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lovebeingamom
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| Posted: March 01 2012 at 2:16pm | IP Logged
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What is the best way you keep track of your child's grades? By subject? By qtr? By year? Manually? Online? Excel?
Would love to hear your feedback/suggestions. Thanks ladies!
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TracyFD
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| Posted: March 02 2012 at 6:03pm | IP Logged
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When is a good age to start keeping grades? My oldest is on 6th.
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Tracy
Mom to 3 girly girls,
1 absent-minded professor, and one adorable toddling terrorist.
Pinewood Castle
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jawgee
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| Posted: March 02 2012 at 7:31pm | IP Logged
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I don't know. I don't keep grades, but my oldest is only in 4th.
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Monica
C (12/2001), N (11/2005), M (5/2008), J (8/2009) and three angels
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MommyMahung
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| Posted: March 02 2012 at 9:44pm | IP Logged
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I would love to hear the answers to these questions too! My eldest is doing 2nd grade work and I don't grade anything. I just have him do the work and if it is incorrect, I have him correct. So, he basically gets A's on everything...
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Mackfam
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| Posted: March 03 2012 at 7:10am | IP Logged
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I don't keep track of ANY grades until a child is in 4th grade...and then....it's only math grades I keep track of.
The ONLY grades I record for elementary and jr. high are math grades. I use my home education notebook, each child has a tabbed section, and within each child's section is a paper for recording math scores.
I record grades for courses for my high schooler's high school transcript using a set of rubrics because we don't *do* traditional high school courses that are set up for quantitave grading/measuring. I grade qualitatively.  I record those grades in my home education notebook as well.
If I *HAD* to assign grades for courses, I would do so at the end of a term, reviewing term work, and considering progress made in habits as well as academic work turned in. I'd probably make myself a simple blank table grid with spaces for subjects and a grid for the three terms and just include it with all of my other resources....in my home education notebook. I'd set up a rubric for that as well:
Example of how a term rubric might look (thinking of my 6th grader as I write this):
** Memorized two poems
** Completed history reading with narrations
** Written narrations improving from 3 sentences to full paragraph with correct use of punctuation.
** Makes use of editing/proofing sheet when turning in writing to me
** Knows Baltimore Catechism up to lesson 14
** Knows Latin vocabulary up to lesson 20
** Can conjugate Latin verbs
** Opening Book of Centuries, can tell me about 3 random figures (my choice) which were added to the BOC
** Can provide a short narration on the composer, artist, and poet for the term.
** Using Science Scope, check topics covered
** Has learned to correctly identify geographical areas learned in geography this term
** Can identify seasonal plants/happenings from the term
** Math grades
We spend more effort keeping up with an individual child's booklist (all books that child has read independently) than on assigned grades here. Of course (  ) I have a table I made for recording each child's individual booklist. Actually, they start recording their own booklist once their handwriting is good. I just print multiple sheets and bind them with my Proclick, adding pages as needed.
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19 , ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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MommyMahung
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| Posted: March 03 2012 at 2:24pm | IP Logged
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Thank you Jen!
That was very helpful for me! You gave some great suggestions and guidance.
Laura
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: May 02 2012 at 1:50pm | IP Logged
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Mackfam wrote:
| We spend more effort keeping up with an individual child's booklist (all books that child has read independently) than on assigned grades here. Of course ( ) I have a table I made for recording each child's individual booklist. Actually, they start recording their own booklist once their handwriting is good. I just print multiple sheets and bind them with my Proclick, adding pages as needed. |
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The more my oldest reads, the more I know I need to do this, but I'm not sure how to make it a habit. Do I just tell him I want to know every time he finishes reading a book? I couldn't even begin to make a list of all that he has read--I think he's read most of what we own that is on his reading level 
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
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[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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SallyT
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| Posted: May 02 2012 at 2:20pm | IP Logged
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Re books read: I just take a definitive sample. I can't keep up with everything my kids read, either.
We've been in and out of an umbrella school organization which has required us to keep grades and records, but until middle school I'm VERY lax about it. For anyone younger than 7th grade, I use an Excellent/Satisfactory/Needs Improvement system, which mostly helps me to remember what we need to work on. And we use an online reporting system, which has been very helpful, especially with college applications.
For the younger kids, pretty much anything anyone really loves and is engaged in is an E. Everything else is an S. For my current 8th-grader, I am looking at what he's finished and how good it is -- books read, discussions had, writing done about it. The only exception is math, where I take his test average for the semester.
