Homeschool Record Keeping

One of the most likely over-whelming aspects of large family homeschooling is record keeping. With lots of children come lots of papers, projects, and grades. And with the law (at least in my home state of Missouri) telling us that we have to keep records for each year and count each hour that we do in our school, this requires a lot of homeschool record keeping and lots of organization. I am sure that there are as many ways to keep these hour logs as there are homeschool families in Missouri but here is how I keep our homeschool records.

I stopped about 3 years ago making daily lesson plans weeks in advance. Being in ministry our life is just too unpredictable, and it caused me so much stress that it robbed us of the joy of learning. I was so consumed with staying on schedule that I couldn’t follow the children’s interests or take the time to investigate something that caught our attention. School became a check list of “to-do’s” for us and I didn’t like it. So I started to keep more of a journal or log of what we do each day. I usually write it out the night before or during my early morning “mommy” time. But some days I write in it as our day unfolds. It is more like a journal than a lesson plan. I jot notes about the lessons that we did and make a list of the subjects that we covered. This is my “record of progress” or “lesson plan” as our state law requires.

I use my Homemaker’s Friend daily planner to log our “hours” or lessons in so that I can make sure that I meet our state’s yearly requirement of 1,000 hours of instruction each year. I use one side for out core hours and one for our non-core hours. It keeps me organized and yet it is easy to fill in and doesn’t take much time.

I also keep a file of pictures from our day to day studies, our field trips, and art projects that can’t be filed. These pictures are great memories to have but also help me to validate our hours if needed. I just label each folder with the school year and add pictures all year long. It is so much fun to see how the children learn and grow throughout the year.

That is how this large family homeschooling momma does her homeschool record keeping.  What system do you use? Have you found any tricks to make it easier to keep your records up to date and thorough? I love sharing new ideas.