I’m a naturally organized person. I like everything to have a place and for things to put where they go. When I’m not managing a tiny army of people and schedules.
It seems, the busier life gets, the less organized I’m able to be. And even though we’ve moved to a state that doesn’t have reporting requirements like we previously had, it’s still important to me that I keep track of my kids’ learning.
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When we started homeschooling, I had a 1st grader, a pre-kindergartner and a toddler. I pretty much focused our program on my oldest and did mostly play-based learning with my 4 year old (while the toddler did his own thing!)
That year, I had an elaborate tracking system with a fat, daily planner (similar to this one) and stickers. So many stickers!
I printed out sheets of color-coded stickers and wrote the work my daughter did each day then placed the stickers in the planner on the day completed.
And it worked! I was easily able to keep track of how much she was doing with each subject each week (I designed my sticker sheets for weekly use–see how this system worked).
Once my second daughter got to kindergarten age and needed more attention and I had two kids requiring direct instruction, the planner and sticker system no longer met my needs.
So we went through a period of years where we did weekly checksheets, customized for each kid and grade level. The girls would write down each book and page they completed (or I would help when they were still little) and I could easily see how they were doing.
This helped to put some of the burden of recording on to the students rather than being all my responsibility. But it also made it easier for them to slack on their work and me not know right away (I’ve always given my kids freedom to choose what work they do when with the expectation that they’ll complete x-amount of each subject each week).
Soon, though, I had 4 kids. We made a huge move. Life got busier with extra-curricular activities. And we needed an even easier way to keep track of what work was being completed and when and make sure they were staying on track and up to date with their work.
So, back to stickers we went! And this system is working beautifully for everyone.
Each week they get two sheets of stickers (I buy the 4-sheets of 24 stickers at the dollar store), one for math and one for language arts. They place one sticker on a master sheet so I know which sticker goes with which week and then they use the remaining ones to mark pages as they are completed.
This makes it so easy for me to see where they’re at during the week and to know when something was completed for my records.
Ultimately, though, while all these systems are great for tracking work completed as we go, it’s still nice to have a way to keep a record of everything they’ve done in one place.
Whether this is through a portfolio, as required by some states, or just for your own personal records, having an easy way to keep track of what resources were used and when is important.
Which is why I also created and use these handy Portfolio and Recording keeping sheets that cover all grade levels and subjects. Simply print out the one corresponding to your needs (over 100 pages to choose from!), and keep them together in a binder with samples of work, if you choose.
