SmartDraw reviews at the Homeschool Buyers Co-op

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SmartDraw: Homeschool Edition

Following is an unpaid review of SmartDraw: Homeschool Edition by Annette M. Hall, Homefires' Product Review Team. Diane Flynn Keith is Editor of Homefires, author of Carschooling: Over 350 Entertaining Games & Activities to Turn Travel Time into Learning Time, a nationally known homeschooler, and a Co-op member.

Don't let the name fool you. "Smart" is a total understatement. I'm not sure what I was expecting from this homeschool version of a business program that allows you to create your own charts, calendars, schedules, graphs, timelines, report cards and other forms - but what I found is truly amazing and much more than I could have ever dreamed to have all in one program. The creators have thought of everything and put it at your fingertips in an easy to maneuver format.

SmartDraw took about ten minutes to download and another two or three minutes to install. After the installation process, I was good to go. I played around with the "Calendars" section first. After just a couple of minutes I had figured out how to select a template, add new entries, add holidays (one-click), then I saved and printed my new calendar. While there is a help file the program was so simple to use, I never even opened it.

When I first learned about SmartDraw, my first thought is that since we are unschoolers, I would never have a need for a program that creates charts, forms and school records. I couldn't have been more wrong. I absolutely love the "Forms" section. If I only ever used the forms in the "Household"
section, it would be worth the cost.

In the space of about five minutes SmartDraw allowed me to create a personal "Daily Food Group Log," a "Daily Nutrition Log," and a "Weekly Exercise Log." We've been working with our son on the relationship between diet, nutrition, and exercise and these forms are perfect for our purposes. Using the forms I printed off, my son will be able to keep track of the nutritional values of the food he's eating, monitor his exercise accomplishments, and see the progress he's making. The forms would have literally taken me hours to create on my own.

Having these forms at my fingertips will help me to be more organized, better manage our time, and allow us to spend more family time together. My mind is racing at all the possibilities.

If you ask me, this program is one that no family should be without - homeschoolers especially. The funny part is that if I had known about SmartDraw years ago, I could have saved myself a fortune. Our family has over the years purchased several family tree making programs, a landscaping program, billing programs and even one that creates floor plans. SmartDraw does all this and so much more.

While exploring the "Family Trees" section, I was impressed to note that when adding pictures it wasn't necessary to play around with the image, or resize it to fit. This program is so smart and intuitive that it automatically resized the image for my purposes. That's pretty impressive.

SmartDraw includes fully customizable charts and forms including...

School forms - permission slips, homework record, attendance sheets, reading log, certificates, history timelines, math worksheets - even complicated ones including astronomy charts and diagrams.

Sports rosters and score cards - baseball, football, golf, soccer, and stats.

Medical forms - allergy log, dental records, medical history, release forms and waivers, insurance claims.

Small business forms - proposals, estimates, bids, invoices, statements, expenses, income, etc.

Employment forms - including applications, evaluations, time records, and vacation planners.

SmartDraw includes plenty of templates that can be customized as well as blank forms that allow you to create unique charts and graphs from scratch.

The list is so long and the uses so varied that it would take a great deal of time to list them all. This is a program that you will use time and time again. The more you use SmartDraw, the more it will inspire you to find ever more uses for it.

SmartDraw: Homeschool Edition is available exclusively through the Homeschool Buyers Co-op. The HSBC staff worked with the SmartDraw product team to identify and create templates that would be useful to homeschoolers.
The SmartDraw: Homeschool Edition is$49 - and is ONLY available to members of the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op. Homeschoolers must be a member of the Co-op for at least 3 days before they can purchase the program for $49.

Following is an unpaid review of SmartDraw: Homeschool Edition by Orilla Crider, Director of Missouri Association of Teaching Christian Homes (MATCH), and a Co-op member:

Wow, what a program! SmartDraw: Homeschool Edition is packed full of all sorts of templates that you can personalize for your own use. The company has even put some extras in it for the homeschoolers, wow, how nice can that be?

What kind of templates are in this program?

Calendars - Want to make a special calendar for your family with special pictures on it of your different family members? This has it! It has all sorts of different types of calendars for you to pick from and make it yours.

Cause & Effect

Certificates - All kinds of templates to make beautiful certificates and award.

Charts - Need a chart to show your student(s) the difference in something? Or have you given them an assignment where they have to make a comparison chart? This is where they can make one!

Family Trees - Are you trying to teach your student(s) where they came from? These family trees make it easier to understand the different generations and help them understand it easier.

Floor Plans - Redoing some room of your house, use the different templates to help place things in the different rooms. Have a home ec class? This would be perfect for it.

Flowcharts

Flyers - All kinds of business cards, beautiful gift certificates, you or your student(s) can make up a daily, weekly menu. Newsletter templates, all kinds of school flyers, posting signs and tri-fold brochure templates.

Forms - Just about any kind of form you can think of. They have also included in school forms.

Gantt Charts

Landscape Plans - Wanting to have your student(s) to lean how to do landscaping during science or another kind of class. These templates will be wonderful to help you!

Maps - Have you been looking for maps to help you out with either geography or of history class? The is full of all kinds of them and you don't have to pay a lot of money for each of them because they are included in this wonderful program.

Marketing Charts

Mind Maps

Network Design - Great for computer classes!
Org Charts

Retail & Planograms - Wonderful for economic class or home ec class.

Science & Math - All sorts of helpful info about astronomy, biology, chemistry and math and physics.

Storage Design - Again, besides using it for personal use, you can use it for economic class or home ec class.

Timelines - Use them as examples or to help student(s) start a timeline of something in any class.

Web Design - Want help to start your own website? There are plenty templates to help you.

Each of the templates may also be started from scratch. But the templates are there to help you out if you need them.

How much is this program? SmartDraw usually sells for $200 but through the Homeschool Buyers Co-op you may get it for $49, what a deal! MATCH recommends this program, it is worth it!