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I’m not a very organized person.  I can admit it.  I don’t do schedules well.  Not since I left that big old high school I used to attend.  I have a hard time keeping it together.  My kids do too.  So when Homeschool Buyers Co-op came up on the Vendors List, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to give their program, Homeschool Planet or the Lesson Plan Marketplace a try.  I talked it over with a friend and well here we are!

Homeschool Planet is an online organizing program that keeps both your home and your homeschool in order.  It’s an all-in-one program that helps you stay on track, create a schedule that works for you and meet goals you make for your family through the year.

The program is easy to use.  You sign up through the Homeschool Buyers Co-op website and then you can immediately get started.  Homeschool Buyers Co-op offers a one month free trial of the Homeschool Planet program available on the website as well.  This gives you a great way to see just how the program works and if it will work for you.

Homeschool Buyers Co-op also offers many already designed Lesson Plans for some of the top curriculum available to homeschoolers today through their Lesson Plan Marketplace.  These plans vary in price, depending on the curriculum.  They do help make planning easy for you.

I was able to grab two of the Lesson Plans from the Marketplace for our review.  One was a gift for a special that Homeschool Buyers Co-op was having. They often have great freebies available for those who use the website.  The other was a lesson plan specifically chosen for this review.  Both have been an awesome help in planning for our homeschool.

The free lesson plan we received was for their Virtual Field Trips from Clickschooling lesson plan.  This plan lays out online and free field trips that you can do with your children.  This is just a fun way to expand learning outside of a day-trip and to learn a lot through researching online.  The lesson plan makes it easy though, providing links to everything you need to take the virtual field trip online.  It even includes activities that go along with the virtual field trip so that learning becomes fun!  We enjoyed this free lesson plan because it was different and exciting to use as an additional adventure in our homeschool.

Our review lesson plan is which we were given to try out with Homeschool Planet was the Mystery of History Volume 1 Lesson Plan from Bright Ideas Press.  This lesson plans lays out the full program for Mystery of History Volume 1, making it easy for you to just put the curriculum into place in your homeschool.  You simply follow the prompts to add the lesson plan into Homeschool Planet so that you can use it daily via the schedule set by the lesson plan.  All the assignments are already scheduled for you and if you miss an assignment or a day on the schedule, you can simply move it forward to make it happen later.  It’s easy to shift the whole schedule forward with Homeschool Planet.

Homeschool Planet is a planner and a calendar all in one.  It allows you to schedule what you need to do for your home and your homeschool.  It allows you to create schedules for every person in your family, not just your students.  It helps keep you on track.

The program is fully online but it can be printed as needed.  Printing allows you to place the schedule in a notebook or post it on the fridge so everyone can see what needs to be done.  You can also hand a copy to those teens who need a little extra prompting to get things done.

When you sign up with Homeschool Planet and log-on, you will be prompted to set your classroom up with the individuals that you need to create scheduling for.  This is easy to do as it’s all simple fill-in the blanks information about you and your family.  Simply fill in as much as you can.  You can always come back later and add more.

A feature I really like is that you can add photos for your individuals so that you can visually see who’s schedule is who’s.  These are shown on the left side of the page when you log-on so you can quickly click on a picture and go to that persons schedule to see just what they need to do that day.  This makes it easy for me when I’m tired and I’ve just woken up in the morning, eyes are still blurred and I’m having trouble seeing what’s what.  You know… before the tea kicks in.

Centered on the page is the schedule.  You can click to see the calendar, the planner, resources or the lesson plans.  You can choose the date you wish to see for each.  There’s also a “today” button that you can press to easily get back to today when you are planning your schedule.  This is also where you personally type in the lesson plans you create yourself and important events that you need to schedule for each day.  You can choose to view this schedule in Day, Week or Month mode as well, and choose who’s schedule you are viewing.  You can choose multiple persons or just one person or all of the people in your list.

In the right panel of the program, you’ll find a Weather app.  Input your zip code to see your local weather for the day.  Below this is the To-Do list for the day.  It shows mine but I can switch it to whoever else I need to in order to see what they need to get done.

Under the To-Do List is a shopping list for things you need to purchase.  This can be school supplies or food or other items.  It’s convenient to have things in an organized place.

The final widget I have is our reading list.  This helps keep up with what we are reading or have read.  It’s a great widget to use for keeping up with review items as well.

There are other widgets you can choose.  There are daily quotes and Bible messages to inspire your day.  You can create the planner that works best for you by switching the widget apps to fit your day and lifestyle.

So I’ve basically covered a lot about how we’ve used this program. There’s a lot more to it but these are the basics.  The program is pretty simplified design wise so that it’s easily used and not overwhelming to create a schedule that fits your life.

I’ve only been using this program a few weeks so I’m really still trying to get a feel for it.  I have used other online planners in the past and not liked them but this one is different.  It has a lot more to offer for planning and helps you create a schedule that fits.  I’m still learning all the little ins and outs of the program and finding a set up I like as far as widgets go and making the plans work for us.

Where to Get It:

Homeschool Planet is available through Homeschool Buyers Co-op for free for 30 days and for purchase once your free trial has ended.  Lesson Plan Marketplace has compatible lesson plans available for various curriculum at varied prices.  For the month of June, you can get a free lesson plan of your choice from the Lesson Plan Marketplace with your subscription to Homeschool Planet.  You only have until the end of June to get this amazing bonus! Homeschool Buyers Co-op is free to join and offers many great deals throughout the year.