Question 1

Ready to add your new kit? Here's how:

Accepted Answer

Log in to the Scheduler and click Manage Kits in the left menu, then scroll to the code box near the bottom of that page. Type in the activation code from your curriculum handbook and submit it. Then check the grades and editions your family is using this year, and you're ready to build a schedule. That's it. Happy scheduling!

Question 2

Where do I find my activation code?

Accepted Answer

Your activation code is on the second page of your curriculum handbook. It also comes in the email that arrives with your kit.

Question 3

My activation code says it isn't valid.

Accepted Answer

Most often it's because you're on the old scheduler. Codes from a 2026 handbook only work at scheduler.timberdoodle.com, so if the address bar says legacyscheduler, that's your whole problem. An old bookmark or an autofilled link on a phone will land you there without you noticing. Two other things trip codes up: The code in your kit-builder link (the customizer one) isn't an activation code at all. Make sure you're using the one printed on the second page of your handbook. If a charter school, ESA program, or marketplace placed your order, that welcome email went to them rather than to you. Ask them to forward it along. Still no luck? Chat with us and send along the code you're trying. We'll sort it out.

Question 4

Does each kit include access to all the schedules?

Accepted Answer

Yes! One activation code opens the whole Scheduler to your whole family, every grade from Tiny Tots through 12th Grade, Classic and Nonreligious alike, for as long as your kit's access runs. You are not limited to the grade you bought. So if you have a fourth grader, a first grader, and a preschooler, that one code covers all three. Go to Manage Kits and check every grade and edition your family is using this year. That list simply decides which courses show up when you build a schedule, and you can change it any time. Not using a Timberdoodle kit this year? One-Year Family Access does the same thing on its own.

Question 5

What happened to my schedules from last year?

Accepted Answer

They're safe, and they're right where you left them. The 2026 Scheduler is a new app rather than an update to the old one, so last year's schedules stayed behind in the Legacy Scheduler. If you have any, an Older Schedules card shows up on your dashboard and a Legacy Scheduler link appears in the left menu. Either one opens the old app in a new tab, so you can look at it, print from it, and copy over anything you want to keep. Regrettably, there's no way to import them. This year's schedule does get built fresh. Most families find that's no great loss, since setup only takes a few minutes now and the new version handles breaks and pacing far better than the old one could.

Question 6

How do I begin scheduling?

Accepted Answer

Go to My Schedules and click New Schedule. There are just two steps. Step 1 covers three things, all on one page: Basic Information: which child, what to call the schedule, and which kit. School Days & Dates: your start date, and which days of the week you do school. Breaks & Recurring Days Off: Christmas, Thanksgiving, spring break, birthdays, vacations. Worth a few minutes if you plan to log progress as you go. Step 2 is Review & Customize Courses, where every item from the kits you checked appears subject by subject. Add, remove, and adjust to your heart's content. Then click Create Schedule. It takes a moment to lay out the year, and your new schedule opens right up. You'll find it on your dashboard and under My Schedules from then on.

Question 7

How do I save my schedule?

Accepted Answer

Clicking Create Schedule at the end of step 2 is what saves it. It takes a moment to lay out the year, and then your new schedule opens. Nothing is locked in. You can edit the schedule, its courses, and its breaks whenever you like.

Question 8

Can one schedule cover more than one kit?

Accepted Answer

No, and that's on purpose. Each schedule uses one kit, so a child working through two grade levels gets two schedules. Name them so you can tell them apart at a glance, like "Emma's Kindergarten" and "Emma's 1st Grade". You pick the kit on the first step of a new schedule.

Question 9

How do I add other subjects?

Accepted Answer

Step 2 of a new schedule, Review & Customize Courses, loads every item from the kits you've checked and lays them out subject by subject. That's where you add what you want, remove what you don't, and adjust how often each course runs. Nothing there is final. Once your schedule exists you can add and remove courses any time from the green Add button.

Question 10

Is there a way to fine-tune individual courses?

