Homeschool Up vs. a paper planner
Homeschool Up vs. a paper planner
A paper planner is the classic homeschool tool for good reasons: it is quick, it is calm, and writing a week out by hand is a planning act in itself. The trouble starts when the plan changes or someone asks for the record.
In short
A paper planner is a good place to think and a hard place to keep a record. Homeschool Up keeps the plan flexible (a missed day moves lessons forward automatically) and turns each tick into attendance, hours, grades and printable reports. Many families use both: paper for the week's thinking, the app for the record.
What a paper planner does well
- No screen at the table, no battery, no account.
- Writing the week by hand makes you look at every subject.
- It is easy to see a whole week at a glance and scribble notes in the margin.
- It is a keepsake.
Where it struggles
- Plans written in ink do not move. One sick week means arrows, crossings-out or a rewrite.
- Counting days and hours means going back through every page with a calculator.
- Several children means several columns per day, and the page runs out of room.
- A transcript or a year-end summary has to be typed up separately from the planner.
- One copy: if it is lost, wet or left at the co-op, so is the record.
What Homeschool Up does instead
- The next lesson is worked out each day, so a missed day costs nothing.
- Days attended and hours by subject area are counted as you go.
- Every child is on the same Today screen.
- The report card, transcript and year-end packet print from the same record.
- For families who like paper on the table, the free printables are still there.
Questions people ask
Can I print the records?
Yes. The report card, the transcript and the year-end packet are laid out to print, or to save as a PDF from the print dialog.
Do you have free printables?
Yes: an attendance sheet, a weekly lesson planner, a reading log, a high school course and credit planner, a portfolio checklist and a field trip and learning log, all free to print.
How much does it cost?
Family is $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year for up to 5 children, and Co-op plans start at $19.99 a month for 10 children. Every plan starts with a 15-day free trial, and you can cancel any time from Plan and billing. Current prices are always on the pricing page.
Keep the paper, add the record
Plan the week however you like. Tick lessons in the app and the reports take care of themselves.