Organize Your Digital Homeschool Resources with Trello
Published:
August 24, 2020
Contributor:
Abby Banks
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There’s never been a better time to homeschool! The vast amount of resources, both physical and digital, is amazing. But once you compile a digital library of homeschool resources, how do you organize it to make sure you actually use it? That’s where Trello comes in!
Pros & Cons of Digital Homeschool Resources
So we know the value of digital homeschool resources, right? Many times they’re more inexpensive. You can likely copy them for as many of your children as you want, making it a great resource for homeschooling a large family.
There are many companies and bloggers who give steep discounts or free homeschool resources regularly. If you’re smart about getting access to these deals, then you can easily build a digital homeschool library even on a small budget.
But once you have dozens of digital files on your computer, how do you organize them? How do you make sure to actually use them?
Personally, I’ve accumulated so many resources over the years, that I forget to use them. I don’t have a good system in place to organize them. Can you relate?
Our family has used Trello successfully for years for scheduling and tracking our daily homeschool tasks. But I just realized that Trello also has features which would help organize digital homeschool resources.
Use Trello To Organize All Your Files
First, you need to know Trello is a digital tool. It consists of boards, cards, and lists. Think of it as an online bulletin board or tabletop with dozens of sticky notes lined up in columns to keep track of your to-dos or project tasks.
It’s a great homeschool scheduling tool, especially for your tweens and teens. It’s flexible in that your kids can rearrange the weekly schedule as needed and check-off tasks as they are finished.
It’s efficient for you as the homeschool mom, because once you set up the master board for each kid for the coming school year, you only need a few minutes each Friday to reset the boards for the coming week.
But until now, I simply used Trello as a to-do list. I hadn’t used the power of Trello to keep track of digital resources. But I think this will transform my homeschool planning and management.
There are two ways to use Trello for digital organization.
- You can have a Trello board that organizes your resources by grade level, subject matter, and topic.
- You can attach files for digital resources to your kids’ weekly Trello boards
Check out this video tour of how I created a Trello board to organize all my digital resources. I can now easily find any elementary resources I have, or specifically look for Bible studies. If you have young kids, you could create sections like: phonics, small motor skills activities, play-doh mats, coloring pages. Add in things like “Seasonal Activities” to keep track of the resources you want to use for special holidays or certain times of the year.
Use Trello to Assign Resources
The other way to use Trello to organize your digital homeschool resources is to go through your collection and decide which specific files your kids will need access to this year. Go ahead and attach the file to their specific Trello board homeschool card.
For example, since we are enrolled in Music in Our Homeschool’s Fall Music Lessons for Holidays and Special Days, I copied the URL into my second grader’s music card on Trello. That way, since I want her to do this weekly in the fall, she can easily click on over to the course and complete a lesson.
Or, my tenth grader will be diving into Visual Latin from Compass Classroom this year. It will greatly simplify his life (and mine) now that I can include the link and all the login and additional resource information on his Visual Latin Trello card.
If you use a lot of unit studies that are digital downloads, using Trello like this would simplify your life and keep resources at your fingertips.
Check out this video for how to link up specific resources on your student’s Trello board.
Learn More About Trello
7 Reasons to Use Trello for High School Homeschool Schedules + FREE cheatsheet!
Abby Banks
Abby is a former public school teacher, now homeschooling her five children. She’s in the trenches just like you and knows it can be challenging to be home with your kids all day while you struggle to keep up with the housework and educate your kids (and maybe even work on the side!). She blogs over at www.4onemore.com and hosts the Homeschool with Moxie podcast.
