Are you using Barbara Shelton's Form+U+La?

[MamaSheep]

I've been reading her book, and it seems to contain some very useful ideas, despite the rather random organization. What I'm having a hard time figuring out is what does this look like when put into actual practice?

 

If you've implemented her ideas, would you be willing to tell me about what kinds of paperwork you have for each course, how one course differs from another and how you decide what iteration to use for which class, and how you have it all organized?

 

Thanks, I'm just trying to wrap my head around all this.

[beachnut]

:bigear:

[laughing lioness]

I like this book becasue Barb spells out how to create a syllabus/class, how to count hours for a carnegie unit, how to utilize irl for subject areas. It gave me a well rounded understanding of what high school could look like.

 

FYI: Barb's kids (at least the older 2) did not go to college- her oldest dd went to a 1 yr. dance/ministry program and her ds went to the police academy. Not sure about the 3rd one. My undestanding of how Barb has homeschooled is very "delight directed" and practical living skills. All of that to say, her pedagogy informs her materials.

 

The best way to organize the info would be to take the spine off of her book and put it in a 3" ring binder with tabs. Photocopy the sheets that make sense to you for what you are doing with your kids. Make a notebook for them, utilizing the sheets from her book that make sense given what you are doing and where your kids are going.

 

hth. ;)

[Zee]

I have not been able to get through it. :( It is so wordy and the organization is confusing to me. I find Lee Binz's and Inge Cannon's materials much more straight to the point and easy to utilize, not to mention orderly. That said, I have not given up on Shelton's book. I'm going to look through it some more this summer, but I had to lay it aside when I was feverish to have some questions answered quickly. It is recommended over and over, so I know there is something good in there for me to dig out, or at least apply in principal.

[mamajudy]

I found Barbara's book to be very inspiring. I had to read through it a couple of times to really get a handle on it, and I agree that it seems a little rambling and disorganized. But the concept is what I found of value. When my husband went through a PhD program that required him to develop his own plan of study, I knew exactly what he needed to do. So I actually "homeschooled" my husband through his PhD.:D

[K-FL]

I found it helpful for the same reasons Lioness did: How to organize "real life" into hs credit. I agree Barb's layout confused me too, but the forms were a great help.

[MamaSheep]

I like this book becasue Barb spells out how to create a syllabus/class, how to count hours for a carnegie unit, how to utilize irl for subject areas. It gave me a well rounded understanding of what high school could look like.

 

FYI: Barb's kids (at least the older 2) did not go to college- her oldest dd went to a 1 yr. dance/ministry program and her ds went to the police academy. Not sure about the 3rd one. My undestanding of how Barb has homeschooled is very "delight directed" and practical living skills. All of that to say, her pedagogy informs her materials.

 

The best way to organize the info would be to take the spine off of her book and put it in a 3" ring binder with tabs. Photocopy the sheets that make sense to you for what you are doing with your kids. Make a notebook for them, utilizing the sheets from her book that make sense given what you are doing and where your kids are going.

 

hth. ;)

 

I found Barbara's book to be very inspiring. I had to read through it a couple of times to really get a handle on it, and I agree that it seems a little rambling and disorganized. But the concept is what I found of value. When my husband went through a PhD program that required him to develop his own plan of study, I knew exactly what he needed to do. So I actually "homeschooled" my husband through his PhD.:D

(This made me giggle. And good for you!)

 

I found it helpful for the same reasons Lioness did: How to organize "real life" into hs credit. I agree Barb's layout confused me too, but the forms were a great help.

 

Ok, this is what I'm finding interesting too. My problem is that her presentation is so disorganized that I'm having a hard time figuring out how to translate her ideas into my life. I get the impression she's better at organizing than explaining how she did it. I can "see" a sort of nebulous general concept of it, but can't quite get a clear picture, if that makes sense. I think I may need to go through the book another time or two, making notes, before it really comes together for me, and I'm finding that frustrating. At the same time, I can see bits and pieces that look like some really solid, workable ideas--like how to assign credits by counting hours or by content completed, or some combination of the two. Some of the bits make me feel like maybe I really will be able to do this high school thing competently after all, and I'd really like to be able to "see" more of the picture.

 

So I was wondering how other people are implementing her ideas in actual life.

