Easy Fuss Free Record Keeping

I keep records of the children’s achievements by:

• Dating when we finish a particular book
• Keep a list of books read
• Keep checklists as a reference for writing up the end of term diary.
• I keep a homeschool planner where I record composers studied, read-alouds and a calendar of events.

I do not ever record specific school hours. Instead I work from a basic timetable. We run on a four term schedule. Term times run closely along with the NSW schools, as this works well for other scheduled holiday activities. At times we do vary when certain situations arise.

Here is a sample of my 2011 basic timetable.

Morning 0900-1300 Afternoon

Ø  Monday Academics and Book work Academic and Book Work

Ø  Tuesday Academics and Book work Sport

Ø  Wednesday Academics and Book work Music

Ø  Thursday Academics and Book work Dance

Ø  Friday Homeschool group activity Field Trips

Term Planner

I have found that the best way for me to do this is to write out what I call a term summary at the beginning of each term with subjects and goals. It shows what we are hoping to achieve for eachchild that term. Although this is quite specific there is still ‘room to move’. I type this up as a table on Microsoft Word and save it so that I can review my work at the end of term and use this document as the basis for my end of term report.

Here is a sample of this Term 1 Planner  2011

Weekly Goal Setting

The term summary is the reference for planning our goals for the week. I do not set a specifictimetable rather we work on achieving our goals for the week. We have a basic routine that the kids become familiar with and they are expected to accomplish their set work.

I have found that Sue Patrick’s Workbox system has helped me greatly with this phase. I also use checklists .

Homeschool Term Diary and Assessment of Progress (A homeschool report)

This is completed at the end of each term. The electronic version of the term planner that was commenced at the beginning of the term is resurrected and filled in with what has actually been achieved.

Page numbers, chapters, specific book narrations, field trips and unit studies are added. A short assessment is added plus progress notes on specific key learning areas that may need attention or of interest.

Here is a sample of Term 1 Summary

Is This Really Enough?

I have been registered to homeschool for 10 years and I’ve been using this method for about 5 years. Each time I register with the Board of Studies (NSW) they are always happy with this approach.

Overdocumentation

In my years of homeschooling I have seen many friends homeschool records and some of them look stupendous. They have scrapbooking pages, video recordings of narrations, pages of detailed moments in their homeschool day. They also tell me that the Board of Studies loved their record keeping. I’m sure they did.

Whilst I commend their efforts and see that they have a great keepsake for their children I do wonder if they are making a rod-for-their back. Can they maintain this type of record keeping? Are they overdoing it?

Keep It Simple

When setting up a record keeping system for yourself, do yourself a favour, and keep it simple and easy to maintain.

Make sure you have the following elements in your program:

Ø  Record of progress of work

Ø  List of Achievements

Ø  Assessment of Progress

Ø  Assessment of future needs of child.

Find out more about my portfolios here.

Well it’s our one year anniversary of workboxes. So I thought I would tell you how it is going.

I must say that I still feel that this system is a very worthy system.

It has:

• helped us get more organised
• shown me a way to get their independent work completed
• given us a concrete system for doing our work
• been a great training ground for our routine
• helped me with my record keeping and has
• made my children more accountable to their day.

As with most things that we incorporate into our family, we have stamped our style onto it.

After one year I am reflecting on how to make the system work better. Now that we have established a good routine and my kids find they can work independently; I am wanting to fiddle again with things and foster even more independence. That means taking some of the bells and whistles out of the system.

I am removing the folders and just sticking with the box/basket. I found packing the boxes tedious in the end, and  since I was using the same material most days, I have decided to go with a checklist.We also do a fair amount of our day together reading aloud and working on our unit study subjects, so I have removed any reference to those activities from the workbox. The group work is my responsibility to get done and I want them to feel the workboxes are theirs.

My hope, this term, is to make them accountable for their “boxes”, without being able to “blame” me and say that the reason they have not done their work is because I haven’t packed them properly.

Lets hope it works!

Smiles

Michelle

Here are a few other links on workboxes that you might be interested in.

How we get organised in our homeschool

Well, this is just a quick post as I should be doing something else instead of procrastinating with this blog post.

