The one question
There is no such thing as a family that paces everything the same way. The most tightly run household still has a math book that must be finished by May and a read-aloud it will get to when it gets to it.
So the question isn't what kind of homeschooler you are. It's asked once per resource, and it's this:
Is there a date this has to be done by?
To a Deadline
You give the date. The app finds the rate.
Your Pace
You give the rate. The app finds the date.
Log Manually
No rate, no date. Just a record of the day.
Everything below is the long version of those three. You'll find all of it in The Compass → Library, on the resource itself — because pacing belongs to the book, not to the family and not to the subject.
First: what kind of resource is this?
When you add something to the Library, the first choice is where its lessons come from. This decides whether you're asked about pacing at all, so it's worth getting right.
Purchased
A boxed or published curriculum with its own lesson sequence — a textbook, a workbook, a boxed program. It has a fixed amount of content, a beginning and an end.
This is the only kind that gets the pacing choice. Because there's a countable amount of work inside it, the app can do arithmetic on it.
From the Nest
You're the curriculum. Nature study, a unit you're building yourself, a reading list you're assembling as you go. Plan the lessons ahead, or leave days blank and fill them in as they come.
No pacing panel here. It follows the cadence you set for the subject — the days you told The Compass this subject meets — or its own days, if you give it some.
Digital & Adaptive
An online platform that paces itself, like Khan Academy. The platform decides what comes next, so the app doesn't try to.
No pacing panel. It appears on its scheduled days so it's part of the rhythm and part of the record.
The short version: if the app can count what's inside it, you'll be asked how fast to go. If it can't, it will simply put the subject in front of you on the days you said it meets.
To a Deadline
Choose this when the finishing matters more than the daily amount.
This is the mode for the family that doesn't keep set days — and it's the one most people don't realize is the answer to that problem. You are not telling the app which days you work. You're telling it when the book must be closed, and letting it work backward from the days you actually have.
- Choose it when
- The book has to be finished by a date — the end of your school year, a co-op's calendar, the week a test is scheduled.
- You supply
- The total amount of work in it, and the date it must be done.
- The app decides
- How much to do each session — and recalculates that amount when you fall behind, so the date holds.
How to set it
- Add the resource and choose Purchased. Fill in the title, subject, grade level, and every child who uses it.
- Tap Save & Set Pace.
- In the pacing panel, choose To A Deadline.
- Set the progress type and enter the total — how many lessons, or how many pages. This has to be a real number; see the panel notes below.
- Set the target end date, then tap Set pace.
Most planners handle a missed day by pushing everything one day later, which means a hard month quietly moves your finish date into July. Deadline pacing does the opposite. The date stays fixed and the daily amount adjusts — a little more per session, spread across the sessions you have left, instead of a wall of make-up work.
Your Pace
Choose this when the daily amount matters more than the finishing.
Some books are best done a lesson at a time, however long that takes. A handwriting program. A reader you don't want to rush. A math curriculum where the point is mastery, and pushing to hit a date would defeat it.
- Choose it when
- You know how much you want to do in a sitting, and you'd rather the book take as long as it takes.
- You supply
- The amount per session — one lesson, four pages, half a chapter.
- The app decides
- When it finishes, based on the days it meets.
How to set it
- Add the resource as Purchased and tap Save & Set Pace.
- Leave the mode on Your Pace — it's the default.
- Choose the progress type, enter the total, and set Per session to the amount you want in one sitting.
- Tap Set pace.
You can change your mind later. A resource on Your Pace can be moved to a deadline at any point — open it in the Library, switch the mode, give it a date. It picks up from where the child actually is, not from the beginning.
Log it manually
Choose this when there's nothing to finish.
Piano practice. Nature journaling. A devotional. The supplemental workbook you pull out only when a concept needs another pass. These have no total and no end — they're things you do, and things you want on the record.
- Choose it when
- The work is ongoing, or you'd rather decide in the moment than commit to a plan.
- You supply
- Nothing up front.
- The app decides
- Nothing. It appears on its scheduled days as something to check off.
How to set it
- Add the resource and fill in the details as usual.
- Tap Save & Log Manually instead of Save & Set Pace.
That's the whole thing. It goes into the Library, appears on the days its subject meets, and everything you check off lands in the record exactly the way paced work does.
If you've opened the pacing panel and realized you don't have the numbers in front of you, Skip for now saves the resource without a plan. It waits in the Library. Open it whenever you're ready and set the pace then — nothing is lost, and nothing is guessed on your behalf.
The pacing panel, field by field
Four settings, and only two of them need much thought.
