Tracking Hours for Credits

[NewIma]

Dd13 is in 8th grade and earning two credits this year (algebra 1 and Spanish 1). If I plan on awarding credit on completion of the text or program, should I still track hours? 

Also, how do you track your students hours? My parents signed me up through Clonlora for high school and I had one sheet for each month where I could write down the time I spent on each subject each day. Does anything like that exist I could purchase? I like hard copies.  Or what other methods should I consider? What was easiest for you?

[historically accurate]

I only track hours for PE.

My oldest was a tracker once she figured out that that style worked for her. She had an Excel sheet with a set number of boxes (150?) which she wrote the date in when she did 30 minutes of exercise. She also used Pomodoro's for studying time, so she had a Pomodoro time tracker. If you are unfamiliar with it, Pomodoro is a system where you work for 25 minutes and take a 5 minute break. So she broke down math as 2-3 Pomodoro for example.

Middle isn't as good at keeping track herself - she'll immediately take the paper to go get a pen, get distracted and set both items down and find them a month later, so I am keeping an Excel file where I jot down the date, the activity and the amount of time. It automatically adds up the time for me. I have a hard copy and I update the Excel file every week during my planning session. 

If you are looking for a daily time tracker, you might be able to find a timesheet printable that would work for you. I would think it would be the same idea - started math at 8:15, ended at 9:10 on Monday and so on.

[BusyMom5]

I tend to count a trxtbook as a credit for those subjects.   I do have to log hours until age 18 for my state laws, but it isn't how I log the credits unless its something like PE, Drivers Ed,  ect.

[8filltheheart]

I don't physically track hours.  I keep track of work completed.   My kids typically put in way more than a Carnegie unit worth of hrs.  🙂

[Roadrunner]

I wouldn’t bother tracking time. Once you complete Algebra 1 textbook, award the credit. Same with Spanish. Are you using a standard textbook? If so, once she is done, award the credit. We don’t use standard texts for foreign language, so I aim at an hour a school day. I never write those down, but I do have a course description with all that was covered. 

[cbollin]

I didn't have to track hours for legal or credit reasons.  One way to award credit is tracking hours. It is not the only way.  Hours will vary according to which authority you follow.  It could be as low as 80 hours for a credit, (NARHS for example has the 80 logged hours rule), or somewhere between "120-180", or it has to be 150, or 180.  There is no one standard for this is what I've realized over the 20 years of homeschooling (I know others here have more years than me).    Credits can be goal based, or textbook based (finish most of the book and it's normal course like algebra or history, call it a credit).   For courses that I was using textbook, I did not worry on "hours".  For PE and piano and non textbook, I was in the 120-150 range with the cover school I used, but they didn't require log.  I just knew if it was 30 minutes a day of practice plus 1 hour per week of lesson for the entire calendar year, my kid earned a credit in piano.  I guess I could have written that down somewhere, but it was so informal and never had to be turned in.

With all the variety said without examples, here is one link for original poster to have a sample template for counting hours per subject if that is how you wish to determine credits in your homeschool.

https://letshomeschoolhighschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/High_School_Credit_Log1.pdf