I still love the workbox system-–but I have made it suit me more.

I have pruned my boxes down to five or six. These are the reasons.

I found it stressed me out trying to fill all the boxes with something interesting. I was putting in things just for the sake of it rather than things I really felt passionate about them doing. Five-Six boxes is much easier to fill and they all have a variation the same topic everyday.

1. English
2. Math
3. Reading (science for older kids)
4. Reader with Mum
5. Another notebooking Topic
6. Music practice or Mathletics or a blog post.

I also found that the workboxes segregated us from each other. They all had their own work but our group time was diminished. Our read alouds were almost nothing. We have gone back to our notebooking group time.

The workbox system does require organisation. But since simplyfying it I have a quick set up and although its not that exciting I know that they are getting the basics of the day done. I try to make most of the things in their boxes work alone things so they can just get on with it and I can conserve my teaching energy for specific needs and the group times.

Would I still recommend workboxes . YES! Absolutely–whilst I had an OK system (pre workbox) before, this one allows me a more concrete way of knowing where the kids are up to and prompts me to forward plan. I also find that I mark their work more while I am setting up for the next day.

The kids also want it. They like knowing where they are up to and how far they have to go. If their boxes aren’t set up they ask for it.

You can buy your Workbox Ebook from Currclick

Smiles

Michelle.

Here are some great ebooks to buy

The Workbox System

Spelling Wisdom

Charlotte Mason Study Guide

And of Course (excuse the plug)

Homeschooling Downunder ebooks

The exciting developments in technology today mean that so many new resources can be available to us through the use of eBooks (electronic version of books that you can download and print). Don’t panic about ebooks. Now that I am used to them and have a good system I have found them invaluable.

Ebooks have so many advantages;
• In most cases you can have them instantly.
• You have access to many Authors (Many of our resources may never have seen the light-of-day without this great new medium)
• Many ebooks are free.
• No postage required.
• Easy to breakdown the book into sections to encourage children to read.
• Reusable-I many cases copyright allows reuse within the family.
• Most eBooks have been made to suit A4 paper, perfect for home computer printing.

I’ve just found another great use in our homeschool for ebooks. We utilize them for our workboxes. You can put a portion of the book into the folder for them to read.

To Print Your Ebook

• Printers: For most of my ebooks we print off on a laser black and white printer. In Australia they cost less than $100 to buy and they a quick and very economical. Buy one if you print a lot of ebooks.Nearly all of my ebooks are printed on this printer. We also have a multifunction inkjet colour printer that I use to print the cover just to make it look a little prettier.

• Paper choice: Regular 80gsm paper is fine for printing your eBooks.

• Double Sided Printing: This option is quite easy once you get the hang of it. Open your eBook and select print. Then under the pages box select print even pages only. Then press the OK button. As the sheets are printing keep them in the order that they come out. Then put all the pages back into the printer tray (paper loading differs) so that the pages will print on the other side. This time select odd pages only. Then press the OK button. You should then have printed a double sided document. Caution I made a few mistakes in the early days. You may need to do a practice on page 1 and 2.

• Binding Options: At this stage If I have a ebook that I will want to keep and reread I print my ebook at home and take it to a quick copy centre and have it bound.

• For resources that are more like worksheets I either staple, I hole punch and use paper fasteners. Have a look at this to see what I mean.

Copyright on ebooks

Copyright on ebooks is why many publishers choose not to this electronic publishing. Copyright on ebooks is like software. It is usually licenced for one computer. Sharing of an ebook that you have bought is breaching copyright and stealing from the author unless that have specifically said it is for sharing. I was annoyed to see a couple of months ago that someone had put some of my ebooks on their blog and file share site and was sharing it with anyone who visited their blog.

Here is a good video about sharing homeschool materials.
http://www.youtube.com/v/XJmWKb0_aXw&hl=en&fs=1

I think copyright can be confusing for some. We often can think something is old or out of print so it is no longer in copyright.

The law in Australia states that copyright lasts until 75 years after the author dies. It used to be 50 years. So any authors that died after 1955 their work will not be available to copy for public domain until at least 2020.

