Homeschool Chronicles
Publisher:  Water Mark Enterprises, Inc.
For more information or to order: www.homeschoolchronicles.com

Homeschool Chronicles software is designed to make the homeschooler's recordkeeping easy.  It is very simple to set up and is user friendly.  With this program, you can: schedule your student's day, week, and year, record completed assignments, keep reading logs for each student, track school expenses to help with budgeting and even set up a point system which will record the child's grades in each subject.

If you are looking to streamline your record keeping, you may want to give Homeschool Chronicles a try.  They offer a free 30 day trial on CD or you can download the demo from their website.  You might be surprised how using this program can enhance your record keeping.  For instance, just the reading log alone is great!  First, I enter the book by title and include information such as, the author, publisher, whether it's one we own or one we have borrowed -- I can even put in the ISBN number.  Once this has been entered in the "material's list", I just click on "Reading List".  At this point I click on my student's name, then the name of the book from the drop down list and the date.  When another child reads the same book, I can click on their name, the book title and date and it's automatically entered in the log.  Another benefit of the "Materials List" is the ability to print it out.  Since it has information for all materials we have used or are using/reading it would be a great help to take with me to the next curriculum fair.  I could avoid buying duplicate books and I also could buy the book that we had borrowed from the library and all agreed we need to have on our shelves to read over and over again :-)

Homeschool Chronicles provides categories for just about any area you might need to keep track of in your homeschool!  There is a contact record where names, numbers and other information can be placed for contacts such as field trip contact persons, moms in your support group, etc.  The expense record not only allows you to record how much you spent, but when, where and how you paid.  If you are the journaling type, there is a page already dates for you.  Just type and save!

The feature you will use most with any record keeping system is the lesson plan section. A unique feature of Homeschool Chronicles is the ability to schedule different activities every day.  Rather than having to type the same information in each day's entry, you could type it once and then choose to make it occur every other day, every week, or on any particular days that you choose.  If there are several children to schedule, it is not as difficult as you might think.  There are usually activities that some or all of my children do.  For instance, all of my children have 60 minutes of quiet reading time each day.  I type it up for Caleb and click on a duplicating button which askes me what other students to duplicate.  If we have a piano lesson every other Tuesday, I can enter it once and then tell the program that I need it scheduled accordingly.  When an assignment or outing we've scheduled is complete, just log it by clicking on the "completed" box next to the assignment.  When planning/entering the assignments for each child, I can choose how many points the activity is worth.  When the student completes the assignment, I enter in the number of points earned based on how correct and complete the assignment has been done.  The program then uses this information to assign a grade (A+, B, B-, etc.) 

Another great feature is the "Reports Manager" which lets you quickly find out what grade your child is earning in each subject area and also allows you to check to see which assignments have been completed.  It is displayed in an organized manner that is easy to follow and looks just as organized when printed.  You can also choose to print the reading log of whichever student you choose. This is also the tool you use to print out that great "Materials List" or expense totals I mentioned above.

Homeschool Chronicles software does take a bitof effort to get set up with all of your initial entries.  Like any program you have to learn how to use it.  It took me a few hours to learn the program and get everything entered, but this can be done in small increments over several days.  Before you begin entering information, I recommend that you watch the tutorial on the CD.  It is an audio/visual demonstration of how to use the software and you will find it very beneficial.

There is much more packed into this software and it's definitely worth taking advantage of the free trial period to see if it's for you!

Happy Organizing!

Making the Grade:  A
Cost:  $59.00
Value for Your Homeschool Dollar:  9
Review provided by Lori Carvell -- Homeschooling mom of 5