Keeping Score with My Home School Grades

Thank you to My Home School Grades for allow me to try out their grading system free of charge for the purpose of this review.

I love homeschooling, but I really dislike the record-keeping end of things.  I’ve tried just about every computer program out there, but I haven’t found anything that suites me long-term.  Most programs don’t work with my Mac, and I don’t like pulling out my PC just to input the day’s work.  Several of the record-keeping software that I have used are cumbersome.  In fact, one came with a thick book explaining how to use it.  Who has time to read a manual to learn how to use homeschool software?  Believe it or not, I always go back to my paper planner…until now.

When I work with homeschool record-keeping, I just want something that simply does the job for which it is intended.  In this case, I want something that is easy to learn, easy to use, and won’t take a lot of extra time.  My Home School Grades fits the bill!  It is so easy to set up a student and curriculum!  I set up a “test” student in order to show you how simple this is.  See the cute chalk drawing?  It can be left as is or changed to your child’s picture.  See how it shows me where to add a class?

This is the screen that you will see after pressing the “add a class” button.  I simply chose the options in the drop-down menus.  My Home School Grades is constantly adding new publishers and specific classes.  If the publisher isn’t in the list, it is easy to do a custom class, as I’ll show you in a little bit, but first, let’s tackle a publisher that is already entered.

Math U See is already in the system, so I was able to choose Epsilon in the menu.  See how all the lessons and tests populate?  To enter a grade on a lesson, you can put a number (like 95), a letter grade (like A), or a fraction (like 19/20).  How easy is that?

You can even choose how to weight the lessons versus the tests.  The total percentage has to equal 100%, so if you wanted to weight 50/50 like I do, you could.  Or you could choose any split like 63/37 if you wanted to.

If the publisher isn’t in the list, you can choose “Custom/other” and enter your own information.  It is easy and doesn’t take long at all!

You can even enter activities!  Does your child take piano lessons, sing in a choir, or go to Girl Scouts?  This is a great place to document that.

Like most other things in this program, this is really simple to do!  It’s also a great way to display your child’s activities and make them a part of the permanent record.

When it’s time to get that transcript together, it is so easy to do, too.  Just click a button that says “Transcript”, and the transcript will appear.  You will have to adjust the settings if your child is younger than a Freshman, so the classes will appear.  Can you see the test student’s grades and classes?

The activities print on their own page, so it is up to you whether you want to send the activities in with the rest of the transcript or not.

I’m sure you are jumping up and down with excitement about how easy and complete this program is, but there is more!  This is not device specific.  Yep, that’s right!  It can be used on PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, etc.  The pictures you see above were taken on my iPad because my iPad is my preferred method of using My Home School Grades.  Also, this was developed by homeschoolers for homeschoolers.  What would you say if I told you that this was designed by a 20 year old homeschool grad?  Well, it’s true!

I am working to set up my kids’ curriculum, so we will be all ready to start a fresh year with My Home School Grades.  If you are not convinced yet, head over to their website that I linked to and watch their “how to” videos.  This is simply the best record-keeping I have seen in my 8 years of homeschooling!  You can find their various pricing plans on their website.

Disclosure:  I received a free membership to My Home School Grades for the purpose of this review.  I received no other compensation, nor was I required to give a positive review.  All opinions are mine!