For example we had to pay and acknowledge the copyright owners in order to print My Country by Dorothea Mackellar in Our Sunburnt Country because she died in 1968 so this poem is not public domain until 2043. We could only print it 2000 times and then we would have to reapply.

There are times when it is OK to do some copying you can look at this fact sheet from the Australian Copyright Council.

http://www.copyright.org.au/pdf/acc/infosheets_pdf/G053.pdf

Smiles to you

Well, we are now at the end of our second week using the workbox system. We are still refining it to suit our family. Next week I will work on getting our group time more coordinated.

The kids have responded well to this system. They like having it all layed out. I think the schedule chart is excellent. I agree with Sue Patrick, it gives them a sence of progress. Seeing their boxes empty also motivates them to finish. I have been wanting to find a way to bring more accountability into my highschoolers life and this system does that beautifully. I am finding that this system has really really helped us get more work done and in a shorter period of time. It helps us all to stay focussed on the task.

Filling the Workboxes

I will tell you what was in todays boxes.

Miss Seven

1. Copywork page

2.Own reader- Bertie and the Bear by Pamela Allen

3.Reader Rabbit computer game 20mins

4.Picture study -look at pictures from Whistler

5.Make an entry in notebook. I provided a page of Whistler’s pictures. to put in her notebook. I also put glue and scissors in the workbox

6.1/2 piano lesson (the teacher comes today)

7.Math page Singapore math (work with mum-wwm)
8.Read chapter of reader (wwm)

9.Emma Serl -Primary Language Lessons (wwm).

10. Check work over with Mum.

Master Nine

1. Chapter of Box Car children

2. Page of Copywork.

3.Address letter to Ma and Pa. Address (on seperate piece of paper to copy), envelope, card (from yesterday) and stamp all in workbox.

4.Music Ace on the computer

5.Page of Singapore Math (wwm)

6.Read 2 pages on Franz Schubert.

7.Put picture in notebook of Franz Schubert (provided) and write his name.

8.Emma Serl-Primary language Lesson. -wwm. We do this with his sister at the same time.

9.Clue Finders CD Rom-Monkey Kingdom

10. Bring work to Mum to check.

Miss Eleven

1. 1/2 hour piano lesson

2. Emma Serl Intermediate Language Lessons.

3. Life of Fred Fractions

4.Mark Life of Fred

5.Read chapter of When Science Fails by John Hudson Tiner

6.Mathletics for 20 mins

7.Read 2 pages of Franz Schubert

8. Make an entry in music notebook about Franz Schubert using information from previous reading. Picture of Franz provided.

9.Rosetta Stone-Spanish 20 mins

10. Bring work to be checked.

Master 13

1.Piano Lesson with teacher

2. Mathletics 20 mins

3. Wordsmith exercise.

4. Life of Fred Algebra

5.Check answers with mum

6.Apologia Physical science module test (1/2 of test)

7.Mark test

8.Picture study Whistler. Read life of Whistler and do a crossword from Garden of Praise.

9.Make an entry in picture study notebook on Whistler.

10.Bring work to Mum to check.

Here are the baskets brought back at the end of the day.

Drawbacks

I am finding less time for our read alouds but I am getting the children to do more reading on their own – something I have been wanting the older ones to do. Using this method I am allocating the reading to be done each session.

Less group time- before we did a large portion of our day together and I find that they are more confined to ‘their boxes’. This is something that I will be streamlining more as the weeks go by.

Less time to escape for me. This is a negative and a postive. To keep things moving we are all in the same room and I am working with the kids as needed. I’m finding it harder to get the washing on or do a few jobs around the house. But then I also have all the work finished much earlier so I can attend to those things after they have finished (hence todays blog entry).

It has not been hard to fill the workboxes each day but it does require me to fill them. This is a discipline that I am working on and I am enjoying planning their day out and using things that I have but haven’t been using.I refill as I check their work for the day. I have slacked off a couple of times and been sorting at night or like today getting up early but it is worth it!

Michelle

Day one went really well with the new workbox system. The kids were far more focused and we got through our workboxes quickly. I found that as I checked through their work I was able to set up the next day’s folders at the same time.

