Homeschool Resources for Parents
Whether you are a Miacademy parent or you prefer homeschool textbook curricula, these homeschool tools and software will make your life easier! From homeschool planners to record keeping tools, PDF editors, and study timers, we’ll cover some of our favorite tools and apps to manage your day-to-day while enhancing your overall homeschooling experience!
Homeschool Planners
A homeschool planner is a great tool for tracking daily activities, planning field trips, and ensuring your student is progressing through their curriculum! Other things you can include in a homeschool planner are:
- Goals
- To-do lists or weekly checklists
- Reading logs
- Habit trackers
Here are some great digital homeschool planners you may be interested in!
Homeschool Planet is a versatile and user-friendly online planner that allows you to customize your homeschool schedule, track assignments, and generate reports, all in one place!
Trello is a project management tool that easily adapts to a wide range of needs — including homeschooling! With its flexible boards and card system, homeschooling parents can create templates specifically for their homeschool needs.
For more information about how to use Trello for homeschooling, check out this post by Table Life Blog!
Google Sheets is a free web-based spreadsheet tool that you can use to create your own homeschool planner. If you don’t feel like starting from scratch, check out templates or tutorials online!
This post from Wildly Anchored has a great tutorial for how to create your own homeschool planner in Sheets!
Notion is a workspace and note-taking tool that lets you build your homeschool planner from scratch, offering complete customizability! It also comes with databases, task lists, and content blocks to keep you organized and on track.
In addition, with Notion, you can easily explore hundreds of user-made templates! While most are free, some do cost a small fee to use. You can also check out Notion tutorials on YouTube to build your own!
Planbook is an online lesson planning tool specifically designed for teachers and homeschoolers. It allows you to plan lessons, track progress, and share your schedules with others.
Record Keeping & Attendance
Accurate records can help you track your student’s learning journey and provide valuable placement information, should they return to public school. Tracking attendance and maintaining good records may actually be required by law, depending on the state you live in. If you use Miacademy, all grades, attendance, and progress are automatically recorded for you!
- Homeschool Tracker (Basic Version)
Homeschool Tracker offers a free basic version with essential features like attendance tracking, lesson planning, and simple record keeping. The paid version adds more advanced features, but the basic features are enough for many.
Homeschool Skedtrack is a free, web-based homeschool planner and record keeping tool. You can track attendance, grades, and assignments all in one place, with automatic rescheduling if a day is missed.
PDF Editors
There are so many great tools and resources available for download on the web! PDFs are a universal, easily accessible file format, but printed documents can really stack up! Here are some tools that make drawing on, filling out, and customizing PDFs easy!
We recommend Canva for those who prefer to save paper and ink! It’s free to use and lets you edit everything, so you can add and remove any elements you’d like! Canva also comes with a text editor, pen tools, and fun stickers and shapes!
We also have a helpful video tutorial for families using Canva with Miacademy PDFs!
Smallpdf offers a wide range of PDF tools, including editing, merging, splitting, compressing, and converting PDFs. The free version allows limited daily access to their web-based services.
ILovePDF is another popular online tool that offers various PDF editing features, including adding text, using pen tools, splitting, merging, and more. It’s free to use with a daily limit.
Kami is a digital classroom platform that allows students and teachers to collaborate on documents, PDFs, and other learning materials in real time. It provides tools for annotating, drawing, and text editing, ideal for remote learning and note taking.
Productivity Software
The perfect productivity tool can help you step up your homeschool game! Whether it’s blocking distractions, taking notes, or keeping all your files in one place, these tools give you more time to focus on what matters most — teaching your kids!
Freedom blocks websites and apps across all of your devices to minimize distractions and boost productivity. Freedom can be a great tool to boost productivity and prevent digital distractions.
Similar to Freedom, but without the cross-device capabilities, Cold Turkey allows you to block distracting websites, apps, and games on your computer to maintain focus during work or study sessions.
This app is based on the Pomodoro Technique, which uses timed work intervals (usually 25 minutes) followed by short breaks to enhance productivity and prevent mental fatigue.
Desmos is a powerful online graphing calculator for plotting functions, creating tables, and solving algebraic equations. They also have options for four-function and scientific calculators as well.
Evernote is a note-taking and task management app that organizes notes, to-do lists, and documents in one place, accessible across devices.
If you’re not using it already, Google Drive offers 15 gigabytes of free cloud storage. With Google Drive, you can store, share, and edit your files from anywhere.
Additional Parent Resources & How-To’s
Starting to homeschool can feel a bit overwhelming, but with the right resources, it quickly becomes an exciting and rewarding journey. Whether you’re looking for state resources and fun activities or just wondering where to start, Miacademy has a ton of resources to help make the transition to homeschool easy! Here are a few of our helpful articles:
- Homeschooling State Laws
- State Funding for Homeschool Families
- How to Switch to Homeschool
- Deschooling: A Guide for New Homeschooling Parents
- How to Make Homeschooling Fun
- Homeschooling Tips for Staying Organized and Focused
What Resources Do I Need for Miacademy?
Our all-inclusive online homeschool curriculum is designed to be used with little to no supplementation! Powerful parent tools track all grades, attendance, and course scheduling for you with just a few clicks! However, many parents do enjoy using additional resources to enhance their Miacademy experience. The answer to the question of what resource to use is — anything that makes your life easier! Many of our Miacademy families recommend:
- Canva
- Goodnotes
- Notability
- Kami
Transform Your Homeschool with Miacademy!
Homeschooling can be both rewarding and challenging, but with the right tools, you can make the journey more enjoyable for everyone. Whether you’re planning lessons, organizing records, or just keeping a daily to-do list, these tools can help you create your ideal homeschool schedule and stick to it too!
At Miacademy, we strive to make homeschooling as seamless as possible. Our comprehensive curriculum and parent tools track grades, attendance, and progress with ease. Ready to simplify your homeschool experience? Explore Miacademy today and discover how we can support your family’s unique learning journey!