Short answer
The Your week page is a snapshot, not a report card. Red and amber are prompts to look, not signs you have failed.
If you opened your homeschool home page on a Sunday evening and felt your stomach drop at a colour, you are not alone. That reaction is completely understandable, and this article is here to talk you through what those indicators actually mean.
What is on the Your week page?
Your home page shows four things, depending on how long you have been using Willowfolio.
Currently reading. Your home page shows the books each child has on the go, with the cover and a quick link back to the reading log. It is a small touch that reminds you what is open on the bedside table.
Active sensitive periods. Your home page shows any sensitive periods (natural windows when a child is drawn to a specific skill) the app has noticed are currently open for your children. You can see at a glance what they are drawn to right now. It is a window, not a deadline.
Getting started checklist. If you are new to Willowfolio, you will see a short checklist of setup steps. Once you have completed them, it disappears.
Coverage colours. These are the ones that cause the most worry, so they get their own section below.
What do red and amber actually mean?
The coverage colours come from the curriculum area of Willowfolio. A colour-coded map shows how your activities are mapping across Montessori areas and the National Curriculum. Tap any area to jump straight to the activities that have covered it.
Here is the key:
- Green means you have logged several activities in that area recently.
- Amber means there has been some activity, but not much lately.
- Red means very little or nothing has been logged in that area for a while.
That is it. No grades, no percentages, no pass or fail. Think of it like a weather forecast. Amber on Maths does not mean your child is falling behind in maths. It means "you have not logged much maths recently, and you might want to glance at it this week".
Some weeks you will be deep in a science project, and maths will naturally go amber. That is fine. It is how real learning works. Children do not move through every subject in neat, equal slices.
What does the Your week page not do?
It is worth saying clearly what the home page does not do, because if you have used other tracking apps, you might be bracing for features that are not here.
- No streaks. Willowfolio does not count consecutive days or reward daily logging. There is no streak to break.
- No grades or scores. There is no percentage, no letter grade, no pass mark.
- No "days behind" counter. The app does not calculate whether you are ahead or behind a schedule.
- No notifications haranguing you. Willowfolio will not send you a push notification telling you to log something.
The app is deliberately built this way. Home education does not work on a school timetable, and the tools you use should not pretend that it does.
What does a real homeschool week look like on the home page?
Priti, mum to Zara (six) and Aarav (four), opens her home page on a Sunday evening in their Sheffield terrace. She sees green on Practical Life (everyday tasks like cooking and tidying) and Language, amber on Maths, and red on Geography.
Her first thought is "I have not done enough." Her second thought, after a breath, is "what did we actually do this week?"
Zara spent three afternoons building an elaborate shop with real coins and handwritten price labels. Aarav helped sort the laundry by colour and size every morning. They read together for an hour most days. Nobody did a geography worksheet, because nobody needed to.
Priti taps the amber Maths area and sees that the shop game has not been logged yet. She adds it, and Maths shifts to green. The red on Geography stays red, and she decides that is fine for now. Next week they are walking to the local park with a map, and she will log that when it happens.
If Priti were a single parent working shifts, the same approach holds. The colours do not care whether you logged five activities or one. One logged walk with a map is enough to shift a colour. The point is never volume; it is a gentle reminder of what has not had attention lately, so you can decide whether it needs any.
If anything on your home page is not doing what you expect, write to us at [email protected] and a real person will sort it out.
Frequently asked.
- Does red mean I am failing?
- No. Red means that area has not had much activity logged recently. It is a gentle nudge, not a grade.
- Can I turn the colours off?
- You can choose not to look at the coverage map. It lives on its own tab inside the Curriculum section, not on the Your week page itself. The home page only shows your currently reading list and active sensitive periods.
- What if every area is amber or red?
- That is common in the first few weeks, or after a holiday. It does not mean your child is behind. Log a handful of activities and the colours shift quickly.
- How often do the colours update?
- Every time you log an activity or update a reading log entry. There is no weekly reset or monthly deadline.
- Do I need to make every area green?
- No. Some areas will naturally get more attention than others, especially if your child is deep in a sensitive period. A mix of colours is completely normal.