Accepted Answer

Of course! Open the schedule and click the course you want to change. Two settings do most of the work. A start date, if the course shouldn't begin until later in the year, which is handy when you're waiting on a book to arrive or saving a subject for January. And "Where in the year this course sits", which decides whether its lessons pile up early (Front-load), late (Back-load), or spread evenly (Spread out). Change either one, click Recalculate, and that course re-lays itself out without disturbing the rest of your year.

Question 11

What does front-load and back-load mean?

Accepted Answer

It decides whether a course's lessons pile up early in the year, late, or spread evenly. Two different controls set it, and it matters which one you reach for: Pacing Preference, on the schedule itself, moves your whole year at once. Front-Load, Balanced, or Back-Load. "Where in the year this course sits", inside a single course, moves only that course. Front-load, Spread out, or Back-load. We often suggest first graders back-load 6-Trait Writing so they gain reading competency before writing starts in earnest. That's a one-course change, so use the second control. Front-loading works the other way, letting you finish science early and free up your spring for nature walks.

Question 12

Is there a way to edit my schedule later?

Accepted Answer

Of course! Nothing you set up is locked in, and editing won't cost you your progress. The checkmarks stay put. Click Edit Schedule to change the name, your school days, your start and end dates, or your pacing. School year & breaks is where you add a vacation or a day off. And to change just one course, click it on the schedule - you can move where it sits in the year or give it a later start date, then click Recalculate. You can add a course any time with the green Add button, or remove one you aren't using, and everything reshuffles around what's left. Change your mind in November? That's fine. Most of us do!

Question 13

How do I duplicate a schedule?

Accepted Answer

Go to My Schedules in the left menu, find the schedule, and click Duplicate on its card. You'll be asked which child the copy is for, which makes this the quick way to set up a second student.

Question 14

How do I delete a schedule?

Accepted Answer

Deleting takes two steps, on purpose. Go to My Schedules and click Archive Schedule on the card. Then open the Archived Schedules section, click Show, and choose Delete on the archived card. We'll ask you to confirm. Deleting is permanent, and it takes all of that schedule's logged progress with it. If there's any chance you'll want the year back, just leave it archived. Archiving costs you nothing and keeps the record.

Question 15

How can I add custom courses to my scheduler?

Accepted Answer

Easily! P.E., music, chores, piano, a co-op class, Scripture, anything at all. Open the schedule, click the green Add button at the top, then choose Create Custom Course. You'll give it a name and a subject, then say how it should run. If it's a set number of lessons, say so and we'll spread them across your year. A 16-project carpentry course becomes 16 projects, spaced out. If it's something you do at a steady rate instead, mark it ongoing and give us a frequency, like three runs a week for P.E. From there it behaves like any other course, with its own school days and its own breaks.

Question 16

How do I add something I bought separately?

Accepted Answer

Add anything you like, whether it came from a previous kit, the damaged sale, a gift, or a co-op. Open the schedule and click the green Add button at the top to reach the Add Courses page. If we sell it, search Available Courses and it comes in with its lesson count already set for you. If we don't sell it, or it's something of your own like piano or dance, use Create Custom Course and fill in the name, the subject, and either how many lessons it has or how often it repeats. Either way it schedules just like everything else.

Question 17

I set a course for four days a week and it only shows up once. What am I doing wrong?

Accepted Answer

You're not doing anything wrong. That course is almost certainly set up as a finite one rather than an ongoing one, and the Scheduler treats those two very differently: A finite course has a set number of lessons. Tell us 16 projects and we spread those 16 across your whole year, which works out to about one every other week no matter how many school days you keep. An ongoing course has a rate instead. Tell us 4 per week and it repeats at that rate for as long as your schedule runs. This is what you want for math practice, reading time, P.E., chores, and piano. So edit the course, switch it to ongoing, and set the frequency. If you've already done that and it's still landing once a week, that one's ours to fix. Chat with us with your schedule name handy and we'll take a look.

Question 18

Why can't I see a certain item or subject?

Accepted Answer

Usually it means the kit that item belongs to isn't checked yet. Go to Manage Kits and make sure every grade and edition your family is using has a check beside it, since your course list is built from the kits you've checked. If it's still missing, it may be from another supplier, or something you'd like to add yourself. The green Add button on your schedule handles both. And if it's a Timberdoodle item that belongs in your kit and simply isn't there, please tell us. We'll sort it out.

