In the summer, we’ve always been so busy finishing school work that I’ve never properly written up what the children have done in the previous year. This year, finishing early, there is time before the summer rush begins. I’m so pleased with how our first end-of-year summaries have turned out!
For the record-keeping-challenged, like me, here’s what I did. Note that there are undoubtedly many ways to do this, and this is probably not the best way, but it’s a first attempt that worked for us. If you plan to wrap up your year’s records, decide what works for you and your family, and feel free to use as much of my attempt as you wish. Please, if you blog about your record-keeping, leave a comment so we can all go and learn from you.
What I did was to open a folder in Word, naming it Children’s Portfolios. In the future, I plan to keep a running list of each child’s noteworthy activities and accomplishments each year, as well as a separate one for the extra curricular activities we do as a family. We’ll have files for individual reading lists and a read aloud list, as well as files for each child’s volunteer work and community service.
For now, there’s a file for each child for the 2008-2009 school year, and here I grouped what they did this year by traditional subjects. Of course, and as usual, there’s overlap between subjects, but who cares? This is just for our family records and memories. I also added the extra curricular things that I could remember, although I’m sure I forgot a few. (That’s why I now aim to add each new activity to the list as we finish it and not wait until the end of the year.) The children proofread for me, correcting errors and adding details.
While I was mulling over the year, there were some flashes of insight which I wanted to be able to record quickly and not lose forever. For this, I made a section at the bottom of each child’s file for things that child might need to do, or things I needed to look into, or comments. When all the individual wrap-ups were finished, it was easy to copy these thoughts to a single file called “to do and think about for 2009-2010”, and now I have an organized list to print out and study as I plan the next school year.
I’m so happy at how this project has turned out! If you have any suggestions or record-keeping tips, please share with us.
Blessings to you all!
Hello!!!! Congrats on finishing early and finding a system that works for you!!! What a wonderful accomplishment.
I do all the record keeping in a word table (s). I love it! I work on setting it up over the summer.Easy to tweek and add on to or take away from.
I like the idea of a bloggy break.( as you mentioned) I have been soooo busy with volunteer work and just keeping house and the beginning of summer activities that having time for blog world would have been difficult anyway. ( hows that for a run on sentence!)
We help run the food pantry at our church.Last week and this the food back is giving away all dry goods. ( normally you pay a fee) Wanting to be good stewards of our budget we have been at the food bank each day for our alloted 30 minutes on the floor. I had been praying for a way to stretch our budget as clients have increased greatly. This was an answer to prayer. I feel like a squirrel gathering nuts for winter and trying to find places to stash them all! Last week we gathered 2.18 tons of canned goods.
The gals are still working on Math. All other subjects are done!!!! We have started swimming at the Y again. The one we like to go to is not close to the house but has such a wonderful outdoor pool, rock climbing wall, and other fun stuff that its worth the trip.And I needed the awesome hot tub to soothe sore muscles!
Well have rambled on too long and need to get out the door. Have a wonderful blessed week!
I have a post on record keeping in my blog archives, but I'll try to summarize here. This past year I kept up with my high schooler's hours and courses on notecards. I had a file box with dividers for each course and under each course were index cards for individual class categories. For instance – Under the main heading of Social Studies, I would put in a card titled U.S. History, one for World History, and one for Government. I would fill in hours and details of what was done as we worked. The good thing about having the subject cards already in there is that you can record as you go. For example, even though we were in World History this year, my husband had a special City Council meeting, which we attended, and I listed that experience under Gov't/Civics.
I have done the same with Science. Even though we were in one classification, if we had the opportunity to visit an actual botanical garden or aquarium, I would record that under the correct heading.
At the end of the year, you take each card and transfer that onto a transcript program (I have Transcript Pro) that tallies up the hours and grades and Voila! you have a transcript.
That's the short version. I will try to find the post and let you know where it is.