 

What does your child's notebook look like?

 

When you go to set up a new course for your student, what do you do first? What do the course materials look like when you give them to your student?

 

Which forms do you use, and how do you use them? How do you adapt her materials for use with a college-bound student?

Edited May 14, 2011 by MamaSheep

[MamaSheep]

I have not been able to get through it. :( It is so wordy and the organization is confusing to me. I find Lee Binz's and Inge Cannon's materials much more straight to the point and easy to utilize, not to mention orderly. That said, I have not given up on Shelton's book. I'm going to look through it some more this summer, but I had to lay it aside when I was feverish to have some questions answered quickly. It is recommended over and over, so I know there is something good in there for me to dig out, or at least apply in principal.

 

I'm struggling with the presentation too. Could you give me some titles or links to those other books?

[Julie in MN]

When my husband went through a PhD program that required him to develop his own plan of study, I knew exactly what he needed to do. So I actually "homeschooled" my husband through his PhD.:D

 

:cool:

 

 

I've used Barb Shelton's book in different ways with two very different kids (they are 8 years apart).

 

1. My very first homeschooling experience was bringing home dd who had failed 9th grade and most of summer school, and who did not want to homeschool. (She had been an A/B student before that, and had just.stopped.working.)

 

Barb's book helped me make sense out of the chaos. We were trying and discarding all kinds of things, making our way through our own assumptions and the advice of others, and most of all, I did not want to replicate public school at home -- public school did not work for this dd. Barb's book gave me all kinds of ways to make a credit out of scattered bits, and allowed me to use good ideas and opportunities I had in more directed ways.

 

2. Now I'm homeschooling my youngest ds, who is cooperative, has been homeschooled a long time, and for the most part could just be handed standard high school fare.

 

Barb's book has helped me over the years with him in different ways. A couple of examples:

 

a. I used her forms to create a "book report" or "book evaluation" sheet for us to discuss books he was reading. It has some interesting questions on there, such as whose perspective is the book written from? What is the book's value in learning? in character? (Her new edit-able forms on CD should make this kind of adapting a lot easier.)

 

b. I like to incorporate some good opportunities for orchestra performances and such into high school. Homeschool opens us up to so much more than textbook education. But outside events can eat up half or even a whole day, and my ds chooses not to do any extras if he still has to come home and do the same amount of textbook material. Barb's ideas help me to think thru how I want to pull together an elective out of it, or think thru any subbing I might want to make. She also gives me forms I can have my child fill out, in order to *do* something with the events he attends, describing and evaluating them.

 

c. I've posted a lot around here about my son who is actually *sciency* but hates science textbooks with a passion, for some reason. I think it's mostly the memorize-and-forget that is pretty much necessary. Anyways, Barb's Form book, and her Science book, and her email loop, have been a big help in my agonizing over this issue. In my head, I know how lame some of public school is, and I know how much better some of the home-designed things can be, but it helps a lot for me to see it in print I guess, being the book person that I am :) And it's great to read ideas from her contributors as well.

 

 

 

I know that some folks who home-design high school will not go to college. But back when I started homeschooling in 2002, there were a LOT more homeschoolers who designed their own thing -- and whose kids did very well in college. On the other hand, there are tons and tons of kids who follow the public school routine and who never make it in college. I don't think the textbook method is the deciding factor.

 

Julie

Edited May 14, 2011 by Julie in MN

[Elinor Everywhere]

Could you give me some titles or links to those other books?

 

I LOVE Lee Binz's "Setting the Records Straight". Very clear, organized, and encouraging book about creating your own high school transcripts. Step-by-step details, which is what I needed.

 

https://www.createspace.com/3408564

[kimnc]

Just found that she has a website-

http://www.homeschooloasis.com/main_lobby.html

[momofCM]

Even though this is not at all a bad book, I found it very hard to navigate. I found Homeschooled and Headed for College by Denise Boico, and The High School Handbook by M Schofield easier to use and to digest.

[Julie in MN]

You know, for folks who are finding Barb Shelton's book hard to navigate, I wonder if you're looking for something other than what it is designed to be.

