When it comes to apps for students, there are literally thousands of educational options out there. But what about apps for homeschooling moms and dads? We set out to find the best apps for homeschooling parents to help their days run smoothly.
The following 10 apps are some of the most frequently recommended, highest rated, and most useful apps around. While some of these apps are specific to homeschooling, not all are. Some of them are just great apps, whether your child is homeschooled, in an online school, or attending a traditional brick-and-mortar school.
Top 10 Apps for Homeschooling
1. Homeschool Helper
This tablet app is consistently recommended as one of the best apps for homeschoolers. While there are a lot of lesson planning and tracking apps out there that will work for homeschoolers, this app was built specifically for them. Use it to plan lessons, track student progress, calculate grades, manage book lists, plan field trips, and keep track of tasks. That’s a lot of functionality for the $4.99 price tag. Homeschool Helper is available for iPad, Kindle Fire, Nook, and Android Tablets.
2. K12 Attendance App
Of course, if your student is enrolled in a K12 online school, a lot of that planning work is already done for you, so you may not need all those lesson-planning features. The K12 Attendance App is parent-recommended for tracking and logging students’ attendance from anywhere. The app is available for free in the iTunes and Google Play app stores.
3. iPlanLessons
This is a popular app from the iHomeEducator series of apps for homeschooling. Different states and schools have varying requirements for homeschoolers—iPlan Lessons is designed to make record-keeping easy and help homeschoolers meet their state’s requirements. Other apps in the series are worth a look too, including iPlanScienceLabs for creating lab reports, iPlanFieldTrips for planning and capturing field trips, and iPlanToWrite, a tool for managing writing assignments. The iPlan series is only available for Apple products and ranges in price from free to $4.99.
4. Cozi
Cozi is a family calendar app and website that the whole family can use to stay organized. It includes a shared family calendar, to do lists, meal planning, shopping lists, and more, and can sync with every family member’s device so everyone is on the same page. Even if you already use Google Calendar to stay organized, Cozi can also sync with it, making it a good option for kids too young for Google accounts.
5. K12 Timed Reading Practice
This app from K12 made one blogger’s list of the 40 best apps for homeschooled students and we agree! The app helps kids K-4 practice their reading fluency and comprehension with short, timed stories. It also includes tools to track multiple readers’ words per minute and reading level. A new beefed-up version, K12 Timed Reading & Comprehension Practice, also includes comprehension questions and is available for Apple and Android devices for $3.99 (a free lite version is also available.)
6. Evernote
We’ve recommended Evernote before as a great organization app for students, but it’s worth mentioning again as a great tool for homeschooling parents. The app makes it simple to collect and save files, notes, images, and more, and syncs with all your devices so you have what you need, wherever you are. This could include lesson plans, to do lists, notes and research, or student portfolios. For more ideas, check out this mom’s explanation of how she uses Evernote for homeschooling. It’s available for free for iOS and Android, and web-based and desktop versions are also available.
7. Chore Pad
The modern day version of a chore chart, Chore Pad lets you assign and track household tasks and motivate kids to complete them. Kids earn stars for a job well done, and can accumulate stars for rewards. While not strictly a homeschool app, the app certainly might help your days run more smoothly. It’s available for iPhone ($2.99) and iPad ($4.99) as well as on the web. For Android users, Reward My Chore offers similar functionality.
8. Kindle or iBooks
An e-reader app is a must for your homeschooling device. Just load up all your favorite books for reading at home or on the go. Not sure where to start? Visit Project Gutenberg for more than 45,000 free classic books for children and adults.
9. Screen Time
Screen Time isn’t just an app for monitoring kids’ media time (there are lots of apps for that). It’s a system for encouraging kids to learn positive media habits. Parents can set media allowances and kids can earn screen time through good behavior or chores. They can also trade media time for other activities or rewards. Even with educational apps and media, it’s important to encourage kids to put down the devices and spend time with other activities. This app could help motivate them to do so more willingly. The app is available for Apple devices for $1.99.
10. LifeTopix
LifeTopix is an incredibly detailed app with tools for managing 12 different aspects of life, including events and appointments, tasks, lists, health, shopping, finances, and yes, education. If you’d prefer to have one app for everything, instead of a ton of different apps that do one or two things each, this might be the app for you. The education portion would be useful for lesson planning and scheduling, as explained in more detail here. It’s also compatible with other apps like Evernote and Dropbox. LifeTopix costs $4.99 and is currently only available for iOS and Mac, but Windows and Android versions are in the works.
For even more of our favorite apps, check out these blog posts:
9 Educational iPad Apps Your Kids Will Love
5 Back to School iPhone and Android Apps to Keep Students Organized
7 Great Educational Apps for iPhone and iPad
7 Educational Android Phone Apps for Your Kids
What are your favorite apps for homeschooling? Leave a comment and tell us your recommendations.
Image: “iPad” by Sean MacEntee // CC BY 2.0
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