Capturing work
Most days, the record is your ticks. Tap each block as you finish it, and the school day, the next lesson, and your hours if you keep them look after themselves. Capture is for what a tick does not hold: a note, a photo, a grade, or a plan for later. Both should take a few seconds, so if one is taking longer than that, something below will probably explain why.
Ticking off the day
Each subject planned for today is a block on Home and in the planner, with a circle beside it. Tap the circle when you finish. A tick counts the day as a school day for the children in that block, brings that subject’s next lesson up, and, if you keep hours, adds the subject’s usual length. A block shared by several children ticks for all of them at once. Tap it again to take the tick back.
On a day that went as planned, We did school today at the top of Home ticks every block at once. You can tick today and any day already lived, never a day ahead, so for an earlier day, open the planner on that week and tick there. Home also lists the last school day’s blocks with no tick, under Yesterday, or under the day’s name when the last school day was earlier, such as Friday on a Monday. Tap one to tick it, or choose Let them go to set them aside without changing the record. When there are four or more, We did all of these ticks them together.
The four kinds of capture
Note. A line of text, or a tick list. What you read, what you talked about, where you went, something to remember. A conversation in the car is as legitimate here as a worksheet. A note can be for the family or for any of the children, and it lands in Notes. Give it a day and it waits in Coming up, then shows on Home that day. Pin it and it stays on Home until you unpin it.
Photo. A picture, with a caption if you like. A finished page, a model, a whiteboard. On a phone, Take a photo opens the camera and Library opens your pictures. On a laptop, choose a file or drop one in. A photo lands in Moments, and photos are stored privately, readable only from your account.
Grade. A mark for one child, against a lesson or a subject. It needs that subject to have a place on the record, and what it accepts depends on the grading scale you use: a letter, a number from 0 to 100, or a few words on what they can do now. A grade lands in Records, under its subject.
Plan. For what is still to come: a Lesson, once or every week, which lands on the planner, or an Exam on a set day, which shows on Home as it gets close.
Saving one
1. Open Capture. In the phone app, it is the round plus in the middle of the bar along the bottom, and it opens as a sheet. On a laptop, it is the Capture button at the top of the menu, and it opens as a window over the page.
2. Choose Note, Photo, Grade, or Plan along the top. Note is chosen already, for the family.
3. Write or add the thing: type the note, take or choose the photo, enter the grade, or, for Plan, choose Lesson or Exam.
4. Under For, check who it is for, then any option you need, such as the day or the lesson.
5. Save. The line beside the button says where it will land.
Capture closes, and a short message says what happened, such as Saved in Notes. or Photo saved for Maya. It has an Undo, which takes the save back and opens it again for you to change. It goes away by itself after about eight seconds, unless you have moved onto it with the keyboard. If a save did not go through, the message says so and stays until you close it, and what you wrote is waiting the next time you open Capture.
What updates itself
A photo or a grade counts that day as a school day for the children it is for, just as a tick does. If the photo or grade is of a lesson on today’s plan with no tick yet, saving it can tick that lesson too, so the planner, Home, and Curriculum all show it done.
The first time a save could do that, Capture asks, for example, Tick History off for today?It keeps your answer as the default. From then on, Mark History done sits beside the other options, on or off to match, so you can change it for a single save. To change the default, open Settings, then Your homeschool, and its row Photos and grades of today’s lesson.
A day inside a break is not counted from a tick, a photo, or a grade. The capture still saves. If you did school that day anyway, count it by hand on Records: pick the day, then Count this day.
You never enter attendance separately for an ordinary day. Attendance follows from ticking, or from a photo or a grade, which is the whole reason both are built to be fast.
The defaults, and when to change them
The day for a photo or a grade starts on today. Day offers today, yesterday, and the five days before, and Another day picks any date back to the start of your school year. A note, a lesson, and an exam look ahead instead. Backdating is normal and expected, and a Saturday-evening catch-up for the whole week, ticking in the planner, is a completely ordinary way to use this.
The child is yours to choose. A note starts as the family’s. A photo, a grade, or a plan starts with nobody chosen until you tap a name under For, or pick a lesson from today’s plan and its children come with it. A grade is always for one child.
Suggestions appear as you write. Capture reads your words and offers chips under them, such as a child’s name, a subject or lesson, or a day like yesterday. Nothing is applied until you tap one.
Time shows on a photo or a grade only if you keep hours, and not when the save is ticking a lesson, since that tick counts the subject’s usual length already. Tap Time and it starts at the subject’s usual length, or half an hour when no subject is chosen, and you can change it five minutes at a time. It adds to the hours on Home. Leave Time alone, or take the time off again, and the photo or grade adds no hours.
Planning instead of recording
Plan puts something in the future rather than recording the past. Lesson adds a block to the planner, on one day or every week on the days you choose, with a start time and a length if you like, and it can start a new subject too. Exam puts a test on a set day, from tomorrow on, and it shows on Home as it gets close. In the phone app, exam reminders are on from the start, because you asked for them by scheduling the exam. Every other notification is off until you turn it on, under Notifications in Settings.
Frequently asked questions
Can I record something that happened last week? Yes. Open the planner on that week and tick the blocks, which works for today and any day already lived. A photo or a grade can go on any day of this school year, with Another day under Day. Backdating is expected rather than tolerated, and catching up on a whole week in one sitting is an ordinary way to use this.
Do I have to choose a subject every time? Only for a grade, which needs a lesson or a subject before Save grade comes on, so it has a place in Records. A note or a photo can be saved without one. A lesson in Plan takes a subject because it goes on the planner.
If I capture twice in one day, does that count as two days? No. Records counts distinct days, so a day with six ticks and a photo on it is one school day, the same as a day with a single tick.
Where to go next
Capturing offline covers what happens with no signal. School days and attendance covers where these ticks and captures end up.