 

There are a lot of "how to homeschool high school" books out there. I've never been a big fan of them, but that's probably because I'd already had a child graduate high school (public schools), so these books all seemed like common sense to me -- you should have 4 credits in English, you can make a diploma, you take the PSAT in 11th grade... And some of them told you the 5 major places you could get resources for a particular subject -- and the resource that I loved wasn't even on "the list."

 

To me, Barb's book is a particular resource with practical techniques and focus areas you might not have thought about. It opens your mind to more ways of doing high school besides copying the public schools. It isn't a simple overview of how-to-homeschool-high-school at all, at least to me. Maybe some folks who are confused by it are looking to read something more basic at first?

 

Julie

[MamaSheep]

I LOVE Lee Binz's "Setting the Records Straight". Very clear, organized, and encouraging book about creating your own high school transcripts. Step-by-step details, which is what I needed.

 

https://www.createspace.com/3408564

 

Thanks! I put this one in my Amazon cart just recently, but haven't actually purchased it yet. It's nice to know someone else found it useful.

 

Even though this is not at all a bad book, I found it very hard to navigate. I found Homeschooled and Headed for College by Denise Boico, and The High School Handbook by M Schofield easier to use and to digest.

 

Thanks, I'll look those up. :)

[MamaSheep]

You know, for folks who are finding Barb Shelton's book hard to navigate, I wonder if you're looking for something other than what it is designed to be.

 

There are a lot of "how to homeschool high school" books out there. I've never been a big fan of them, but that's probably because I'd already had a child graduate high school (public schools), so these books all seemed like common sense to me -- you should have 4 credits in English, you can make a diploma, you take the PSAT in 11th grade... And some of them told you the 5 major places you could get resources for a particular subject -- and the resource that I loved wasn't even on "the list."

 

To me, Barb's book is a particular resource with practical techniques and focus areas you might not have thought about. It opens your mind to more ways of doing high school besides copying the public schools. It isn't a simple overview of how-to-homeschool-high-school at all, at least to me. Maybe some folks who are confused by it are looking to read something more basic at first?

 

Julie

 

I can't speak for anyone else, but that doesn't describe the problem I'm having with her book at all. I have a couple of books like you describe, and I don't find them particularly useful either. We've been homeschooling for several years now, and I agree with you that there are more ways of doing school at any level than just copying public school curricula and methods.

 

What I was looking for in Shelton's book was help with figuring out a workable way to document what we're learning and assign grades and credits, and a system for keeping efficient and useful records of our high school experience for future reference. I think she has a lot of really good ideas and suggestions in her book, and I fully intend to use some of them. However, it would be a more useful book to me if all descriptions and comments relating to any given particular topic were grouped together, rather than scattered seemingly randomly throughout the book. It is difficult to get an overview of a cohesive "system" of record-keeping, or to look up information about a specific question I might have. You're right that there is some good, solid, useful information in there. But it's scattered in dribs and drabs, a couple of sentences here, a paragraph or two there. Interspersed in between are rationalizations of her "informal" writing style, stories about her kids that don't really relate to the topic at hand, random criticisms of public education, mini-sermons, and responses to book critics--all of which might be perfectly good topics to include in the book, but they should be grouped together into sections so people can find them when they are looking for that information.

 

Just as an example, I opened the book just now to the section on designing your own classes. This is good, I want to learn about how to design a class. So here's how she teaches me to design a class:

 

