Report Card and Transcripts

[Biz-e-mom]

Do any of you give your child(ren) report cards and/or have transcripts even at this age and grade?

If so, would you mind sharing them? I am trying to get some ideas on this. I would like to give report cards, and do something like transcripts even at this age and grade to keep as a school record.

[OneStepAtATime]

Have you looked at the Donna Young site?

 

http://donnayoung.org/

[TheAttachedMama]

Do you use any type of software to plan your homeschool year? 

One easy thing to do is to use one of the many homeschool lesson planning / tracking software.   Many of them will then print out attendance records, grades, transcripts....you name it!  And you don't have to *do* anything extra if you use these software packages.  As long as you 'check off' what you do each day, it will generate all sorts of neat reports.    This way you will always have records of what your kids did each year.   Plus, it is sort of nice to have everything entered digitally.   It allows you to quickly see your whole year at a glance.  You can see what will happen if you decide to take this day (or week!) off for example.  (When will you finish your math or science book if you continue on at this current pace.)  Things like that.

 

There are many, many different types of software available.  I won't list them all here because it would take forever.   But my personal favorite free software is Homeschool Skedtrack.   My favorite paid software is either Homeschool Planet or the one on SCM.  NOW-- don't know if these software programs are good for things like highschool transcripts.  Honestly I need to research that more.  But for elementary school---they are GREAT!  I like that they are all accessed online because I can get to our plan from any device or location.  (smart phone, library computer, home computer, ipad, etc.)

 

[TheAttachedMama]

As far as grades, we don't do the typical "A, B-, C+" type of grades.  That is because we don't' use any type of curricula that issues tests or things like that.   Also, because I don't think that those types of grades make sense in the elementary years at least. 

 

In our home, we work at everything until there is 100% mastery.  So 'grades' don't really make sense for us.   You either have completely mastered (100% A+) the topic....or we don't move on.  And I think that this is one of the true benefits of homeschooling.

 

In other words, in a typical brick and mortar school setting, if a child can answer 75% of their math problems correctly, they move on to the next topic.  BUT--that still shows that they struggled with 1/4 of the material!  That is a lot of material!  And in a school setting, the entire class would then move on to the next topic in math.   The next topic would rely upon the foundation established in the previous topic.   SO-- if the child had a weak understanding of that material, they would soon find themselves totally lost.   In our home, we are only working with one child at a time.   So we don't move past an assignment until it is completely mastered.  Until they are able to answer all problems easily and correctly--or show a true mastery/understanding of the material.   Its all or nothing.  Pass or fail.  (And we don't have to fail at anything.  We just work at it from a different angle until it is understood!) 

[Ellie]

No report cards; transcripts beginning at 7th (12yo).

[SkateLeft]

I've only bothered with report cards when my kids needed them for something, which has happened maybe half a dozen times in all my years of homeschooling.

 

I don't do grades or transcripts until my kids are doing high school work.

[ErinE]

How old are your children? I keep curriculum and book list summaries for each child's school year, but no grade or transcripts. Once ds begins high school, I'll have a section on his transcript for pre-high school courses in mathematics and science.

 

In public school, the grades I earned in middle school didn't count for anything in my grade point average so I don't see much point in keeping grades. Like a prior poster said, skill subjects are done to mastery; my child keeps working on an assignment until it's done right.

[Biz-e-mom]

Thanks to TheAttachedMama "love your username."😊

Thanks also, to Ellie, SkateLeft, and ErinE.😊

[Biz-e-mom]

Thank too, OneStepAtATime!😊

[73349]

I do a narrative each quarter that tells how he's doing in each subject (total: about 3/4 of a page). No letter or number grades. (How would I grade handwriting? Or Spanish or history, both of which which he does orally?) It's mostly so I can look back and see how he has progressed; I save few old papers.

 

It's very unlikely I'd need a transcript, but I would be able to pull it together with my planning spreadsheets if I needed to.

[Farrar]

I also write a short narrative account a few times a year as well as a short sheet where I list the classes, books, topics for history and science, etc. I used to work at a school that did not give grades - only narrative reports, so I have a lot of practice doing these sorts of things quickly. My report is mostly as "Things to be proud of" and "Things to work on." I don't believe in grades in general as a useful assessment tool. We may use them in high school for expediency in transcripts and college applications, but certainly not before that.

[Biz-e-mom]

Thanks Farrar!😊