Homeschoolplanet is an online planner, a fantastic tool to get your kids working independently. If you like to plan ahead, have a set sequence for your lessons, know how many pages / lessons your child is able to complete per day, have kids who have basic computer skills and are self-motivated enough to sit and study without you sitting with them, then Homeschoolplanet is a wonderful tool to have. Best online school planner I was able to find.
I have used it for almost a year and loved many of it’s features. Unfortunately it has some down sides as well (as all tools do) and I have for now paused our subscription, as our oldest son has gone to school and the younger two are not yet ready to benefit enough from it to justify the expense.
Here a list of pros and cons:
Pros
Creating lesson plans is super easy. You can for example choose a book, include the total amount of pages or lessons to read or complete and have them divided over a set amount of days. Lesson plans can be saved, edited and reused as many times as you like. A lesson can have multiple items, each can be ticked of individually. Items can include pages to read, notes with specific instructions, attached PDFs, links to websites, etc.
Many popular curricula offer pre-made lesson plans. Math Mammoth for example has a fabulous lesson plan available, which not only includes the daily lessons with page numbers, but also games for extra practice and video tutorials all with links to websites. Saves you searching for lesson enhancements yourself.
Once your lesson plan is complete you can then automatically insert it in your timetable. Lessons or tasks your child didn’t complete can very easily be rescheduled or deleted.
You can change your timetable round as you please and lessons automatically get shifted as well. If you add a day off your lessons will automatically adjust and shift to the next scheduled class.
For those not being keen on online checklists, there is an easy option to print your checklist out. You can print lists per subjects, per day / week or per student, whatever suits you best.
Cons
Lessons on Homeschoolplanet follow a certain sequence. This is great for subjects like math or spelling which are generally taught in sequence. Subjects like science or art however are often more interest and topic based and it doesn’t necessarily matter in what sequence lessons are taught. Whenever possible I like my kids to be able to pick and choose lessons depending on their mood and interest on a particular day. For that purpose a regular to do list which can be ticked off in random order works much better. Or a bunch of lessons in a folder or on a website so they can open and watch / complete them when they feel like it.
Your Homeschoolplanet schedule needs to be regularly updated. If you can’t set aside a certain time at least once a week to reschedule lessons, which have not been completed then the system becomes very difficult for your child to use. If Homeschoolplanet makes it possible for you to not have to be present all the time and your children actually complete the lessons you schedule for them on their own, then it is totally worth the effort. It doesn’t take long, as rescheduling is really very easy but you just don’t get away with skipping it too often.
Homeschoolplanet isn’t cheap. If you really use all the functions it has it is well worth the bucks but If you only use the basics you can get around it by using an ordinary to do list. Many of them are cheap or even free.
Homeschoolplanet is online, and their is no app to use instead of the website, not yet anyway. That means if the internet is down you can’t access it and you always need to go in through the browser. I like apps with widgets, one click your in, one click to add stuff. Even better are apps that just sync when you have WiFi, but info can be accessed and edited offline also. Apps are easy to use on a phone, Homeschoolplanet is painful, even on a tablet. The mobile version is very limited and slow. Unless you have reliable internet and a computer that you and your kids can access without effort involved, I would not recommend using the program. For me, that was the biggest downside. I’m a big procrastinator for any job that is painful and requires more effort than it should so I skipped my weekly updates far too many times and homeschoolplanet became a burden.
As our oldest child decided to go to school the benefits of Homeschoolplanet simply no longer outweighed the hassles. So for now my subscription is on hold. As the younger ones are getting older, especially ones they hit high school, I will probably start using it again. Hopefully the painful side will have been dealt with by then and the program will have a well working, easy to use app or at least a decent mobile version of the website.
