Excel Planner for Record Keeping and Homeschool Reports - A2Z Homeschool

Updated July 22, 2023.

By Ann Zeise

Oh, how I despised homeschool planning, record keeping and monthly reports! Even more, I loathed to give up original material my son had created to some bureaucrat who would not treasure these creations of my child. So I created an Excel Planner to make the chore easier to do. I could move lessons around, and even exchange whole days! Please take note that only some homeschool families are legally required to show planning and reports. Others just like to do it for their own planning and records. This plan is for the rather OCD, as it can record and add up time spent in each course of study.

My Lazy Idea for Planning and Recording

Our first two years, we homeschooled through a program at our local school district. The first of each month I had to turn in academic plans for the following month and a record of what Scott had done the previous month, along with some material proof of what he had done.

As part of Scott’s portfolio, I would take photographs of his activities and works of art, get them developed at “double print specials,” and these were often acceptable. Check with your advisor first. I liked being able to keep the art and a copy of the photos.

Next, I found that a self-created spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel (Mac X or Windows) could be used to both plan our homeschool days and be edited as we went along to reflect what we really did do. If we needed to, we could bump a plan to the next day by using the “insert” function and pushing the cell one more day to the right. I’ve included a copy of the file here for you to download. It should work with most Mac and Windows systems that have a copy of the application “Excel” (included as part of Microsoft Office – Mac or Windows). You may need to adjust the margins to print correctly on your printer. It is suppose to print side headers and Mon-Sun activities per page printout.

My Free Homeschool Planner / Tracker

Excel Planner
UPDATED FOR SCHOOL YEAR 2023-2024
Download the template mentioned in this feature. It is a 209K file named “hsplanner.xls” that will run on Mac, Unix, Linux, and Windows with any xls-compatible spreadsheet application already installed.

How the Excel Planner Works

For those of you without an xls spreadsheet, such as Excel, I shall explain how this spreadsheet looks and works in the little table below:

	Total Time	Day of Week & Date
Day Count		1
Whole Family Activity		Event entered here is copied on plans for other children as well.
Time Spent	Sum of time spent on family	Time entered here copied to others.
Subject 1		Brief description of plans & accomplishments
Time Spent on Subject 1	Adds up all time across row for full year for each subject.	Enter time spent in hours and minutes in this format: 1:30
Repeats pattern of previous two rows
Daily Time Totals	Total time (in column) spent all year on all subjects.	Total time spent today computed from times entered in this column.

“Whole Family” rows automatically duplicated from #1 to subsequent sheets for other children. Spreadsheet is set up with 3 worksheets for 3 children. May I suggest that if you have more than 3 children, that you make another copy of this file and have one, say, for the teenagers and one for the elementary aged kids.

My advisor really liked this format. I found it easy to work with because of Excel’s various functions. Date columns widths can be reduced to 0 when no longer needed to be viewed or printed. The printed version will always have the first 2 columns and top 2 rows on it. I’ve given you a couple of days’ samples of activities an unschooler might include. Play around with the time fields for a bit until you understand how they work.

As we unschool, weekends are included and so are holidays. Kids get “credit” for learning all the time! You’ll be pleasantly surprised how the hours add up. Your children may even finish a whole school year of required “work” in far less time than their schooling counterparts.

Updates to the Home School Planner

In 2023, I removed the resources tab. You may add it back in if you wish. It pretty much works as it always has. It will work with about any version of Excel you have. Other spreadsheets may or may not allow formulas between tabs.

In 2006, I’ve fix it so the start date for Child #1 sets the dates for the other children, too. So if you want to start on a different date than what I have, Just type in your starting date once, and the whole family is set to go.

In 2005, I’ve added a worksheet for tips on using the spreadsheet, and another for handy links while planning. Subjects are now linked right into directories of A to Z Home’s Cool to make it easier to find what you need while you are planning.

In 2008, homeschool parent Felicia B. Gershberg, MAT, PhD, sent me her version of the Planner set up so that only weekdays appear across the top, as that is what her charter required for reporting. She also preferred that the times be recorded and add up in decimals. You may download Felicia Gershberg’s Excel spreadsheet planning template with only weekdays for the homeschool year 2023 – 2024. Time expressed in decimal fractions.

Reproducing the Home School Planner

If you pass this spreadsheet along, please just tell the person you got it from this website or link to this page. Modify it to suit your needs, but do NOT remove the footer. If you have a good improvement, email me a copy! Suggestions welcome. You may not, however, post the whole spreadsheet on your website or redistribute in any way for personal gain. Webmasters, link to this page and NOT to the downloadable file, as I change the file name from time to time.

Resources to Help with Homeschool Recordkeeping

Educationese for Homeschool Reports
Educationese — or Teacherese — is the name sometimes given to the jargon too frequently employed by some of those who train our schoolteachers.

Unschooling Record Keeping
Many people wonder how you can unschool and still keep records. Many people view unschooling and record keeping as being at odds with one another. By Karen Gibson.

How to Use Daily Planners to Live an Organized Life
Using a paper daily planner is becoming more and more popular for multiple reasons and if you want to be productive at work or school, you need one too. While technological advancements have taken over all aspects of life, a digital planner can’t replace a paper planner.