First there's a rambly, three-paragraph introduction that takes up the first half of the first column on the first page. The rest of that column and the first third or so of the next column are taken up with a quote from John Taylor Gatto talking about how deplorable institutionalized school is, along with a little commentary on the quote. Next, we have a fairly lengthy section in which she complains about a particular requirement for a state history class she took in high school. Evidently, even SHE realizes she's wandering, because the actual heading of the next section, in bold print, is "SO WHAT IS MY POINT?" She answers this question by explaining that she is not just trying to turn me into a "rebellious rabble-rouser", she just wants me to question the authority of "experts". She reinforces this idea of questioning academic authority with another long quote from Gatto, a quote from Cathy Duffy, and more rambly commentary about not exposing good Christian children to the untruths rampant in the public school system, most especially ideas like natural selection and the Big Bang. Then there are a couple of relatively useful paragraphs that urge me to keep state requirements in their proper perspective while planning classes because the only reason I might need to do so would be if I'm planning to put my child back in school later on. Then there's a 3/4 page rant about how "what if's" are like a disease, followed by a call to come to know Christ. Now I'm three pages in, and she has yet to say much of anything useful about designing a class. The next page is about listening to God's leading as you go along, and trusting your "holy instincts". Interspersed in all of this are three or four good, solid sentences telling me to plan classes based on my particular child's needs, and to do enough work in the class to develop the proficiency I think is important. But that is literally three or four sentences scattered through more than a page of rambling about other topics. Then there's a little exercise related to learning to hear God and take action on what God tells you. Then there's a section in which she explains (yet again--this is a recurring theme in the book) that you don't have to do things her way, you can come up with your own ideas, and you should also listen to God. Next, there's a pretty lengthy discussion about whether or not it's good practice to apply hours for the same activity to more than one class and "double up". This is followed by two paragraphs about translating "real life" experience into "classes", and a section urging me to consider what my child will need in order to be prepared for life, not just in order to have checked off the state's checklist of things to learn. (Good advice, but a bit belabored at this point in the book.) Next up is a section about figuring hours, all well and good, and then a big chunk about definining a "Biblical" education. Finally, she gets around to describing three approaches to creating classes. But in the first 8 pages of the section that is supposed to teach me how to create classes, there are maybe four or five paragraphs that actually relate to that subject. I would find the book more useful if it had a section about Biblical education and following God's leading, a section about the problems with public schools and state-controlled expectations, and a section that was just about creating classes, instead of randomly blending these topics together. The actual explanations of her three methods of designing classes are also rambly, though there are charts involved, and that makes it slightly more cohesive.

 

I like her ideas, I really do, but reading through the book makes me tired and frustrated. It's like sorting out my 93 year-old packrat grandfather's old storage shed on his farm. There's a lot of useful stuff in there, and some of it may even be valuable antiques, but it's all just dumped in together, piled up, and covered in dust. It takes a LOT of work and time to find the tool I'm looking for, or to determine that what I need isn't even in there. THAT is what I mean when I say the book is difficult to navigate. I would prefer more of a hardware store approach, where each type of tool is sorted into a tidy little bin, and tools for related tasks are organized along the same aisle, so to speak.

[mamajudy]

You know, for folks who are finding Barb Shelton's book hard to navigate, I wonder if you're looking for something other than what it is designed to be.

 

There are a lot of "how to homeschool high school" books out there. I've never been a big fan of them, but that's probably because I'd already had a child graduate high school (public schools), so these books all seemed like common sense to me -- you should have 4 credits in English, you can make a diploma, you take the PSAT in 11th grade... And some of them told you the 5 major places you could get resources for a particular subject -- and the resource that I loved wasn't even on "the list."

 

To me, Barb's book is a particular resource with practical techniques and focus areas you might not have thought about. It opens your mind to more ways of doing high school besides copying the public schools. It isn't a simple overview of how-to-homeschool-high-school at all, at least to me. Maybe some folks who are confused by it are looking to read something more basic at first?

 

Julie

:iagree:Barb's book helped me think more creatively about what school can be. And she shows how real life learning experiences and real books can be used to develop a curriculum.

 

Amy, I got a kick out of your decription of the "how to develop a couse" paragraph.:lol: It's so true! This is definitely not a book for those who just want the information so they can do what they're told. Maybe if you read the book with a highlighter in hand, or take notes or outline the info you need, it will help you to sift out the sermons and anecdotes to get to the meat of the book.

[Nan in Mass]

TWTM recommends a book that I found very helpful - A Homeschooler's Guide to Transcripts and Portfolios (might not be exact title). It is out of print, unfortunately, but I found it easily using alibris.com. It walks you through the process of turning your goals and your child's interests into courses and keeping a paper trail. It also has some tips for recreating a paper trial in the event that you didn't do it at the time. It has lists and forms. It has a little narrative but not much. I found it easy to use without reading the whole book from cover to cover and reorganizing the information.

-Nan

[MamaSheep]

:iagree:Barb's book helped me think more creatively about what school can be. And she shows how real life learning experiences and real books can be used to develop a curriculum.