Miss 7 always wants something to do, so she was in her element working through the system. I did not fill her ‘boxes’ with busy work but lots of bite size work that she could do. She was able to work a lot more independently and knew when she was supposed to work with me and when she was to work on her own.

Master 9 who can be quite contrary said he didn’t like it much but I actually think he enjoyed the structure and will enjoy it more when he gets used to it.

Miss 11 liked having some tasks added to her workbox that she wanted to do but never seemed to get around to it.

Master 13 is very unstructured and doesn’t pace himself well. Normally he would just work on his favourite topics until he is sick of it and exhaust himself for other subjects. We managed to get more out of his day.

I felt far more in touch with what the older ones were doing. I was able to have times table races with my son-I slaughtered him but he loves a challenge and will be trying to beat me tomorrow. I was also able to keep the computer under control better. They all had their computer activities to do but they were all spaced evenly and I made them wear the headphones so they wouldn’t distract.

The ‘boxes’ are set for tomorrow. This is what I put in them.

Workbox content -Miss 7
1. 5 mins piano practice
2. Primary language Lessons Emma Serl lesson (work with Mum and brother)
3. One page of copywork
4. Read a chapter of assigned reader (work with Mum)
5. One exercise of Singapore Math
6. Play phonics racing on computer 20mins
7. Read on your own book.
8. Make a craft clock
9. Clock worksheet
10. Come and show work to Mum

Workbox content Master 9
1. Math copywork 2x &3x
2. Primary language Lessons Emma Serl lesson (work with Mum and sister)
3. Singapore Math 1 exercise
4. Downunder Copywork
5. Music Ace computer 1 lesson
6. Make a clock craft
7. Read 5 pages Wilbur and Orville Wright
8. Look through nature book all the bird types.
9. Work on bird book (his request)
10. Come and show Mum work.

Workbox content Miss 11
1. Intermediate Language Lesson by Emma Serl –one exercise
2. 15mins piano practice
3. Life of Fred Fractions Bridge test
4. Read chapter of When Science Fails by John Hudson Tiner
5. Mathletics 20mins
6. Go on blog for 15 mins
7. Have a snack
8. Rosetta Stone study guide review page.
9. Work on water colour painting 30mins
10. Come and show Mum your Work

Workbox Content Master 13

1. 15mins Piano Practice
2. Wordsmith exercise
3. Rosetta Stone CD 20mins
4. Times table races. Work with Mum
5. Study guide questions Apologia Physical Science
6. Mark questions
7. Snack
8. Life of Fred Algebra- Your turn to play questions.
9. Adobe Flash 30mins
10. Come and show Mum work

* We also do readalouds , devotion and one group activity each day -it’s history tomorrow.

Read more about how we used the workbox system in our home.

To buy your workbox ebook visit Currclick

My friend told me all about the Workbox System by Sue Patrick. It didn’t take much to convince me that this would benefit our homeschool. I had been looking for a way to add some structure into our homeschool and foster a little more independance.

The next day I read the book and immediately afterwards I was reorganising the house trying to see how I was going to implement it in my home. When I told my husband about the system he was excited to-he loves structure. The following night I read through the FIVE IN A ROW forum’s 369 posts on the topic.

Many of these women have come up with some great ways to implement this in their home, and they all talk about how it has helped Mum and kids get organised.

I haven’t followed the storage suggestion of boxes instead I have used plastic envelopes and magazine boxes.

So this weekend I have been laminating and organising work.

To help with the daily (or nightly) set up I have stored work beside the boxes.

I will also get them to place their completed work in their own basket that they can bring to me at the end of the day for checking. Then I can refill the envelopes from the baskets and stack them neatly together ready for the next day.

We will still do our regular read alouds and morning bible study then we will try out the boxes. The kids are very excited.

I highly recommend you read about this method from the author and buy her ebook.Workbox System by Sue Patrick.

I will try to post later this week about how it is all going and what I am putting in the boxes.

Michelle

To buy your copy of the Workbox System visit Currclick

Find out more about how it worked out in our homeschool visit this link.