Question 19

My schedule shows items that weren't in my box.

Accepted Answer

Your course list comes from the kits you've checked under Manage Kits, and a standard kit list doesn't know what your school swapped out. So if a charter school or ESA program customized your kit, or you built your own, you'll see the full list and some of it won't be in your box. Just delete what you don't have. Open the schedule, find the course, and remove it. Its lessons come off the calendar and your days get shorter. Everything else stays on the dates it already had, so if you'd like the remaining work re-spread across the year, click Refresh afterwards. Missing something you did pay for is a different matter. Send us your order number and we'll track it down.

Question 20

What does "Section 1" or "pages 3-4" mean on my schedule?

Accepted Answer

The Scheduler uses whatever unit the publisher uses, so it changes from course to course. Three come up often: Real Science 4 Kids counts sections, and those are the numbered sections inside a chapter rather than chapters themselves. One chapter usually breaks into four. Play Smart Workbooks, set of 4, pages 3-4 means pages 3-4 of the book you're working through, not of all four books. Finish one, then start the next. A Math-U-See video lesson is the streaming lesson in your digital pack, opened with the activation code that came with your math order. When a line doesn't make sense, open the book's own table of contents. That's the fastest check, and it's where the numbers came from.

Question 21

My child's day looks like way too much. Is that right?

Accepted Answer

Probably not, and you're far from the first to ask on day one. What usually causes it is every course in the kit being left switched on and spread over a short year. A kit is a menu, not a mandate. Nobody does all of it every day. Two things fix most of it. Delete what you're not using this year, then click Refresh so the rest spreads back out. And stretch your year, because the same work over 40 weeks instead of 32 makes a noticeably lighter day. If it still looks heavy, chat with us. Tell us the grade and the hours you're aiming for, and we'll give you our short list of what we'd drop first.

Question 22

How can I check our progress?

Accepted Answer

Day to day, you tick items off on the schedule itself as they're finished. For the bigger picture, My Children shows each child's progress for the week and for the year so far. Reports goes further, with a Progress Snapshot, progress by child, and a completion rate over whatever date range you choose. Best of all, it prints, which is exactly what you want for a portfolio or a school.

Question 23

We fell behind on checking things off. Is there a fast way to catch up?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and you don't have to tick three weeks of boxes by hand. Use Quick Log, the green button beside each course on the schedule. Open it, pick the last thing your child actually finished, and everything up to that point is marked done in one go. If that work was finished a while back, it asks when, so your records stay accurate instead of stamping the whole lot with today's date. Handy at the end of a month when the paperwork is due!

Question 24

How do I record grades?

Accepted Answer

Grading stays off until you turn it on. Go to Settings, switch it on, and pick the scale you'd like as your default: letters, percentages, or points. Turning it on doesn't force it everywhere. You still choose which schedules use it, and the first time you switch it on we'll offer to enable it across all of them, which is usually what you want. From then on each completed assignment takes a score, and your progress reports pull straight from those.

Question 25

How do I print this week?

Accepted Answer

Open the schedule and click Export & Print Options, then Weekly Checklist, then Print PDF. That gives you the week you're looking at. If you'd rather have one page per day, use Daily Checklists and Print PDFs in the same panel. Leave the "Export all (full year)" box unticked and you'll get just that week. One word of caution about the Full Year Formats row above those. Print Weekly and Print Daily there do exactly what the heading says and print your entire school year. Full Year - Daily is one page per school day, so it runs to a few hundred pages!

Question 26

How do I save my schedule as a PDF?

Accepted Answer

Open the schedule and click Export & Print Options, then pick what you want. Year Overview, Weekly Checklist, and Daily Checklists cover most needs, and Full Year - Weekly or Full Year - Daily give you the whole year. From there your browser does the saving. In the print dialog, choose Save as PDF as the destination instead of a printer, and the Print button becomes Save. One tip worth the ten seconds it takes: open More settings in that dialog and turn on Background graphics. Without it you lose all the subject colors.