 

Amy, I got a kick out of your decription of the "how to develop a couse" paragraph.:lol: It's so true! This is definitely not a book for those who just want the information so they can do what they're told. Maybe if you read the book with a highlighter in hand, or take notes or outline the info you need, it will help you to sift out the sermons and anecdotes to get to the meat of the book.

 

:lol: I decided I'd better put it away for a day or two when I realized I was beginning to seriously consider getting out a pair of scissors and some scotch tape. :) A highlighter would probably be a more rational solution.

 

ETA: Just so y'all know where I am with this, I HAVE read the book all the way through. Part of my frustration is that now I want to put some of her ideas into use, but it's been a couple of months since I read the book and I don't remember it all super clearly. I continually find myself thinking...now what did she say about X form or Y topic? And I can't FIND the dang information I want. I don't want to have to read the WHOLE BOOK every time I have a question, but it's starting to seem like that's the only way to use the book.

 

Ok...going to look for a highlighter.

Edited May 17, 2011 by MamaSheep

[MamaSheep]

Maybe those of you who love the book could tell me what forms you use most and how you use them?

 

And what I would REALLY love is a peek (visual or verbal) inside a notebook organized (more or less) the way she recommends. I don't think I will be doing exactly what she says, but knowing how other people are using her stuff might help me sort out in my head what would be useful for us.

[Julie in MN]

Maybe those of you who love the book could tell me what forms you use most and how you use them?

 

And what I would REALLY love is a peek (visual or verbal) inside a notebook organized (more or less) the way she recommends. I don't think I will be doing exactly what she says, but knowing how other people are using her stuff might help me sort out in my head what would be useful for us.

 

I'm not really sure what notebook you are thinking of. Must be something I didn't do. I do keep a record of everything my kids do, so that helps use Barb's materials, but I don't think I use anything of hers to keep my records. Maybe you are trying to use her "method" in a more pure sense than I did?

 

But, since no one has bitten, I'll try to share my jumbled thoughts on what I *do* use.

 

1. I used the book for reading matter early in home educating, to separate me from "public school thinking." I didn't worry when it was sidetracked. I again read it when my next child was heading to high school.

 

2. I went back to the book when I wanted a form. I like her forms for evaluating a musical performance or reviewing a book or listing cooking skills that could earn a credit -- when I wanted a tiny paper trail or a thinking point for further learning, but not a worksheet or major study. So in this case, I didn't read her book, just flipped through for a form. I really like that she has these forms on CD now, so I could edit right off them. For instance, I edited the book form for upper elementary by putting white tape over sections & writing my own thing in, but it's not as pretty :)

 

3. When I want to take a course off the beaten path, I go back to her book (and see if she has any other books or thoughts -- I got her science book and chatted with her email group last summer). I did this a lot with my older dd, who struggled. I'm doing this less with my youngest, who's a good student, but he needs motivation sometimes and really I want him to find homeschooling gives him more options. I am now using an already planned out curriculum (MFW, including their lesson plans for geometry, French, etc), which has really given me more time with my family, but I do change things up at times. Barb's book gives me more ideas (as well as giving my kids ideas), plus actual planned out courses to give us a jump start.

 

4. When I finish a home-planned course, her book gives me forms and ideas on how I can document the course. I'm not sure whether I'll ever need this, but I feel better putting together a clear outline while the work is fresh in my mind. It also helps me present the body of work to my student and show the gaps that need filling, if there are any.

 

5. For my struggling dd, who did bits of different classes all over the place, Barb's forms helped me pull together a credit here and there out of the chaos. I used anything that could help with this -- Inge Cannon I think is the one with the index card method of pulling together a credit, and I used a homeschool planner and other grids -- because this kind of thing is a lot of work.

 

 

Does that help at all?

Julie

[MamaSheep]

I'm not really sure what notebook you are thinking of. Must be something I didn't do. I do keep a record of everything my kids do, so that helps use Barb's materials, but I don't think I use anything of hers to keep my records. Maybe you are trying to use her "method" in a more pure sense than I did?

 

But, since no one has bitten, I'll try to share my jumbled thoughts on what I *do* use.

 

1. I used the book for reading matter early in home educating, to separate me from "public school thinking." I didn't worry when it was sidetracked. I again read it when my next child was heading to high school.