Progress Type
How this book counts itself. Lesson-based for anything numbered by lesson. Page-based for a workbook you move through by page. Unit-based for chapters, weeks, or units. Flexible when the book doesn't count itself cleanly and you'd rather not force it. Pick the one that matches how the book is actually printed — it's what the daily task will name.
Total lessons
This opens at zero, and zero produces nothing. Enter the real count from the book — the last lesson number, the last page, the number of chapters. Left at zero, the app has nothing to divide and no plan will generate. It's the most common reason a resource looks set up but never appears in The Cache.
Per session
How much gets done in one sitting. On Your Pace, this is the number you're choosing. On a deadline, the app fills it in for you and keeps adjusting it.
Work Span
Whether a single lesson stretches across more than one day. Most of the time this is 1 day — one lesson, one sitting — and you can leave it alone. Change it when one lesson genuinely takes several days: a science unit with a multi-day experiment, a writing assignment drafted over a week. Setting it to 3 days holds that same lesson in front of you for three scheduled days instead of moving on.
Check that the total isn't still zero. That one field is the difference between a resource that paces itself and a resource that quietly does nothing.
When a subject holds more than one book
Math is one subject. It can hold as many resources as you use, and each one is paced on its own terms.
This is the case many families assume they can't do. You have a main math program, a second workbook for reinforcement, and a folder of printables you reach for when something isn't landing. That's not three subjects and it isn't a compromise — it's one subject with three resources, provisioned three different ways.
How that looks in practice
- The spine — your main program, set To a Deadline so it's certain to finish this year.
- The reinforcement — a second workbook, on Your Pace or logged manually, used when it's useful.
- The printables — added as one resource and logged manually. No total, no plan, just a place to record that you did it.
All three live under Math. Only the first generates a scheduled amount; the others appear as things to check off. In the year-end record they all read as math, with the specific book named.
Once a subject holds more than one resource, a Curriculum Source selector appears on the subject so you can move between them.
When a book needs different days
The subject sets the rhythm. A single resource can keep its own days when it needs to.
Most of the time the subject's cadence is the right answer for everything under it. You told The Compass that Language Arts meets Monday through Friday, and every Language Arts resource shows up Monday through Friday. That's the default, and for most books it's worth leaving alone.
But some books don't want the whole week. Spelling twice. Copywork daily. A read-aloud you only do on Fridays. All Language Arts, all under one subject, meeting on different days.
Where to set it
Open the resource in The Compass → Library and look for Days for This Resource, just above the pacing panel.
- Follow the subject's cadence — the default. It shows you the days the subject meets so you can see what you'd be changing.
- Custom days for this resource — choose the days this book meets, and only this book.
You can go back to following the subject at any time. Nothing about the child's place in the book changes either way.
What it looks like across a subject
Taking the Language Arts case above, one subject set to Monday through Friday can hold:
- Copywork — following the subject. Every school day.
- Spelling Workout — custom days, Tuesday and Thursday.
- The read-aloud — custom days, Friday only.
Each one paces on its own days. Change the subject to four days and Copywork follows; Spelling and the read-aloud stay where you put them, because you set them deliberately.
Several children, one book
When a resource is shared, each child holds their own days — the same way each child holds their own place in the book. If you want them the same, you don't have to open four cards.
Set the days on one child and tick Also apply these days to… below the picker. It names the children it will touch. They're set together, and any one of them can be changed later without disturbing the others.
The picker will tell you plainly. A resource set to Saturday in a household that schools Monday through Friday simply won't appear — there's no day for it to land on. Either add that day to your school week in The Compass, or choose days you actually keep.
When you miss a day
Nothing is lost, and nothing needs cleaning up.
If a task sits there and you never touch it — no complete, no skip — the work doesn't disappear and it doesn't stack up behind you. The child's place in the book simply hasn't moved, so the same pages come up again the next day that subject meets. Miss Monday and Tuesday, get to it Thursday: on Thursday it's still waiting, exactly where you left it.
This is what makes an irregular schedule workable. You're never behind a calendar. You're only ever at the page you're actually on.
Complete, skip, or leave it
- Complete moves the child forward to the next lesson or page.
- Skip records that you deliberately passed that day. The place in the book doesn't move — the work comes back next time.
- Leaving it alone has the same effect on the book. The difference is only in the record: a skip is a note that you decided; doing nothing leaves no note at all.
Use skip when you want to remember why a day was light. Otherwise, closing the app and coming back Thursday is a perfectly good plan.
Missed days are exactly what deadline pacing is for. As sessions pass without progress, the app redistributes what's left across the days remaining and adjusts the per-session amount so the end date still holds. You don't have to do anything to trigger it.