Easy Ways To Keep Homeschooling Records

It is quite obvious when you have decided to homeschool your children, you simply focus on teaching your children the subjects needed for complying with the educational system. At this crucial stage, you forget to keep the records of your children’s progress. Having no records can create difficulties in evaluations and can lead the parents to believe that they have done little in a year when in fact, they have provided good and varied education to their children. Thus, it is important to keep homeschooling records of each day. Such records provide all information when your child is ready to attend a school or college later.

There are many alternatives available today to keep homeschooling records. It is essential to know the need of keeping such records. If it is for legal purpose, you need to know the kind of requirements you must meet in your country, state or province. Whether you simply need the attendance sheet or full accounting of activities should be ascertained. And if on a personal note, you might simply need to know where your family stands by checking in the records that you had maintained.

Check out to see whether your state has record keeping requirements. Keep a cumulative file or portfolio of your child who has just begun schooling. You can purchase a case of 1" binders from an office supply store. Keep plenty of loose-leaf and printer paper on hand. You can organize a notebook according to subject. You can put in the work of each child in their respective workbook, according to subject, with most recent work on top. A record of child’s progress in each subject is important and this can be achieved by preparing a progress or report card. You might need to keep a record of your child’s health and immunization details. Necessary forms are easily available with health departments. Attendance records which are generally required can be accomplished by keeping a calendar or planner of days your child attends school at home.

Computer or online planners are also available and can be easily downloaded. You can make use of them if you spend fair amount of time on computers. You can do a similar approach by saving work in a series of "folders" on the computer. At the end of the year, you can save all the work to a disk.

You can record field trips on scrapbook pages and add them to the notebook. You can even add photos of the trip to make it more appealing. Older children can keep their own records, if they are organized and self-motivated.

You can make use of index cards and keep them in a file box which is an easy and inexpensive method.

Curriculum Planning For Homeschool

One of the biggest challenges for homeschooling parents is to decide upon the curriculum that suits their child needs. What might feel comfortable to one child may not be so for the other one. Homeschooling supplies have exploded with its increasing demand. The question is how to select the right one? In some cases, children do get bored with textbook based curriculums. What would be the right option for such children? The answers are discussed below.

It is believed and discovered by many families that the customized educational program is the best way the children get most benefited from. The parents try to merge several homeschool resources to develop a special program for each child. Although it is quite creative, but mingling too many resources to form one program can be quite confusing and frenzied.

There are preschool textbooks for homeschoolers who have not yet entered into the wonders of school and learning. Preschooling children have little minds and take homeschool as playtime with the preschool homeschooling textbooks. The love to work with these homeschooling textbooks as fun and adventure. The best homeschooling supplies for this age group of children would be songs, storybooks, games, fun tools etc. Check in with the curriculum what you need to teach your kids this week. The curriculum will also provide with ideas how to fill your days.

The elementary homeschool textbooks provide curriculum on elementary subjects like maths, science, history just like the curriculum in public schools. But in homeschools, you can give your child the freedom to concentrate on the subject he/she is interested in. Many times an entire elementary curriculum for homeschool follows a student throughout their entire elementary years. Keeping with one curriculum set will ensure your child has a consistent homeschool education. As long as your child continues to learn with a curriculum for homeschool, there will be no reason to look for new homeschooling supplies every year.

There are two different educational tracks for students entering a high school. One is the student entering a work force and other is joining a graduate college. In a high school homeschool, students are more open to their own education. Finding the right curriculum for homeschool, your high school student can be ahead of other students when it comes to college applications.

The significance of choosing the right curriculum for your home and your child is to do some mental homework. If you don’t understand what’s meant by learning styles, do some reading. Spend time thinking about how your child tackles their daily work. It might be possible that the resources you have chosen for your child’s learning might not interest them and can hinder in their process of learning. It is therefore essential to check the curriculum according to your child’s tastes.

How to Prevent Learning Loss in Children During Summer Months

It is not uncommon for a child to know certain facts and then forget them when new facts are learned. This is especially common during the summer months, when children can spend less time studying or learning. Because there is that long time span of not going to class, sometimes children will lose some of the knowledge acquired during the school year. It is easy to forget something when it isn't practiced enough. To prevent learning loss in children during summer months, there are a variety of things parents can do.

Play Learning Games
Learning games are a great way to prevent learning loss in children during the summer months. These can be simple games that you make up and play with your child. You also can buy many learning games online and in educational stores. Many games that are just for fun can be turned into learning games with a simple variation. Be creative. This is a great way to keep a child's brain active, while allowing him or her to have fun as well. Even simple things like doing the dishes, playing ring toss, or buying groceries can be used as a fun lesson.

Read, Read, Read
Reading is an activity that many kids enjoy. It's also a required activity for progress in learning. Joining a summer reading program or visiting the library often can help prevent learning loss in children during summer months. Most libraries have summer reading programs. You also can get creative and let the kids invent their own. Either way, keep track of what is read over the summer and reward the child for a job well done. Summer reading programs may already offer rewards, but an award from parents can be very meaningful to a child. This is a great way to boost confidence.

Enroll the Child in a Summer Math Program
Summer tutoring online or summer math programs are an excellent way to prevent learning loss in children during the summer months. It may seem like this will be an interruption to a deserved break. But, summer learning programs can be very convenient and flexible. Children should have time to play during the summer, but their brains should also be kept active. Online summer learning programs are one way of doing so with flexibility. A good online summer math program will allow flexibility in time schedules, as well as a customized learning process that both you and your child will be comfortable with.

Take Educational Family Trips
Another way to prevent learning loss in children during summer months is to take educational family trips. Camping, going on a nature hike, or visiting a local zoo or museum are all considered educational family trips. They also can be very fun. Summer break is all about fun, but that doesn't mean that children can't exercise those brain muscles, and take the time to point out animals, plants, and exhibits. If there are information plaques or guides, read those with the child. Better yet, the child can read them to you.