 

2. I went back to the book when I wanted a form. I like her forms for evaluating a musical performance or reviewing a book or listing cooking skills that could earn a credit -- when I wanted a tiny paper trail or a thinking point for further learning, but not a worksheet or major study. So in this case, I didn't read her book, just flipped through for a form. I really like that she has these forms on CD now, so I could edit right off them. For instance, I edited the book form for upper elementary by putting white tape over sections & writing my own thing in, but it's not as pretty :)

 

3. When I want to take a course off the beaten path, I go back to her book (and see if she has any other books or thoughts -- I got her science book and chatted with her email group last summer). I did this a lot with my older dd, who struggled. I'm doing this less with my youngest, who's a good student, but he needs motivation sometimes and really I want him to find homeschooling gives him more options. I am now using an already planned out curriculum (MFW, including their lesson plans for geometry, French, etc), which has really given me more time with my family, but I do change things up at times. Barb's book gives me more ideas (as well as giving my kids ideas), plus actual planned out courses to give us a jump start.

 

4. When I finish a home-planned course, her book gives me forms and ideas on how I can document the course. I'm not sure whether I'll ever need this, but I feel better putting together a clear outline while the work is fresh in my mind. It also helps me present the body of work to my student and show the gaps that need filling, if there are any.

 

5. For my struggling dd, who did bits of different classes all over the place, Barb's forms helped me pull together a credit here and there out of the chaos. I used anything that could help with this -- Inge Cannon I think is the one with the index card method of pulling together a credit, and I used a homeschool planner and other grids -- because this kind of thing is a lot of work.

 

 

Does that help at all?

Julie

 

YES. That helps a lot. Thank you.

 

When I said "notebook" I was thinking of...well, sort of a student's "permanent record", so to speak. The main, condensed collection of paperwork one would keep to document a high school student's education so that you could put together a transcript and send it off to a college, for example. I'm a total binder queen, myself, which is probably why I envision having some sort of "master notebook" with a list of classes taken by my high schooler, along with grades for each class, and whatever minimal other paperwork I might feel I need to have to justify (to myself or whoever else) having given a grade and a credit for such-and-such a class. Like a book list, or a course description. Or a completed planning sheet such as Shelton has in her book. Or whatever.

 

Do you have something like that? If so, what sorts of things do you keep for each class? I mean...I would guess that different classes might have different documentation--like if I'm basing it off completing a high school level textbook it would make sense to have a list of the chapter titles and maybe a list of whatever papers I had him write in conjunction with the class, or labs, or whatever. If I'm basing it off time, I might need a list of what activities he did, tracking how many hours he completed. Or whatever.

 

I don't know...I'm just in the process of trying to set myself up some sort of system for tracking all this stuff so when I get to the end of the high school road four years from now (...or maybe 5 with this kiddo...) I'm not sitting around with my thumb up my nose trying to figure out what we did for high school and how I can possibly report that in a meaningful way to a college, or scholarship committee, or...y'know...judge (lol) or whoever else wants to know he's a good student. I would like to be able, at any given point in our high school career, to drag my giant binder off the shelf, flip it open somewhere, and say, "Oh yes, dear mother-in-law/nosey neighbor/social worker/scholarship dude, he is a sophomore and has completed X number of credits of work, in which he has received such and such a satisfactory grade point average. Would you like to see what his introduction to robotics course was like?" It may be a bit of a pipe dream, but while I'm in the mood to dream I might as well dream big.

[MamaSheep]

I spent a little while brainstorming a record-keeping system this afternoon. I've been through Form+U+La some more, and I watched Lee Binz's video yesterday--I thought the book would get here today, but it didn't.) I know I will feel more settled about this whole high school thing when I have my binder set up. For some reason systems make me feel safe...lol.

 

Anyway, so far I've set up a pocket divider for each course we will be requiring for graduation. By which I mean 4 English tabs, 4 math tabs, 3 sciences, 4 histories, 2 fine arts, etc.--not the specific classes, like American Literature or whatever. I've begun populating each class with little scraps and printouts and catalog pages and other kinds of info about materials that might (or might not) be useful for each, including a section on electives. That way, when he decides to do that course I have a list of "stuff" to pick from to set up the class. And then when the class is finished I'll put the documentation I've decided to keep for that class behind that divider, and when we're all done it will (theoretically) be a nice, organized record of what he did for high school.

