A walkthrough with Megan
Megan’s original narration with current screens and a shorter tour. Follow our fictional Ingalls family through everyday records, portfolios, and transcripts. Screen changes are edited for clarity.
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A place for your family’s learning
Hi, I'm Megan. Welcome to Commonplace. Let me show you how this app can help you keep all of your homeschool records, and memories together in one place. As we go, think about what parts of this will be useful for your family and you can start there.
Make yourself at home
Let's take a look with our fictional Ingalls family starting on their dashboard. You can arrange the sections around the way your family uses Commonplace. Tidy up helps organize the layout while keeping the sizes you've chosen. Keep what's useful close at hand and make changes whenever you need to.
Keep courses and resources together
A course can include more than one book, workbook, or other resource. Assignments and grades still belong to Practical Arithmetic rather than separate courses for each book. The resources are also listed in Curriculum so you can find them there too.
Find a rhythm that fits
Some parts of your day work well with a simple routine. A loop moves through a list in order one scheduled day at a time. You can share a routine with the whole family, or choose particular children. Your dashboard shows what's next with controls to move through the routine.
Attendance that fits each child’s day
For a closer look at attendance, open a date right from the calendar. You can record the same attendance for the whole family when that fits your day, or give a child a different entry for that same date, such as a half day. Save those changes in the pop-up without searching through a long list. When you need more detail, there's a link to the day's entries too.
Keep scores with their course
When you have scores to record, open the course's quick grade entry view. You can enter scores and completion dates for assignments that are already there. Save each result as you go, then move on to the next assignment. Commonplace updates the course grade from those scores so you can see where things stand.
Bring the learning into a portfolio
Those everyday records can become a portfolio. When you're ready to make the portfolio, choose your child and school year. You can save a new portfolio copy and keep earlier versions, too. Here's that same creek walk in the finished document with Laura's work and your notes together.
Turn course records into a transcript
For older students, course records can also become a transcript. Choose the school years you want to include for your child. Before finalizing, Commonplace asks you to review courses still marked in progress. If a course is finished, mark it completed so its credit can count as earned. Then save the transcript you've reviewed with your choices and course records brought together. Your saved copy is ready to download whenever you need to keep or share it. This sample shows Mary's course grades. Earned credits and GPA in one clear document.
Start with what your family needs
You don't need to use everything at once. Start with what helps your family today and add more whenever you're ready. And if you have questions, we're happy to help. Thanks for taking a look at Commonplace.