Question 27

Can I change how the printout looks?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in Print Options. Layout Style runs down one side, with Standard, Fit One Page, Paper Saver, Large Print, Kids View, and Compact Week Grid to choose from. The tick-boxes beside them are the ones people hunt for: Show completed items includes work already checked off. Leave it off and a week you've finished will print blank. Black & White saves ink on a monochrome printer. Sticker Rewards leaves checkbox spaces sized for reward stickers, which your younger ones will thank you for. It switches off when Compact Week Grid is the layout, simply because that one has no room for it.

Question 28

Where do I see the books we've logged in the Reading Challenge?

Accepted Answer

Two places, and they answer slightly different questions: On the schedule, the reading section shows what your child has logged as they go. In Reports, the printed report carries a Reading Log section covering whatever date range you pick, with finished books, books still in progress, and total minutes. That's the one you want for a year-end book list to keep or hand to a school. Logged a book by mistake, or recorded a whole book when you meant a few pages? Regrettably, you can't undo that yourself yet. Chat with us with the child's name and the title and we'll take it right off.

Question 29

Can my child log in and check off their own work?

Accepted Answer

Yes! There are two ways to do it, depending on whose device they'll use. Set either one up under Student Mode, then Student Access, in the left menu, or from the "Student access & logins" button on My Children. On your device: give each child a 4-digit passcode. They tap their name on the Student Login page and type it in. You keep a separate parent passcode to get back out. On their own device: click Set Up Email Access and enter their email address. We send an invitation and they sign in as themselves, which suits an older student with their own laptop. Either way your child can tick off what they finished but can't move courses, change dates, or touch your settings. On your device that view is called Student Mode and your parent passcode gets you back out. On theirs, they simply sign in and out of their own account.

Question 30

Can I share a schedule with a teacher, a co-parent, or a grandparent?

Accepted Answer

A teacher or education specialist, absolutely. Add their email under teacher access and your schedule appears on their own dashboard. It's view only, so they can follow along and print reports, but they can't check work off or change anything. A co-parent who needs to mark work complete is a different case, and regrettably teacher access won't do it. They'll need to sign in to your account on their device. From there, your child's Student Mode passcode keeps them to checking work off and nothing else.

Question 31

How do I change my name, photo, or password?

Accepted Answer

Click your name at the top of the left menu, or the pencil inside the menu if you're on a phone, to change your display name or profile photo. Your password lives elsewhere. Go to Settings and choose Send password reset email, and the link will arrive at your account email address.

Question 32

Can I use the Scheduler with curriculum I didn't buy from Timberdoodle?

Accepted Answer

Yes, with One-Year Family Access, which opens the Scheduler without a kit. From there, choose "No kit selected" in the kit box on the first step of a new schedule and confirm Continue without a kit. You'll land in an empty schedule and build the whole year yourself. Add anything you like: a co-op class, piano, another publisher's math, chores. Name it, tell us how many lessons it has or how often it repeats, and we'll spread it across your year exactly the way we do our own courses.

Question 33

Will my schedules be here forever?

Accepted Answer

Probably not forever, and we'd rather tell you that than have you find out the hard way. For now we aren't removing anything at all. Your schedules stay put, including the ones you've archived. Down the road we expect to start retiring schedules once they're around three years old, when they've usually stopped being useful to you and turned into clutter. When that day comes, you'll hear from us first. We won't remove a schedule without emailing you well beforehand, with plenty of time to print or save whatever you'd like to keep. So do keep your email address current in your account. Storage costs being what they are these days, that timing may well shift. What won't shift: we'll keep your work live as long as we possibly can, and you'll always hear from us before anything goes.

Question 34

What if I have more questions?

Accepted Answer

Just ask us! Use the chat button inside the Scheduler, or email hi@timberdoodle.com. If something looks broken, send the schedule name along with your question. That lets us open the same screen you're looking at, which usually saves a round of back and forth. Ideas for the Scheduler land in the same inbox, and we do read them. A good share of what's in here started as somebody's email.