Organizing and Record-Keeping (Blogging Through the Alphabet)

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After so many years of homeschooling, I've had plenty of opportunities to try curriculum and explore all kinds of resources, so during this Blogging Through the Alphabet tour, I'm highlighting some of the many homeschooling resources that have been stand-outs. Sometimes it will be a walk down memory lane as I share something we enjoyed many years ago, and sometimes it will be something we're using currently. Sometimes I'll focus on a specific curriculum, and sometimes on a subject area. And I imagine I'll have to be a bit creative with a couple letters of the alphabet! This week I haven't got a subject or curriculum that starts with the letter of the week, so I went a little more general. I'm going to share my favorite resource for Organizing and Record Keeping.



Regular readers may know that for many years I've used Homeschool Tracker Online for doing lesson plans, tracking assignments, calculating grades, and just keeping all my homeschool records organized. This online record-keeping system is very easy to use and provides plenty of options for printing assignment lists, report cards, transcripts, and resource lists. For the most part, I find the record-keeping to be almost fun! The biggest problem I have is a tendency to let grading pile up. It's taken me all these years to get on top of that, and now my kid will be graduating soon! But anyway, back to the Tracker . . .

Even when I do get behind, it's easy to plug in the grades on assignments and mark them complete. Using the Lesson Plan feature has simplified my planning over the past several years, because they can be re-used. So when my oldest student did Notgrass World History, I entered all the assignments in the Lesson Plan and then just assigned them as needed. Then as each of the other students came along, I could assign from the Lesson Plan according to the schedule and specific assignments they were doing, without having to re-create the entire course in the program.

I generally assign from the Lesson Plan for about a month in advance, making adjustments as needed when I print the Assignment List each week. Kennady prefers her Assignments lists to have only about a week's worth of work on them, and usually I print the Algebra list separate from the other subjects. With just a couple pages of assignments to look at, it's less likely that she'll get overwhelmed by all she needs to do. One week's worth is an manageable chunk to deal with! It's easy to customize the Assignment List to do all subjects, a combination of subjects, or just one subject; or for any period of time that you choose. The checkboxes are very handy so she can mark off what she's done and see at a glance what's left to do for each day.



When we encounter interruptions that throw the school schedule off, it's pretty easy to adjust the due dates in the Homeschool Tracker and push everything out by two days, or double up here and there so we can catch up.

Since Homeschool Tracker also keeps records of time spent, the resource lists, and all grades that I enter, calculating quarterly or semester grades like I did last week is so easy! I just print the report card, and the quarterly grades are averaged for the semester, and all I need to do is enter the information on the form our umbrella group uses. Our umbrella group provides transcripts when needed for college applications, but if they did not, I could produce my own using the Tracker.

For more info, see my related posts:

High School Assignment Tracking




Back to Homeschool Coffee Break - Planning Our Year

(Read my full review of Homeschool Tracker Online here: Homeschool Tracker Online: A Homeschool Coffee Break Review.)

Blogging Through the Alphabet again? Yes, I'm taking the challenge, along with several other Crew members, including our three co-hosts for this round - Amanda at Hopkins Homeschool, DaLynn at Biblical Womanhood, and Kirsten at DoodleMom's Homeschooling Life. The link is open from Thursday to Wednesday each week, so join in if you'd like!

This post is linked at Blogging Through the Alphabet for Week 15, Letter O.

This post is linked at Homeschool Blog & Tell at The Homeschool Post; and at the Homeschool Linky Party on the Homeschool Review Crew blog.

Visit the Homeschool Review Crew blog for the Organising Homeschool Round-up, and find more thoughts on this topic from Crew members. This will be live on Friday, April 20th.

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