ok, i have made the decision, told my mom, survived her comments, picked the curriculum, gone to a local hs meeting, started organizing our supplies in a closet, sketched out a routine, implemented chores, started doing laid back homeschool w/ kids five in a row, beautiful feet so what about record keeping? can someone talk me thru this mystery? the details please on how to keep track of their hours, i printed out my own planner pages from donnayoung.org. when do i officially start counting hours? i live in missouri, we need 600 core hours, and 1000 total. what about making lesson plans?can someone talk me thru how to make lesson plans off of the curriculum?i need guidancem please i dont know what to do next have i missed anything i SHOULD be doing. i hope to someday soon, be able to help some new hs mom like you all are helping me.
I don't live state side and so I'm not really sure what legal requirements you gals might have (I'm not even sure what the requirements are here - but truthfully I don't care For Andrew, any tests we have done I have them kept in a file folder. When we started schooling him, I had him do some demand writing and kept that in a file as well. Once in a while, when we do some more demand stuff, I also keep it to keep an eye on what he has doing and to see the progression. I didn't do lesson plans for this year (because we started so late in the year). When I did them last year, I sat down on Saturday's and pre-planned the following week, what ouitcomes I had in mind and what activities we would do to accomplish the goal I had. I will say however that I was flexible with it - if I had planned to spend 45 minutes only on math and he wanted to work for an hour who was I to stop him - he lead that on many cases and accomplished all that we set out to do. If we accomplished everything we had set out to do in the week WOOHOO! If on Monday he didn't do all of his math, we carried it into Tuesday. We never had to carry work from one week to the next. By the end of the week, we acomplished all we had set out to do. When you first begin, it looks really over whelming - and you question yourself wondering what on earth you're doing - it does get easier when you get the hang of it and figure out what works best for your family. I wouldn't worry too much about the technicalities - let your children guide you and you'll do just fine. You'll probably learn a considerable amount from them in the process. Don't know what help if any this has been, I hope you might find soemthing that does help though. Brenda
I go by Missouri law requirements, even though I live in Europe right now. Basically, I printed up a "180 days" record page from donnayoung.org and I jot down how many hours we spend on core subjects, how many on the other subjects each day. FYI: an hour of instruction is not literally an hour. One website I found defined it as an "academic" hour (45-50 min.), another website (http://www.homeedmag.com/lawregs/missouri.html) defined it as a class session. So for every 45 - 50 min. of school, it counts as a whole academic hour! (I was going bonkers before I discovered this, because K5 and 1st grade materials don't take that much time to cover!) I record it in "real" time, but keep in mind that each hour is actually about 45 min. I hope this makes sense? I have a great summary of the laws of MIssouri that I printed up a couple of years ago, but I can't find my source! (Note to myself: always jot down the source if it's not automatically printed on the bottom of the page. ) Do you want to write formal lesson plans for your own info. or to comply with Missouri laws? As I understand it, Missouri law requires: a plan book, diary or other record indicating subjects taught and activities engaged in and "a portfolio of samples of child's academic work" or "other written credible evidence, etc." and "a record of evaluations of the child's academic progress" You can just keep a record book with your "shorthand" daily plans (i.e. Math: lesson 30, workbook page 32), keep a log of your hours, and keep samples of your child's work/grades/evaluations in a portfolio. Missouri does not require detailed lesson plans. Missouri only requires that you maintain these records, you are not required to submit them. They are your "insurance" or "proof" is someone challenges you! I'm a bit obsessive compulsive, though, so I write all my objectives in the space provided for Math, English, etc. Old habits are hard to break. :wink: If you want to write out your lesson plans, including objectives, for your own use, you might want to check some teachers' manuals. The lesson plans are all written out and will give you an idea of how it's done. I would recommend buying the teachers' manuals for your curriculum, especially your first year. Saves a lot of time! :lol: HTH! Blessings,
Oh, I forgot, Missouri's academic year goes from July 1st through June 30. I start keeping records when we start our schoolwork. We don't school year around, so it's usually the end of August through the first of June or end of May. But I jot down anything and everything related to school, even in the summer. For example, we found caterpillars and have been observing them. This goes into my record book! We measure our rainfall - into the record! Any and all "teachable moments" can go into the child's portfolio! Be sure to record field trips, too! I like to get a brochure or snap some photos to put in ds' hs scrapbook.
