The short answer
A homeschool planner spreadsheet works when you set it up once, log a little every day, and let the spreadsheet do the counting. You enter the attendance, the hours, and the grades. It adds up the days, totals the hours, works out the GPA, and shows you each month whether you are on track. The three worries in the paragraph above are exactly what it is built to answer, and this article shows you how, step by step.
The three worries it answers
The first worry is attendance and hours. At the end of the year, someone may ask how many days your child was in school and how many hours they studied. If you kept it in your head, or on scraps of paper, you will spend a weekend reconstructing it, and you will not be sure it is right. A planner records it as you go, one small entry a day, so the answer is already there when it is asked for.
The second worry is the GPA. A gradebook that adds wrong, or a GPA worked out by hand from the wrong courses, is the kind of mistake that only shows up when it matters most, on a transcript. A planner that calculates the GPA from the grades you enter removes the arithmetic from the job entirely.
The third worry is the state requirements. Every state has its own rules, and they are not the same. A planner with a State Requirements tab keeps those rules next to your records, so you check them before the year starts, not after it ends.
Our spreadsheet, Homeschool Planning 365, is built around those three worries. It covers up to six children in one workbook, with tabs for attendance, hours, the gradebook, a monthly summary, and state requirements. The sample year in it has 183 school days and 25 courses, and its worked example GPA is 3.20, so you can see the method working before you put your own children in.
Step 1: Set up the school year
Start on the Start Here page. Set the school year start and end dates, your target number of school days, and how many days a week you teach. Then add your children and their courses. This is the only part that takes any real time, and it takes it once.
Setting the target number of days first matters, because everything else is measured against it. The attendance tab counts your days toward that target, and the monthly summary shows you whether you are ahead or behind. Without a target, you are counting without knowing what you are counting toward.
Step 2: Log attendance every day, in two minutes
Attendance is the habit that makes the whole planner work, and it takes about two minutes a day. Each day, mark who was there and who was not, and note the reason when a child is absent or sick. Do it at the end of the school day, while you still remember it. Do not save it for the weekend, and never save it for the end of the term, because that is when the gaps appear.
The attendance tab adds the days up for you, per child, so you always know where each child stands against the target. If a child is behind, you see it in October, when there is still time to catch up, not in May, when there is not.
Step 3: Log hours as you go
Hours are the second daily habit. When a subject is taught, log the time in the Hours Log. Log it the same day, while it is fresh. Hours that are logged late are hours that are guessed, and guessed hours are the ones that do not add up when they are checked.
The Hours Log totals the hours by subject and by child, so you can see at a glance how the year is balanced. If one subject is getting all the hours and another is getting none, the log shows it while there is still time to rebalance.
Step 4: Enter grades, and let the gradebook work out the GPA
When a course is finished, or when a grading period ends, enter the grade in the gradebook. The gradebook works out the GPA from the grades you entered, so the arithmetic is not yours to get wrong.
That is the whole point of a gradebook in a spreadsheet. A GPA worked out by hand is a GPA that can be worked out wrong. A GPA worked out by the spreadsheet is the same every time, and it is built from the same grades that appear on the transcript. In the sample year, 25 courses work out to a GPA of 3.20, and you can follow every step of that calculation in the sample before you enter your own grades.
Step 5: Check the monthly summary
Once a month, open the Monthly Summary. It shows you the attendance, the hours, and the progress for the month, per child, in one place. This is the check that keeps a small problem small. A child who is two days behind in October is a child you can catch up. A child who is twenty days behind in May is a child you cannot.
The monthly check takes ten minutes. It is the most useful ten minutes in the homeschool month, because it is the moment when you find out whether the plan is working while there is still time to change it.
Step 6: Check the state requirements before you need them
Before the school year starts, open the State Requirements tab and read what your state asks for. States differ in what they require: some set a number of school days or hours, some ask for certain subjects, some ask for records or assessments. The rules are yours to check, and the tab is where you keep them next to your records.
If you need more detail than the tab gives, the Complete Kit adds a 50-state guide, so you can look up your own state’s rules in full. Either way, check the rules first. A requirement discovered in June is a requirement you cannot meet in June.
What to do next
If you want a planner that works the way this article describes, you can see Homeschool Planning 365 in the shop at homeschoolplanner365.com. The Starter version, at $12, is the spreadsheet on its own. The Complete Kit, at a launch price of $24.99 (regular price $29), adds extra planning tabs and four guide PDFs, including the 50-state guide. The Everything Bundle, at $69, includes everything in the Complete Kit plus the regional versions. Start with the sample year, change one child to your own, and you have already begun.
FAQ
Do I have to log attendance and hours every day?
Yes, and it takes about two minutes. Log them at the end of each school day, while you still remember them. Entries made late are entries that get guessed, and guessed entries are the ones that do not add up when they are checked.
What if I forget to log for a whole week?
Fill in what you can remember, mark the rest honestly as missed, and start again the next day. A planner with one missed week is still far better than no record at all. The monthly summary will show you the gap, and you can plan around it.
How is the GPA calculated?
The gradebook works it out from the grades you enter, course by course, so the arithmetic is done by the spreadsheet, not by hand. In the sample year, 25 courses work out to a GPA of 3.20, and you can follow every step of that calculation in the sample.
Does the planner work for more than one child?
Yes. One workbook covers up to six children, each with their own attendance, hours, and grades, and the monthly summary shows each child separately, so you can see who is on track and who needs help.
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