Capture What Happened: Notes, Photos, and Spontaneous Learning

Add a note and photo to an activity to remember what happened, keep evidence for portfolios, and build your family’s learning record.

On the website, the Capture what happened helper text sits under Add a note in the activity pop-up. After you save text, the heading changes to Note added. This note field is free on HomeTrail. It is not the same as HomeTrail Plus Attach PDF (PDFs attach separately with Plus).

What you can save in the note

1. Type what happened or what you want to remember. The box placeholder is What happened? What should you remember? on past or today dates.
2. Optionally add a photo on the website.
3. Open Extra details when shown to set Duration, optional Start time and End time, and Location.
4. Save the activity.

There is no character limit on the text note. On the website you can add one photo per save (JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, WebP, HEIC, or HEIF, up to 10 MB, with an optional description). Save, then edit the record to add more photos later.

This pop-up does not accept voice memos, audio files, PDFs, or web links in the note area.

You need at least one student on the family account before saving. The website asks you to choose participating students in the activity pop-up.

Open the note on the website

1. Open Day and use Plan something, Log something, Add work, Add book, or Add moment, or open an existing activity on that day.
2. Or open Planner, choose Add new, or click an activity to edit it.
3. Or open Journey, open a record’s menu, then choose Edit or add details there.

Scroll to Add a note, enter your text, add a photo if you want, and save the activity.

In the HomeTrail parent app

1. Tap the round ... button at the bottom right, then choose Capture learning under Quick actions.
2. Fill in What happened? and choose at least one child under Who was there?
3. Add a photo from the library or camera. The app requires a note or at least one photo before saving.
4. The footer explains the entry is saved privately to Journey.

App entries from Capture learning save as completed Spontaneous Learning and appear in the Journey tab.

Where notes show later

Session notes can appear on Day cards, Planner week and month views, Journey, the year-end report (PDF and CSV), Portfolios (editor, viewer, and share page), and the printed planner (Notes column).

They do not appear in the weekly progress report email or on transcripts.

With HomeTrail Plus, Nest can show the note to the student as the activity description for that day.

TrailGuide (SMS or WhatsApp with Plus or an active TrailGuide trial) can write into the same note.

Where photos show later

Session photos appear on Day (photo count on the card), Journey, and Portfolios (editor, viewer, and share page) when those sessions are included.

Attached session photos are not rendered in the year-end report PDF or CSV or in the printed planner table, even when notes from the same activity are included.

TrailGuide texted photos attach to the matching activity and follow the same photo destinations as other session uploads.

Spontaneous learning category

Spontaneous learning is something that happened outside your plan. To capture it as its own category, create a new dated learning record under Spontaneous (website: Add moment on Day).

Can I change an existing planned activity to spontaneous learning?

The website editor does not offer a control to change an existing planned activity into the Spontaneous category. Editing the activity preserves its category. If the activity was planned and then happened, mark that existing activity complete; you do not need to create another record under Spontaneous.

If you mean correcting the category rather than recording completion, contact support and describe the activity and date. Do not create a duplicate or delete the original learning record just to change its category.

On the HomeTrail website (Spontaneous)

1. Open Planner and choose the date learning happened. Select the date to open its Day page; for past learning, choose that past day first.
2. Find Spontaneous and select Add moment.
3. Choose or add the activity, select the participating students, and describe what happened. Add duration and subjects when useful.
4. Review the date and save the record using the save button for that day.

To correct an existing record, open it and choose Save changes after editing.

In the parent app (Spontaneous)

1. Open Day and select the date the learning happened, including a past day.
2. Find Spontaneous Learning and tap Add New.
3. Choose the activity and students, add the details, and save. The new entry uses the day you selected.

Use this for unplanned learning that already happened. For future lessons or events, add a planned activity in Planner. For work that repeats each week, use Rhythm.