homeschool skedtrack and/or other planners

[elizawill]

i know this has been popular in the past with some folks. anyone still using it and liking it? i'm *entertaining* the idea of using something online for our next year, but it seems like such a pain in the booty! just setting up the account seems difficult! lol. i normally record what we do as we finish doing it & i've made up my own record keeping system in a word doc (which i love!). i'd like to be a little more organized though and plan 6 weeks out at a time (with a little elbow room still). i prefer writing things down, but i thought less paper would be a kinder route. anyway, i'd love to hear from people that actually plan ahead and use an online program like skedtrack... or if you plan out 6 weeks with paper, what do you use? (free is preferred, but cheap is okay too). donnayoung is similar to what i already have, so other suggestions would be appreciated. TIA.

[heatherdeg]

Rushing right now. I'm a planner at heart but have an easier time with pencil/paper for this kind of thing. That being said, I DID really like Skedtrack. You DO get used to it and I liked that if I didn't do something for, let's say 6 weeks--Skedtrack kept it there waiting for me without any bright red flashing lights saying "YOU MISSED THIS!". So I liked that for sure.

And I liked that you could print it out to satisfy my need to have my papers until I weaned completely.

We've gone unschooling and I haven't touched it in a while. But not due to anything related to the product.

[dotnetdiva]

I'm still a huge Skedtrack fan!

I plan ahead for probably half a year at a time. Whatever we don't cover I can slide on over to the next semester (I separate out into spring, summer and fall). But for those things I do keep on schedule with, having that all laid out is extremely motivating for me, especially when I can see what dates we'll be hitting certain lessons.

[elizawill]

thank you! i suppose i will watch the tutorials & attempt to plug in some info. hopefully it will seem easier as i play around with it; right now it just seems time consuming i definitely want simplicity & ease, so it may be a good fit from what you've both shared. thanks again!

[Ravin]

I toyed around with skedtrack at one point, but I've found that a paper planner works best for me. I can see it all there, erase stuff (I write things in pencil). I plan out at least a semester, actually I'd like to get the whole year planned for the coming year. If DD falls behind or is going faster (in math or something) I can just use the eraser and revise things. I make my own planner so it has exactly the boxes I need, and I change it up from year to year.

[Daffodil103]

When Skedtrack first came up I dismissed it because it was on-line based. I tried HST Basic but I just couldn't make it work for me. I started using Skedtrack about a month or so ago & am liking it. Yes, it took a bit of poking around to to fully 'get it' but I think it's worth the time.

What initially threw me off was how lesson plans were based on sequence, not date. Now that I've used it, sequence makes sense. If we don't do it, it gets bumped to be next day. Pretty flexible too. I think you can make it as detailed or as skimpy as you like.

I like that I can just print up the day's activities & hand them over to my younger, very self-directed learner. I can't really do the program justice right now, (too tired to think coherently) but highly recommend it.

One downside? You can't work on two different school years so I've just altered the start & end dates so I can finish this year while starting to map out next year.