My School Year Homeschool Record Keeping: An Online Planner Review

Planning is the worst and also my favorite!  New planners, color coded dividers, and a handy new app can always get me excited.  However, actually using the new method or supplies long term is another thing altogether and something I'm sad to say that I struggle with regularly. Today we're reviewing the Annual Membership Plan from My School Year Homeschool Record Keeping.  We talked about this online planner back in 2016 and this time around they have added some elements so we are happy to revisit it!

What We Received:

We were given a the  Annual Membership Plan to My School Year Homeschool Record Keeping which includes online access across all platforms to their program for unlimited students.

How It Works:

From first login, the program prompts you set up your school, school year/semesters, students, subjects, classes and lessons.  This program can do an enormous amount of record keeping and reporting for you depending on how you set it up and how you use it.  There is a lot of work to get everything set up properly which can be overwhelming at first.  Thankfully, they have a searchable blog full of tips, video tutorials, FAQs, downloadable guides and email/phone support for help.  The most useful and pertinent thing it can do is track courses and create a transcript, an important element on all homeschooling parents of high school students.

It also can be a great assignment tracker where students can login and check their own schedule for the day/week.  This can be especially helpful for older students working independently.  In the lesson section, it will even divide up pages and activities and assign them strategically over a section of time.  

Whether you are just keeping track of attendance,students' reading or a full grading system, this program can give you a picture of where everyone is at with a click of a button.

It also is a complete online calendar that color codes all student activities, including mom's chores and to-do lists.

In addition to all of the added tutorials and help, one of the biggest changes to the program since the last time we looked at it is the Teacher's Aid.  Under this heading, you receive notifications for things that need to be done like enrolling a student, adding lessons to a class or questions about attendance or awards.  It points out areas you may have missed or simply where you left off last.

What We Thought:

My oldest is 8 and we have yet to allow any of our kids a personal device so the immediate value of this program for our family is strictly record keeping and organization for mom.  Since I struggle with follow-through in record keeping,  MySchoolYear.com has become like a training program for me to keep track in preparation for older grades when it becomes absolutely necessary.

While this program can do a ton, it requires a ton of set up that seems daunting in the face of just a pen and paper.  However, the product of a complete record and organized assignments your independent kids can access themselves is an important thing too.  When you are willing to put in the time at the beginning watching the tutorials, reading the blog and getting everything set up, this program is a gem!  It's accessible everywhere so no matter what device you have access to, you can check someone's assignments or set up a new lesson.  

Follow My School Year on Social Media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MySchoolYearWeb
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MySchoolYear

Would you be interested in hearing from families with older children?  Check out other Crew Members' reviews to find out what their experience was.

MySchoolYear.com: A Homeschool Record Keeping Review

Besides time management skills, one of the areas I need the most work in as a homeschooling parent is organization.  That's why I was excited and hesitant all at the same time to try My School Year (Homeschool Record Keeping) from MySchoolYear.com. Even though I need help being better organized, I find it really hard to fully embrace one system either from being overwhelmed by one or needing more than another offers.  The hard truth for this free-spirited mama is that records - like attendance and transcripts - have to be kept to do right by my job as an educator.  So, my lifelong dance with organization and record keeping continues!   For this review, I received an annual membership valued at $40 (vs. the $5 monthly membership) which gave me full access to all the organizational tools, tracking, reviewing, and reporting tools, and full support and security features. From the initial browse through the website, it is clear there are a lot of things this program can do. It can track:

• Attendance (including 1/2 days, holidays, and any non-term days)
• Awards (includes date and sponsor options)
• Events (conference, contest, field trip, performance, etc.)
• Reading Log/List
• Standardized Tests
• Extra Curricular Activities (Volunteer, Sports, Organization, Internship, etc.)

It allows you to control:

• Schools
• Terms (School Years)
• Students
• Subjects

It is equipped to:

• Produce Transcripts & Report Cards
• Produce Reports of all kinds
• Create and equally divide over time lesson plans
• Copy/Repeat Lessons
• Guide you through each step with Teachers Aide
• Send email updates

The interface of the My School Year is relatively simple, clean and almost everything you need is just a click or two away.  Something I love about this program is all the varied activities it can keep track of - like field trips and performances.  Life gets so busy that it is easy to forget about different things - whether just for your own memories or for transcript purposes.  If you used this throughout a child's education, you would have all kinds of information in one place.

Due to the nature of my schedule - very fluid some weeks - and the young ages of my children, I cringe at scheduling lessons down to the hour.  One week somebody adores one subject with all the compliance in the world and then the next week it appears to be their own form of torture suddenly.  A handy tool My School Year offers is the reschedule lesson option.  When things don't go according to plan, you just rearrange things.

As they always do, the details tend to overwhelm me and this program is FULL of detail oriented options.  However, this program doesn't appear to leave anything out and for a scatter-brained girl like me, that is very useful in keeping me on track.  It was hard for me to get everything set up complete with classes and lesson plans because it took a lot of initial work in entering all the data, but I expect once the first year was under your belt, maintaining would be a lot simpler.  I would highly recommend this program for parents of middle school or high school students for the purposes of transcript needs.  

If you are in the market for a tool like this, but still aren't sure this is for you, MySchoolYear.com offers a 1 month free trial so you can know what you are purchasing.

Keep up with MySchoolYear.com on Social Media:

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/MySchoolYearWeb/

Twitter:  https:///www.twitter.com/@MySchoolYearWeb  @MySchoolYearWeb

Google+:  https://plus.google.com/+MyschoolyearWeb