 

I've also set up a section for keeping track of a running reading list (because I've been told some colleges want to see such a thing), a section to keep track of any extracurricular activities and awards, and a section where I can keep records of random classes or activities that he takes that don't add up to a credit all by themselves but might be combined into a class down the road, or added into a class that needs a couple more hours to make a credit, or whatever. Field trips, concerts, special projects, that odd book he read that doesn't fit his current course load, or whatever.

 

I think I need to add a chunk in the front where I can keep a copy of our yearly affadavit (for legal purposes), a copy of our family's graduation requirements, a running transcript to update each year, and whatever else occurs to me as necessary.

 

Am I on the right track with this, do you think? What else would I want to keep track of that I'm not considering?

[Julie in MN]

Amy,

I'm in the odd situation of having taught two kids high school but none graduated yet. My dd is 24 and still says she wants to finish... My youngest ds is 15. (My oldest ds was public schooled.)

 

But I have used notebooks and here's what I've done.

 

If my kids are notebooking for a school subject themselves, then they have their own notebook for that subject, and I try to put everything related in there. My older dd did a lot of notebooking for credit.

 

The rest of the stuff I put in their "9th grade notebook" etc. I use page protectors, and I use sticky "tabs" to divide it into subjects (with a misc tab at the end). And in that notebook, I put everything I want to hang onto. It might be a table of contents, a xerox copy of a CD program, a photo of artwork (that was fun to do with frames & labels at Walgreens), or a program from a performance. Oh, and there are also samples of work :o) such as a book form from Form-U-La. And if most of the work is in their own notebook, I might xerox the cover of that notebook for mine. At the beginning of each subject's section, I stick a piece of paper where I list what was done for that subject that year. Of course, this notebook looks different for a 3rd grader than for a 12th grader.

 

Besides that, I have kept a plan book for each year. My older dd's was called The Homeschooler's Journal. My youngest ds's is called My Father's World manual LOL, since they have everything laid out on a grid for me. In both cases, a grid box was a credit hour, and inside was written what was done for that credit hour.

 

HTH,

Julie

[MamaSheep]

Amy,

I'm in the odd situation of having taught two kids high school but none graduated yet. My dd is 24 and still says she wants to finish... My youngest ds is 15. (My oldest ds was public schooled.)

 

But I have used notebooks and here's what I've done.

 

If my kids are notebooking for a school subject themselves, then they have their own notebook for that subject, and I try to put everything related in there. My older dd did a lot of notebooking for credit.

 

The rest of the stuff I put in their "9th grade notebook" etc. I use page protectors, and I use sticky "tabs" to divide it into subjects (with a misc tab at the end). And in that notebook, I put everything I want to hang onto. It might be a table of contents, a xerox copy of a CD program, a photo of artwork (that was fun to do with frames & labels at Walgreens), or a program from a performance. Oh, and there are also samples of work :o) such as a book form from Form-U-La. And if most of the work is in their own notebook, I might xerox the cover of that notebook for mine. At the beginning of each subject's section, I stick a piece of paper where I list what was done for that subject that year. Of course, this notebook looks different for a 3rd grader than for a 12th grader.

 

Besides that, I have kept a plan book for each year. My older dd's was called The Homeschooler's Journal. My youngest ds's is called My Father's World manual LOL, since they have everything laid out on a grid for me. In both cases, a grid box was a credit hour, and inside was written what was done for that credit hour.

 

HTH,

Julie

 

Thank you Julie, this is just the sort of thing I was hoping to hear about--what this type of record keeping might look like in real life. And I know it will look different for different people, because it's very customizable. I was just hoping to get some different perspectives to help me sort out what I might want to do at my house. So thank you. :)

[Kareni]

What else would I want to keep track of that I'm not considering?

 

 

Also keep records of your child's work hours and volunteer time (at each organization or event). College and scholarship applications often ask for this information.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[MamaSheep]

Also keep records of your child's work hours and volunteer time (at each organization or event). College and scholarship applications often ask for this information.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

Oh, I hadn't even thought of that. Thanks. :)