organized Record Keeping
Nearly three million children are being homeschooled today, and the number grows each year. All parents who decide to teach their children at home must deal with the task of producing and organizing their children’s records. This is not an easy task, and can become a full time job if you do not have assistance. Professional looking record keeping is the key to make sure both potential employers and colleges recognize your child as having received a legitimate education. You would not want your child to be denied a college education because you were too unorganized to produce good records.
Some of the records that you must make sure to keep are; hours of attendance (many states require a minimum number of hours), subjects covered, and student’s aptitude (with either grades or some other legitimate method). These will be used to produce a professional looking high school transcript that is required by nearly all colleges, and is even looked at by many employers.
Homeschool software can be used to do this all automatically. While it may not seem necessary to give your children a report card, it can be a great way for both you and your child to see how they are progressing. Many car insurance agencies offer discounts for good students, so this is another way they can be useful.
Homeschool record keeping software helps ensure that you save time with better organization. Tasks done by these programs do in seconds what used to take hours for teachers to do by hand. This means you have more time to spend with your child, furthering their education and development.
It is also a great way to ensure that your child meets all of your state’s requirements for education. Even well mean home educators can make the mistake of neglecting a requirement. This type of software will make sure you have met all these standards, so you do not accidentally set your child back.
A professional looking transcript is essential if your child wants to get into the college of their choice. There is already a stigma attached to being homeschooled, so you need to be sure you show potential colleges everything they want to see before accepting your child. Doing these by hand is a near impossible task that is made easy with homeschool software.
If you are serious about your children’s homeschool education, you need to treat it as professionally as possible. Record keeping software programs are a very affordable way to do just that. You will save time and money with one of these programs and most importantly ensure that your child is seen as having a legitimate education.
Planning Your Child’s Day with Homeschool Software
One of the issues that many homeschooling parents disagree on is the structure of the education. Some believe in a rigid organization that resembles the structure of public and private schools. Others believe in a form of free flow education, where the child’s interests and strengths are target as soon as they are noticed. Neither of these is the “correct” way to do things, it all depends on your child’s needs and your skills as an educator.
The more organized group believes that a structure similar to regular schools best suits a child’s needs. They do not want to stray too far from what their kid’s friends are doing, or how they grew up with school. There is a lot of merit with this idea, but it can be very difficult to stay organized when using this method.
This is where homeschool planning software comes to the rescue. There are now very sophisticated software programs available that can help plan out the school day. Many states are beginning to require hour logs, so a software program makes compliance very simple.
If you do not use this type of software you will have to resort to using basic spreadsheets, or, even worse, nothing at all. Using this type of homeschool software will save hours of tedious planning and record keeping, and free up more time to work with your child.
The scheduling function of these software programs will help keep both you and your child on task. You can spend some time planning out the entire month and edit it along the way if necessary. If you like you can set the programs up to track each specific assignment, which is a great way to ensure you child is getting everything done they need to be doing.
As you learn how to use the software better you can adjust the schedule on the fly, depending on the needs of your child. It really puts things into perspective and will help ensure you fit everything in that needs to be studied. You will no longer need to be stressed about forgetting something, and will be able to stay on task and focused. It is also a great way to see exactly when you can take breaks and spend some time having fun with your kid.
Homeschool planning software is a very powerful tool for the home educator. Not only will it save you time, energy, and stress, but it will also keep your child focused on tasks and goals. Using this type of software creates a win-win situation for both parent and child.