Record keeping is one of those things that homeschoolers either tend to go over board on--recording every single workbook page or educational activity their child does, or the opposite--keeping no records whatsoever. To add to the complication of it all is the fact that state laws of what you are required to keep for records varies greatly. Some states have no requirements of records being kept at all. Other states tell you what subjects you must teach and how much time you must spend daily. So what is a homeschooler to do?
As a classroom teacher in my "former life" before I turned into a homeschooler, I have been trained to make those wonderful things called LESSON PLANS. In fact, not only was I required to write them up, but I was required to write them up a full week ahead of time and submit them to my principal. There is good reason, of course, for this this type of record keeping. When a classroom teacher is sick, it means that any substitute teacher may walk into that classroom and know exactly where in each subject the class is. But this type of record keeping does not always work so well in a homeschool setting--trust me, I know!
There are too many days where "something" happens, and it eats up your school time. Perhaps your husband forgot some papers at home, and calls asking you to bring them to his office. A pet gets sick, and you need to take them to the vet that day. The car needs repairs. Or medical appointments for family members have to be made and the only time the doctor has available is during your homeschool teaching time. I discovered early in my homeschool life that teaching at home was NOT the same as teaching at school. There is a reason why I could make up lesson plans weeks ahead for my classroom, and after the time passed, there we were--right on schedule. It's because I had no outside interruptions to my teaching day. I walked into my classroom, closed the door, and--taught! Can you imagine that? No cooking lunch, running laundry through, and answering the phone at the same time you are teaching math class!
So--I quickly learned, I think around the first week of homeschool with our oldest, that making lesson plans ahead of time was not going to work out the same way it did in the classroom. Over the last 13 years of homeschooling I have tried various methods of record keeping, including computer programs that were supposed to make my life easier all the way to a plain notebook and simply recording what we DID, not what we were going to DO. I have pretty much settled into the plain old notebook method, and just recording what we did--but I think that is about to change!
Today I was introduced to a record keeping product called Homeschool Daybook. I first looked at it quite skeptical, due to other experiences with complicated computer record keeping programs that only added more work to my already full day. Not so with the Homeschool Daybook! It is a very simple program to use, but it has everything you need and not a bunch of stuff that you don't. If you follow the link above, you will be able to see samples of the pages available and the company is even providing a free limited-use program, so you can sample using it and see if it really works for you.
In a nutshell, you enter the different students in your homeschool along with the subject areas you are teaching. That's all there is to the set up--takes all of three minutes. After that, you can pick a date on the calendar, and click the boxes next to each student name to show that they did school that day--that's your attendance record. Then, for each student, you quickly and easily enter what subjects they did that day, and--this is my favorite part--there is a box where you can enter your own description of what your lesson was. For instance--if you are doing a hands-on type of project that does not have a book name and page number for you to record, it is NOT a problem with this program. You simply give your entry a name--"Cooking" for instance, and I would click on the box next to "Math" since that is the subject I am counting this activity under. Then in the box I would write up however much or little I wanted to--maybe "Today we baked cookies and divided them into groups to practice fractions."
The advantage of this computer program over my simple paper and pencil record keeping is that I can quickly find and print out reports for whatever I need to. If I need to see what a child did for math for the past month, I can print out a report that will show all math entries. Or I can print out a report showing all subjects, reports showing just the subject names or the subject names along with the detailed description of the activities. A report showing attendence can be printed, if you live in a state where you are required to keep track of attendence. One HUGE advantage of using this program would be to those who live in states where they are required to keep track of the TIME they spend homeschooling--this program will take all those hands-on activities you entered, and collect for you all of your entries that you marked as "Math", showing a total number of hours and minutes spent on that subject area. On the other hand, if your state does not require a record of time to be kept, you can simply leave that spot blank.
I hope this review has helped give some ideas to those of you out there struggling with record keeping. With a free trial version available, I think this is a great program to try!
Disclaimer: This review was written in response to the offer by Homeschool Day Books to provide a permanent license, free of charge, to any bloggers willing to write a review of the trial version. No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.
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