Sally
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Mackfam
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| Posted: May 02 2012 at 3:50pm | IP Logged
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CrunchyMom wrote:
Mackfam wrote:
| We spend more effort keeping up with an individual child's booklist (all books that child has read independently) than on assigned grades here. Of course ( ) I have a table I made for recording each child's individual booklist. Actually, they start recording their own booklist once their handwriting is good. I just print multiple sheets and bind them with my Proclick, adding pages as needed. |
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The more my oldest reads, the more I know I need to do this, but I'm not sure how to make it a habit. Do I just tell him I want to know every time he finishes reading a book? I couldn't even begin to make a list of all that he has read--I think he's read most of what we own that is on his reading level |
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I know what you mean. Only my oldest child was 14 when I realized I needed to start making this a habit!!!!      I just have her go through a bookshelf a day and record what she's read off that shelf. Same with my 11 yo. So the moral of my story is START DOING THIS RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!! I know I missed some titles, but oh well. I'll just do my best at this point. 
I don't start recording books until the child is a) reading independently and b) reading chapter level books. So, I'm probably not recording all the Billy and Blaze series of books, or I might just say Billy and Blaze series, but I do record books starting around Charlotte's Web type books and forward. Include read alouds.
There are a couple of ideas for making this lifelong treasured booklist a habit:
** Keep the booklist on a central table or in a basket near a favorite reading chair. Encourage your son to make additions to his booklist, but if you walk past and see him reading, flip open the booklist and check to see that the book he's reading is recorded.
** Keep the booklist on your reader's shelf/basket/bag in the learning spaces. Just keep it in one central location and train him to open it, and enter a book title/author every time he finishes a book.
** Train your children to treat your desk as the librarian desk. This is what my kids do. When they finish a book, they return it to the corner of my desk. I asked them to do this so I could be sure to put the books away by chronological period. My high schooler could put books away on her own (she's actually the family librarian right now), but my boys would NOT be so attentive to time period when shelving. So they just return books to my desk when they've finished reading. This goes for independent reading, too, unless it's a special book like Lord of the Rings, which lives on a shelf in their room. And in those cases, it's easy to see what's in their room, and what they've read to add it to their lifetime list. If the children return books to the corner of your desk, you'll have to train yourself in the habit of adding the book to the child's list. Go with a format that's intuitive for you (digital, paper) and keep it at arm's reach of your desk so it's always in the same place as the books when they're returned.
** From your other thread, you mentioned you don't do well with writing and paper...so maybe find an app for it! Or just create a database for recording books in your word processor program and add to it.
** Peg it to something....I ask the kids to work on theirs for 5 minutes right after our lunch break. Once they start building their booklist, they begin to take pride in adding to it, and the habit is formed.
In a nutshell, we:
Find an intuitive format
Find an intuitive location
Get the child excited about adding to his/her lifelong booklist
Keep additions simple: title, author, date completed (rough guess is fine)
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19, ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: May 02 2012 at 4:15pm | IP Logged
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Ah, see, a booklist is something I would intuitively write. But in recording ideas, most of the ideas I'm seeing are already on the computer, so there, I need a button
Having them make a stack of books as they read them makes so much sense. Thank you!
What kind of notebook? I'm guessing a lined, spiral bound journal?
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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Mackfam
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| Posted: May 02 2012 at 4:30pm | IP Logged
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CrunchyMom wrote:
| What kind of notebook? I'm guessing a lined, spiral bound journal? |
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I print pages and pages of this master booklist page I made (which anyone is welcome to print, save and use!)....
2012-05-02_162848_Master_blank_for_book_index.pdf
....and then bind it all with the Proclick, adding pages as we go.
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19, ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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cajunpowermom
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| Posted: June 02 2012 at 9:51pm | IP Logged
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Thank you ladies for these great ideas. I never thought of keeping track of the books they have read on their own. Our son 11years just started really reading independently--Praise God!!! I see from these post why it would be good to keep track of his list. Also I think this would encourage my almost 9year old to read more. She would enjoy making her own list...sort of a challenge! Thanks so much!!!!
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mommy4ever
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| Posted: June 04 2012 at 10:23am | IP Logged
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I don't really track grades either. I mark her work, and if there were struggles, I plan a review. Our school board requires we either submit samples or keep a portfolio. My facilitator only requires math marks. Which I just print off a table with all the quiz and exams for the year, and record her marks.
I haven't tracked books for my purposes at all, but maybe I should..hmmm. I do submit them to the school for dd8, as they want to see that she is reading. She has just become a fluent reader and she's reading a couple chapter books a week lately. Might need to put a clipboard in he rroom and have her write them down.
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2 homeschooled(one considering art school!)
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Topic: How do you keep track of grades?