Florida doesn't require us to keep track of hours, only days of instruction. I use a teacher's planbook. I write the date at the top of the page and use the big squares to keep track of each subject. There is enough room here for you to write down your time, as well. I went to teacher's school and taught high school for a few years, so I'm well aware of objectives, lesson plans and so forth. I just don't care for them. Not enough scope for the imagination. Sometimes ds flys through a topic and other times he just doesn't get it. I adjust what I expect them to do each day based on how well they are moving through the material. For some subjects, like spelling, I tell myself we are doing one lesson per week. Each lesson is four pages long with a test on Friday. I tell myself that no matter how many school days we have that week. (We usually do four days a week - sometimes three - and go all year round to get our 180 days.) So I'll adjust the number of pages per day to that week's schedule. Another example, we do history twice a week. Each time, I read a chapter aloud and we do the associated worksheet or activity. That hardly merits a formal lesson plan. I didn't much like lesson plans when I was working unless I wanted to share something special with a coworker. I generally just worked it out in my head and kept to it, adjusting when need be. In the end it all works out to you rising to your level of comfort. If you like lesson plans, by all means, keep them! But know that you don't HAVE to do them to do a good job.
I also keep records, even though in Texas we don't have to keep anything!!!! But it is easier than you think :wink: First, you can do your lesson plans basically in 2 ways: a) write them out (more on that in a minute) b) journaling ..basically write them down (diary style) as you do them. I have done both ways, like them both and needed them both. When I had time and knew what I needed to focus on skill wise, I would write out lesson plans.. When i didn't have time (ie. after/before vacation, flu time and general *don't know what happened to my time? :lol: * then writing down what you did for that day is WONDERFUL..Just a diary To be more specific for you onhow to lesson plan..I basically write down in pencil for 2 weeks at a time. For example, I take my grammar book for one kid, sit down in living room with dh and flip through it and line that up with my days that are long or short on my homeschooling schedule.. I write down the page numbers and the title of each subsection. I try to put a *star* or some other notation beside subjects that will be time consuming. I try to end on Friday with a complete section or with a review.. If we are in the middle of something or I need to cover a couple more pages to end at a good point for the week, I take notice of that. Some people take the whole book (number of pages) and divided by 52 weeks (weeks of the calendar year) and write out their whole year. I have done that too. I DO NOT LIKE THAT :roll: I started feeling behind and hadn't even started. HOWEVER, it is good to do that to just see how many pages you might need to cover for the year if you want to complete that book in a 9month school year. It will give you an idea of how to set your pace. Make sense? So basically you need to cover more pages if you try to finish in 9months. It gives you a good rule of thumb if you want to complete the book. The only subjects i do this way are grammar, writing, phonics and some reading. Math is stand alone, you just go through each lesson. History and science are pages by themselves since I stay on one chapter of history a week. Its real easy. Chapter 1 (1st week)..Again, I don't write those out for the whole year. I have done that before and wrote down history for EVERY WEEK :lol: :lol: regardless of vacation, sick time or holidays :lol: :lol: So writing down Chapter 1 Egypt* is simple easy and not too far ahead. Second, what to do with all that paperwork? How does the phrase go? OHIO (Only Handle It Once). Don't handle it now, during the middle of the schoolyear and at the end..Too much work. So right now, prepare 3 ring binders for each kid or binder/folders that you are going to keep permanently. Put that work AWAY each day. You will have no NIGHTMARE :shock: at the end of the school year. You have your portfolios up to date each day and instantly ready if you ever get audited. At the end of the year, you only have to go through to decide what to permanently keep and what to throw away. Much easier to rip out and throw away than to punch holes or try to put in chronological order. :wink: Use tabs to divide the subjects..reading,writing, grammar,etc.. Next, counting hours? WOWEEE..my favorite...When do you start? Well those chores count as hands on training..A trip to the grocery store as economics and a hands on math class. Did you receive any definition on *core hours*? I would have a hard time differienating between a hands on math lesson in baking cookies versus a math sheet. Both are equally important.. What instructions, if any, did you receive on this? Blessings TinaTx
