Help figuring out plan sheets and record keeping ideas

[hsmom]

Legally I don't have to keep records, but I want to for my benefit.

 

Here is what I am wanting, I want to find a way to put down what we need to do this year. But not actually schedule it out. Whenever I schedule we seem to fail, so this time I want to have a place to look at what we need to do like a checklist or something along those lines. Then have a place to record what has been done.

 

Any ideas on what to do or how to do this? I am just at a lose on how to get it all organized.

 

Thank you for any help and ideas you may have.

[Hoot]

If you work well with checklists, how about just making a list of each task, activity, chapter etc. for each curriculum that you're using. Each curriculum gets its own sheet and each task gets a check box beside it. Divide the list any way you want so that you can tell whether you're generally on track to finish by the end of the year.

 

Then, if you want to keep records, print out blank plan sheets for each week and write in what you accomplished each day as you finish it.

[MomatHWTK]

I noted my method on this thread:

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/showthread.php?t=407262 :001_smile:

[Incognito]

Have you ever looked at a sonlight IG? I used one last year and liked it, so now I'm making a variation of it for my own materials as well. One page each week.

 

It has a column for each day of the week, and a row for each resource. Resources are arranged by subject, and I left a couple blank spots too for resources I don't use regularly.

 

I have my suggested days of the week for that resource marked by shading the box in the column(s) for when I expect to do them. For example, I have FLL as a resource in my LA section, and I have 3 shaded boxes (MWF). I am planning to write in what pages/chapter/lesson/etc. we did -in the shaded box. There will be unshaded boxes we can always log stuff in if we do more, but the shading will show me if we are missing things I want to get done.

 

Personally, I will fill my shaded boxes for each resource/subject, no matter what day we are actually doing them on. BUT, I like having the day assigned because it gives me ideas for how the week will get done.

 

HTH. I feel like I've used the sonlight model, but made it more flexible and perfectly suited to how we do things. I hope it works out that way this year! :)

[threedogfarm]

Take a look at http://donnayoung.org/forms/subject-planner.htm

 

This may be what you're looking for (and it's free!). I use this method and it works well for us.

[Closeacademy]

The Donna Young subject planner is good or you can use word processing program to make a list of the lessons and just check them off as you go.:001_smile:

[Clear Creek]

I use Homeschool Tracker to do exactly what you described. I decide how many days a week I want to do each subject and then schedule that subject (but not the chapter or pages). Each day I can see what subjects I have scheduled for that day, and I input each lesson when it is completed and delete it if it didn't get done. So if I want to do English five days a week, I schedule it for M-F, and each day it will come up as assigned. When I do it, I just put in the completed lesson number. If we have an unscheduled appointment or something and it doesn't get done, I just delete it and there is nothing to reschedule and we aren't "behind." At the end of the year I have a digital record of what was done that year. Like you, I don't have to keep records, but I choose to do this for two reasons - first, to cover my hiney should anyone ever have reason to accuse me of not teaching my children, and second, to have a record so that I can look back and see what I used with each child and what a realistic pace for that curriculum was.

[Farrar]

This is what we do.

 

I plan a little, but mostly I shove things in corners but have a system for compiling portfolios at various points along the way.

[KarenNC]

I go through each subject before starting (we do year-round, so we may start different things at different times) and create a checklist in a Word document. It lists the lesson from the book and any extras (outside reading, videos, projects, etc) that we might want to do. This is so that I don't forget I have something! It turns each subject into a "do the next thing" list that I can modify as we go, adding new things I find or deleting things we don't end up needing or having time to do. I keep these in the computer, but I also print out hardcopies and put them in a 3 ring binder with dividers because I like physical stuff ;). The lessons get marked off as they're completed.

 

To keep track of what we've done, I use the Homeschooler's Journal http://www.christianbook.com/the-homeschoolers-journal/9780978541309/pd/97152. Ideally, each week I pencil in what we're going to do that week from my master lists. Sometimes, I end up writing it as we do it on that particular day. ;) Again, going year-round means a bit of modification. The pages aren't dated, so we just start the next one when one is finished. I write the dates included on the cover of the old one and stick it on the shelf.

[angela in ohio]

When mine were littler, I would plan the year per subject, but not schedule it out. So for math, I would have one or a few pages that listed what we were going to do for the year, and I would check them off as we went. I would write a page or two for each week, copying over what we had done in each subject and adding grades, notes, books read, etc., but you could also just keep your records on the original page.